WASHINGTON — The Water Well Trust (WWT) announced it has completed the first of 19 water wells the nonprofit expects to rehabilitate or drill in Eastern Oklahoma and Northwest Arkansas to serve approximately 145 individuals in the low-resource, high-need area, according to a press release.
The USDA awarded WWT with a $140,000 matching grant through its Household Water Well Systems Grant program in October 2014, stated the release.
The release reported that the grant was awarded to WWT for a project to increase the availability of potable water to rural households in five Northwest Aransas counties, including: Madison, Crawford, Benton, Franklin and Marion, as well as Sequoyah County in Oklahoma.
Completed in January for a household located in Chester, Arkansas, the first well for the USDA project was for a disabled homeowner with two children who had been pumping water from a pond for his family’s showers, laundry, toilets and dishes, continued the release.
The homeowner’s daughter contacted WWT, added the release, after reading about a WWT project completed in the area in 2012, stating in the release, “Sometimes we run out of drinking water and I don’t have gas in my pickup to haul water, so we have to do without drinking water.”
The second water well is expected to be completed later in February around Rogers, Arkansas, noted the release.
Read the entire release here.
