{"id":1082,"date":"2019-03-01T09:08:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T09:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/?p=1082"},"modified":"2026-06-30T04:21:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:21:52","slug":"the-fight-for-clean-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/the-fight-for-clean-water\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fight For Clean Water Women\u2019s Day Special"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: Everyone deserves clean water. This <strong>Women\u2019s Day<\/strong>, we&#8217;re sharing three stories about incredible women who changed how we think about water. These women took on polluted water in their communities, using their skills to highlight a critical issue: unsafe water.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The S3 Trio<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe know there are water filters out there, so why do we still have impure water?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: That's what India Skinner asked when someone wondered why her group kept coming back to clean water projects. She, along with Mikayla Sharrieff and Bria Snell- Washington DC\u2019s \"S3 trio\" as they call themselves- are currently working with <strong>NASA<\/strong> to get lead out of water. They built a <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/products\/residential\/counter-top-water-filters\/\">transparent filter<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong> system<\/strong> where you can actually watch the water get clean. This prototype earned them second place overall in the <strong>Optimus Prime Spin-Off Promotion and Research Challenge (OPSPARC)<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: Today, 80,000 chemicals approved for use in industrial processes in the United States and are unregulated by the EPA according to the PBS Newshour report, 2016<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: But how do we really fix this problem? This young girl seems to have an answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Young Inventor<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: Gitanjali Rao, now 13, loves technology and helping people. The news from Flint really bothered her. She felt she had to help, to find a way to get the lead out. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8216;This was like solving global warming with just one solution,&#8217;<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: she says, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8216;which seemed almost impossible.&#8217;<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: Coming from an 11-year-old at the time, that might sound ambitious. But her achievements prove kids can do amazing things.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n \\\t<\/p>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: She looked into gene-editing when the Zika Virus hit.<\/span><\/li>\n<p> \\\t<\/p>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: When Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished, she started working on building better black boxes.<\/span><\/li>\n<p> \\\t<\/p>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: She even created an app to monitor cyberbullying after hearing it was a problem.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Now, Flint\u2019s lead problem had her full attention. As soon as the news broke, her family checked their water too. She found the testing methods clunky and expensive. Rao realized what scared her most was not knowing if the water was safe. She thought simply knowing that detail could make a huge difference.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI came across this new technology using carbon nanotube sensors to detect hazardous gases in the air. I immediately connected that thought back to lead detection\u2026 in drinking water.\u201d<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: She said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: She thought she had found the perfect material for water testing. This led her to Selene Hernandez Ruiz, Denver\u2019s Municipal Water Facility\u2019s lab manager. After hearing Rao\u2019s idea, they started working together. With a recent test showing results for other metals, it\u2019s possible a device could check tap water for mercury, arsenic, and cadmium. Rao might just invent a tool that could perform a whole range of tests cheaply and accurately.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><i>1 Trillion Gallons of industrial waste discharged into the US water supply every year.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><i>\u2013 Neil B. Chambers, &#8216;How Infrastructure Makes Water Work for Us&#8217;<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: But does this mean only scientists and engineers can solve these problems?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Entrepreneur<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Doll Avant, a successful consultant and fellow at the NASA Research Park, was already working on water problems. But she felt helpless when her father was diagnosed with diabetes. She dug into the disease and discovered a study suggesting a link between arsenic in water and diabetes. This shocked her. It could have played a part in his illness.<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 'It didn\u2019t take much for me to get copies of local water-quality reports and connect the dots,'<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: she says. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8216;But my dad was already really sick at that point, and it was too late for much to be done for him.&#8217;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Before, it was about the Flint crisis. Now, the fight for clean, safe water was personal for Avant. After extensive research, going through EPA reports, studies, and news articles, what she found truly surprised her. Over a thousand communities in the U.S. still have higher lead levels than Flint, with more EPA violations than you'd imagine. What really caught her attention was that people don't know about the waterborne toxins that could have long-term effects because they lack the data. This led Avant to start her own company, Aquagenuity, which stores the world\u2019s largest water database.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">3,000 cities in the <strong>U.S. have more lead in their water than Flint, Michigan<\/strong>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Her company publishes past water quality reports. It also gives you advice if you find problems with your water. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8216;You put in all your past addresses, based on where you lived and how long you lived there,&#8217; Avant says, &#8216;And the system actually tells you, hey, these are things that you can do to detoxify \u2013 certain metals and different things that are built up in your system.&#8217;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: The company plans to offer steps for governments and businesses. Think about bottling facilities finding the <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/applications\/rosystems.html\/\">best method for filtration<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, or helping governments figure out the best water process for manufacturing plants.<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: \u201cThe 20th century was really hard on the planet. So let\u2019s reinvent how we use water as a resource, and let\u2019s do it the better way for the 21st century,\u201d <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: These women all share one thing: a desire to do things differently. They took charge, got involved, and found solutions to water problems. They didn't ask for permission. They just got to work. This brings us to another important question: If not us, who? If not now, when?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Related reading: <Are The Link To Water Security - International Women\u2019s Day 2019<\/a>, <Own Close To 10 Million Businesses, Do You Believe? International Women's Day 2019<\/a>, <Water Filtration Systems Which Can Give Your Home Clean, Clear Water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clean water is a basic right for everyone and on Women\u2019s Day, we have with us three stories of empowered and strong women who changed the view of the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[107,18,175],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-treatment","tag-international-womens-day","tag-seawater-desalination","tag-the-fight-for-clean-water-womens-day-special"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89534,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/89534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}