It is still raining in Florence, South Carolina, where a river flood warning has been in place for days. As the nation’s eyes are on Texas, where winter storms caused widespread power outages, Rev. Leo Woodberry is thinking about the flow of local rain and whether it will further contaminate his community’s drinking water.
“We’ve been working on this for thirty years,” said Woodberry, pastor of the Kingdom Living Temple in Florence and director of New Alpha Community Development Corporation (NACDC), adding that “it is so refreshing to see movement at the federal level now”.
The Kingdom Living Temple is more than a church. It is also part of the state coalition that works for environmental justice around water quality issues in low-income black communities. This Friday, they’re cutting the ribbon for a new initiative to create a sustainable water source in their own backyard: a 3-acre freshwater farm using Source of Global Hydropanel technology.
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“It is extremely important for communities to find the solutions they need. As communities, we know what the problems are, we know what the solutions should be, ”said Woodberry. “We know where the floodplains are. People in these communities know where we can put something like these solar powered hydropanels. They know where we can store water and where to find supplies so that we don’t have to wait for FEMA to arrive, we don’t have to wait for people to organize so donations can enter. “
This self-sufficiency is a product of necessity for the black community that represents almost half of the population in a city where almost one in five people live in poverty. Florence is just over 50 miles from Myrtle Beach, where sea levels are rising faster than expected.
“In America, we want to maintain the illusion that we are so advanced and enriched that we don’t have the same problems as other places,” said Woodberry.
Increasingly, he sees families leaving their homes and communities behind due to worsening environmental conditions. Climate migration is happening now, he said, even though the United States is not ready to recognize it.
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Millions of Americans live without running water and basic indoor plumbing, and even those who live cannot always be sure that it is safe. Drinking water systems that constantly violate the law are 40 percent more likely to serve people of color, according to EPA data between 2010 and 2016, who already suffers disproportionately from air pollution and emerging symptoms of climate change.
SOURCE, formerly Zero Mass Water, piloted the technology last year in the Navajo Nation, where about 40 percent of households have no running water, and today they installed panels in 48 countries. Its hydropanels, which have a useful life of 15 years, collect water from the air by absorbing water vapor and condensing it using solar energy. And it’s just the beginning of its partnership with Woodberry and its community, said CEO Cody Friesen.
“This is why we exist. Heroes like Rev. Woodberry get me out of bed in the morning, ”he said.
The coronavirus pandemic has only increased the urgency of the problem last thrust into the national spotlight by the Flint water crisis in 2014. And, of course, it’s just one of the issues that the NACDC has grappled with in recent years that is disproportionately affecting communities of color in the United States.
But Woodberry is encouraged by recent actions, including Executive order of President Biden establish environmental justice as a priority in efforts to deal with climate change.
“They must be sure that the voices of communities and environmental justice organizations are being heard, because otherwise we run the risk of replicating the same systems of injustice that we have been dealing with,” he said. Otherwise, he warned, “because people of color are not at the table to do these things at the federal level, because we are not at the table with corporations and public services, this is just another manifestation of environmental racism.”
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