Tagged: Clean water

A major environmental group, People for Puget Sound, has been shut down by its board because of finances. The organization is being absorbed by two other environmental groups.

People for Puget Sound was founded in 1991 by a charismatic woman named Kathy Fletcher.

One year ago this month, 9-year-old Rachel Beckwith died in a car crash and inspired people around the world to donate more than a million dollars to a charity in her honor.

Her mom is in Ethiopia this week visiting the water wells her philanthropy paid for.

Good news for those who love local oysters and clams: the state Department of Health says there’s been a steady improvement in water quality for nearly a decade, leading to fewer closures of shellfish beds in Puget Sound.

The key measure is of fecal coliform bacteria, which lives in human and animal waste. Runoff from farms and leaky sewage systems carries the bacteria and contaminates shellfish beds. People who eat the polluted shellfish can get sick.

Students journalists covering "Our Thirsty Planet," a symposium about water put on by Pacific Lutheran University’s Wang Center for Global Education, have wrapped up their coverage on "Water For Thought," a Website created for KPLU's experiment in student-sourced journalism.

With videos and stories, the students review the impact of the symposium and new perspectives on water. Below are headlines and highlights:

The lack of clean drinking water and unsanitary living conditions widely affects communities stretching across the globe, and for Rick McKenney standing by idle while people die from water-related illnesses every day is not an option.

“In the States, water is there when you turn the faucet on and in a lot of places it isn’t,” said McKenney, founder of the Washington-based Water for Humans organization.

A 9-year-old girl’s selfless dream has raised more than $1.26 million dollars for clean water in Africa.

Rachel Beckwith, of Bellevue, died in a car crash in July. She had turned 9 in June and said her birthday wish was to raise $300 dollars for the cause.

In honor of her 9th birthday, Rachel Beckwith asked friends and family to donate money to bring clean water to an African village. She was close to her goal when she died over the weekend.

Nearly 16,000 people have made donations to a clean water project in honor of a nine-year-old Washington state girl. By Wednesday afternoon, there were donations totaling more than $550,000 to "charity: water" in Rachel's honor.