Bio-Sand Water Filters
The DR Mission Team and the Wallingford Rotary Club have a long history of working with the Good Samaritan Hospital in La Romana, DR, to help some of the poorest people in the world.

Bio-sand water filters will meet the basic needs of providing clean, safe water to thousands of people living in the sugar-cane villages (bateyes) and barrios surrounding La Romana, Dominican Republic.

These concrete filters cost only $50 each to make, will provide clean water for up to 18 people in their homes, and will last for 25 years! This program is following the guidelines as laid out by the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology, based in Calgary.

More than 1.1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water, and waterborne illness is the cause of death of over 4,400 people per day, most of them children under the age of five.

Access to clean water is a huge problem for the poor in La Romana, DR. A water engineer recently tested the drinking water in 53 bateyes,and 50 of those wells were contaminated.

Tom Oppelt, a welder from Wallingford, joined the 2006 DR Mission Team in La Romana and built two steel forms to make the concrete bio-sand filters. He also recently produced a training film for this fabrication process to be used all over the world.

These concrete filters will cost only $50 US to manufacture and install, and last for 25 years with very litte maintenance! If interested in sponsoring biosand water filters for the poor in La Romana, please contact John Powers or call the First Baptist Church office at 203-269-4796.