Water Purification System: It Would Be a Sin Not to Deploy It, Says O'Leary
June 7, 1996
By Jeffery Kahn, JBKahn@LBL.gov
A noon press conference -- covered by nearly all the local television stations,
CNN, and a host of newspapers -- focused on Gadgil's UV Waterworks, a simple and
inexpensive way to purify water and prevent waterborne disease in the
non-industrialized world.
Lab Director Charles Shank said that Gadgil's ultraviolet-based water
purification system and Xiang and Schultz' combinatorial synthesis technique
for making and testing new materials exemplify the range of research done here.
Different as they are, Shank said, they share a vast potential to improve the
world.
Worldwide, 400 children die every hour from waterborne diseases. Gadgil, who is
from India and has had several cousins die from these diseases, worked
after-hours creating a purification system that uses an off-the-shelf
ultraviolet light to kill bacterial and viral contaminants. Running on a car
battery if necessary, one unit can provide water for a village of 1,000 people,
eliminating the threats of cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and other diseases.
Each unit costs between $250 and $600.
"What we've done," said Gadgil, "is build a device that makes water
purification so inexpensive that it's almost impossible not to use it."
O'Leary said Gadgil's UV Waterworks is a simple and powerful demonstration of
the value of American science.
"This is an extraordinary piece of technology that is robust and inexpensive,"
she said. "It could save human lives at a cost of pennies. And yet," she said,
there are no funds currently available to field test and refine the device.
"It would be a sin not to deploy this," said O'Leary. "Wouldn't it be extremely
short-sighted, even ignorant, to prevent this laboratory from doing this kind
of work? Yet Congress is threatening programs like this. Well, I am here to push
back on the Congress, to say that it is necessary to invest in such programs,
to invest in our future."
O'Leary said discussions are under way concerning a two-year field test in
South Africa, where the device would be used under conditions that could lead
to various improvements. She said that in July she hopes to be able to announce
that some $500,000 will be available for these tests.
Ralph Cavanagh, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, also
spoke during the press conference, delivering a ringing endorsement of the UV
Waterworks and this Laboratory.
"There is nowhere on Earth that federal research dollars are spent as well as
here," Cavanagh said. "This is a time when research designed solely to benefit
the public is under attack. The benefits of such research are magnificently
manifested by the UV Waterworks.
"Think of who will be the principal beneficiaries of this technology
development effort," he said. "It will be the children of impoverished families
in developing countries. That's not a very lucrative market niche. Lives will
be saved and human misery alleviated. Without the effort of this Laboratory,"
he said, "this technology would not have been developed."
Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary and a small army of media came here this week to honor and recognize Berkeley Lab Discover Award winners Ashok Gadgil, Xiao-Dong Xiang, and Peter Schultz.