washington — flint, michigan, residents, activists, and artists gathered in washington, d.c., on april 25 for an art showcase to call national attention to the continued effects of the city’s water crisis. the event marked four years after a state-appointed official made the ill-fated decision to switch flint’s water source to the flint river, which resulted in disastrous lead contamination.

“the city still doesn’t have water that the people can trust,” said rep. dan kildee, d-mich. “this is an anniversary that we don’t want to celebrate.”

melissa mays, a flint resident and mother of three sons, came to the nation’s capital to make sure lawmakers don’t forget the city’s plight. she said the city should serve as a warning to the rest of the country: “we know it’s not just us. we know (the contamination) is everywhere.”

earlier this month, michigan gov. rick snyder declared flint’s tap water safe to drink and officially ended the free bottled water service to local residents. while these actions may signal the city’s progress, residents remain skeptical of an infrastructure that still relies on contaminated water lines that won’t be fully replaced until 2020.

residents also face continually high water bills and health complications.

the fundred dollar bill project, an organization that draws attention to the danger of childhood lead poisoning, featured artwork from students across the country in the cannon house office building on wednesday.

the artwork is a collection of student drawings on fake dollar bills, which are supposed to serve as a reminder of the child’s value, according to founder mel chin.

flint resident ja’bari shepherd, 8, displayed his own artwork at the exhibit. his art included the drawing of a $300 bill that says, “people[’s] lives matter.”

shepherd said he wants the effects of the contamination to stop interfering with his friends’ lives “so that we can grow up and live a normal childhood like everyone else.” 

rep. kildee acknowledged there’s an irony in the project’s art considering that flint residents could use real money to help ease their mounting, costly problems.

“we know how to overcome these problems and it’s going to take resources,” he said. “the fundred project is a depiction of this problem… (but) we need the real thing.”

for the last 40 years, lonnie has been an artist and musician who highlights the realities of waste and environmental degradation. 

established as a collaborative research project between the university of georgia and the university of the south, a suite of professors, undergraduates, and graduate students constructed these wetlands in 2016 to discover whether or not they could be a cost-effective way to remove pharmaceuticals from wastewater.

dug out of what was historically a barren garbage heap, this pond, and two more beside it, are continually filled and drained with wastewater from the sewanee utility district. sud, as it’s locally known, is a water treatment facility for franklin and marion counties in tennessee. a few meters away from these wetlands are three huge lagoons of wastewater. sud filters water through the lagoons one at a time, using bacteria, algae, and microorganisms to process waste, while the wetlands “polish off” this treated water using larger freshwater vegetation. once the water has taken its 75-day trip through all three lagoons, it’s sprayed across 62 acres of surrounding forest, a relatively common practice called “land application.” the sprayed water is up to epa standards, but the epa’s wastewater policy doesn’t address pharmaceutical pollution.

pharmaceuticals are a water quality concern globally: “if you live downstream from a city that’s discharging their treated wastewater effluent into a river, and you draw your municipal drinking water from that river, you are getting a cocktail of low concentrations of pharmaceutical compounds,” explains dr. deb mcgrath, a biology professor for sewanee and one of the heads of the constructed wetland project.

on top of the cumberland plateau and downstream from no one, pharmaceuticals haven’t been a major concern for the sud or sewanee residents until recently. in the past ten years alone, sewanee has experienced two fifty-year droughts that nearly dried up neighboring towns completely. weather patterns have become more variable as the effects of climate change intensify, and communities across the globe are shifting to a precedent of water scarcity with intermittent events of extreme flooding.

ben beavers, the director of the sud, is concerned by this. at a public panel on water research and business in sewanee, beavers said that the most important water-related issue he faces is having enough source water. trying not to sound too foreboding, he told the audience: “we may or may not have enough water in the future, so we are continually planning for that.”

for many, these wetlands are the solution: outside of atlanta, georgia, over 263 acres of wetlands polish off the pharmaceuticals found in clayton county’s treated wastewater, and recycle up to 17.4 million gallons of water a day for the city. during the second-worst drought in georgia history in 2007, clayton county was able to keep their raw reservoirs of water at 77% capacity, all because of their sustainable water cycle.

these wetlands are effective on large scales, but mcgrath and dr. ron carroll are concerned with the efficacy of these projects on a smaller scale; could they be implemented in small water treatment facilities, possibly saving rural areas from water scarcity in the future?

so far, the preliminary data suggests so. nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, as well as e. coli colonies, decrease substantially as they pass through the three wetlands, making the water quality well within tennessee’s standards for fish and aquatic life. since 2016, they’ve tracked over 30 pharmaceutical compounds, and mcgrath assured that “preliminary research, both at larger scales and even at our wetland, shows that wetland processes–and especially the combination of plants, bacteria, and light–are pretty effective at breaking down a lot of these.”

if their data suggests significant improvement in water quality, smaller water treatment centers across the united states and even globally can implement water recycling through constructed wetlands, without sacrificing over 60 acres of land.

“if we can show that wetland processes, liter for liter of water are more effective per unit of land, it’d be something municipalities would be very interested in adopting.”

although the research seems hopeful, dr. deborah mcgrath and uga environmental lawyer dr. laurie fowler are also dealing with the public face of the project. the public outreach campaign that surrounds the constructed wetlands ranges from an informational website to hosting field days for local adults, as well as high and elementary school students, inviting them to visit and learn about the wetlands.

sewanee’s water system is incredibly pure. most residents have the luxury of knowing exactly where their drinking water comes from, and many are within walking distance to at least one of the rain-fed reservoirs in town. with most of the local population aware of their drinking water’s uncorrupted history, there has been some resistance to the idea of willingly using wastewater as a drinking source.

mcgrath and fowler have been working to counteract that negativity by showing the public the intrinsic beauty that the wetlands can have; dressed with native freshwater vegetation, butterflies, a booming presence of amphibians and birds, the wetlands could be considered one of the most beautiful pockets of biodiversity on campus.

in order to create sustainable water systems for a likely water-scarce future, the public’s conceptual approach to wastewater needs to shift from disgust to at least begrudging acceptance. backed by research and the aesthetic of a healthy wetland, mcgrath hopes this project can achieve that.

“people think a lot about the glass of water that they drink, but they don’t think anything about where their water goes after they’ve used it. it’s a huge link to sustainable water use. these wetlands are as much an educational and outreach facility as they are a research facility.”

“i grew up always hearing and seeing things about water issues,” larson said.

born and raised in arizona, larson’s fascination of water and water policy stayed with him throughout his academic life, and eventually led him to asu, where the sandra day o’connor college of law professor put his extensive water policy knowledge to use through a special project.

the usaid project titled, “holistic water solution for underserved and refugee host communities in lebanon and jordan,” has been funded a two-year, $1.95 million grant to asu and its partners to help bring portable and clean water solutions to the middle east.

“every day it feels like there are more questions and challenges and that’s what make it fun,” said larson.

the role of larson’s asu team is to help local refugee host communities in jordan and lebanon adapt to the influx of refugees by providing clean and sustainable solutions. they are identifying communities that host large refugee populations and developing ways to make sure they have enough water capacity to assist with their swelling populations.

“most refugees aren’t in camps, they just find some place where they can settle and they do this best they can,” larson said. “issues with communities hosting refugees has been around for the long time.” 

along with larson’s knowledge of water and water policy, other partners around the world have joined in on the project to help aid with the creation, cultivation, and retention of water solutions. partners like green co. water, bring ideas regarding water storage through a collapsible water storage system; another partner, zero mass water, uses a process involving solar energy that converts water vapor into water. other partners include h20 for humanity, mercy corps, and the rene moawad foundation, which is a foundation based in right in the line of larson’s work, in lebanon.

issues surrounding water doesn’t always stem from a single environmental issue—water problems can also originate from political battles as well.

iraq, jordan, and other middle eastern countries have had issues for years surrounding the limited water resources in their areas. having little water creates sources of conflict, and when more people are added to the population, the scarcity of water gets even worse. larson said problems surrounding the relationship between water and refugees didn’t start with the recent news of the syrian refugee crisis. 

“water can be a source of great communication or a source of conflict,” larson said.

larson added that he wanted the access to water to be the least of refugee’s concerns when they come to a new country. his idea is to remove water as a challenge, and use it instead to help the people of these communities.

larson has traveled to the areas of impact frequently, recently taking a trip this past january to find selection sites for the project in lebanon and jordan. along with the rene moawad foundation and mercy core, larson met with the un high commissioner for refugees, who helped give sense of context of the issues that were present and why they came to be. larson also worked closely with non-governmental organizations and even the host refugee communities, where focus groups were used to see where were the best places for the locals to get water and how the water is treated.

although the project is still in it’s beginning stages, larson is already looking ahead. when asked about the next 5-10 years, larson said he’d love to see the program expand outside their current areas, and serve host communities in palestine, iraq and turkey.

i never thought i would compare the environment to basic economics, but in the scenario of india, the correlation is strong. everyone knows that you can’t spend more than you have: in that same way, with the environment, you can’t use more water than you have.

in some parts of india, that’s exactly the situation the farmers find themselves in. in other areas of the country there is an abundance of water, but the farmers can’t access it and don’t have the tools needed. so what are the suffering farmers to do?

that’s the problem ram fishman, assistant professor of economics at the george washington university, is attempting to solve. he has spent most of his professional career thinking about water in india, and focuses on finding ways for the farmers of india to use water sustainably.

after leaving israel, ram went to columbia university for a phd in sustainable development. with a background in math and physics, ram said he was more interested in the environmental aspects of the sustainable development program than the economics side. he has always had an awareness of his environmental impact, even as a child he said he held strong convictions.

india is a perfect country for ram to focus on. with a population set to overtake that of china’s by 2028, any solutions ram and his team find could have ramifications throughout the developing world. the developing world’s economic systems rely so heavily on agriculture, and as they grow, it is crucial they develop sustainably. not only that, but india’s dependence on the monsoon and having to deal with unreliable water could be close to what we in the us may experience if climate change persists.

as we get closer to 2050, and a population of nearly 10 billion, agriculture will prove to be extremely important in whether we successfully adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change in order to feed the massive population. india could be the place where the solution is found; ram fishman could be the one to find it. 

the new technology uses reverse osmosis membranes to filter salty water and direct the water directly to the plants’ roots without damaging the crops.

to learn more about ways communities across the country are using green infrastructure to manage stormwater, go to nrdc’s rooftops to rivers page.