he Friday, October 4 text message from Tanzania was succinct. “Eight wells drilled so far. Mean drilling. Moving to remote area. 5000 people so far.” David Powell, CWD/PI, chuckles over the idea of “remoteness.” All drilling in Tanzania is remote. He reasons this must really be desolate. Five thousand people received clean water from eight water wells drilled. In Africa, 150 out of 1000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday. Most deaths of children under 5 are due to contaminated drinking water, 25% due to diarrhea alone. Powell, president of Edward Powell Pump & Well Drilling Inc. in Aston, Pennsylvania, was scheduled to travel to Ghana in mid-October to drill for the remainder of the month. It marks his 10th trip to Ghana, where in rural parts of the country 4% of households have a connection for water, and only 2% have a connection for sewerage. “One of these days I’m going to sell what I’m doing here in the states and do this full time,” the 53-year-old Powell says. “I really like working in Africa. It’s what I love.” This sentiment is shared by many working in the groundwater industry— water well contractors, manufacturers and suppliers, and scientists and engineers. All say seeing the sheer joy wash over children’s faces after water is coming up out of the ground for the first time grabs them. “You only have to experience it once,” Powell says. “If you go and actually see the poverty and see what people have to drink and you know you have skills that most people don’t, it’s almost like how can I not help?” The text message Powell received mid-afternoon perked up his Friday. It came from a friend and drilling colleague four hours south of Morogoro, located in the southern highlands of Tanzania. The two go back 25 years, first meeting at a Maryland-Delaware
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Mike Price is the senior editor of Water Well Journal. In addition to his WWJ responsibilities, Price produces NGWA’s newsletters and contributes to the Association’s quarterly scientific publication. He can be reached at mprice@ngwa.org.
Twitter @WaterWellJournl
The Water Problem in Ghana • In rural Ghana, 4% of households have a connection for water, and only 2% have a connection for sewerage. • 150 out of 1000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday. • Most deaths of children under 5 are due to contaminated water, 25% due to diarrhea alone. Water Well Association convention in Baltimore, Maryland. Both are members of the National Ground Water Association. They have formed an unofficial partnership to drill as many water wells in Africa as possible. In Ghana, Powell’s friend is known as “Torgbe Agbetsi,” which in English is translated “Chief Living Water.” Closer to home he is Ken Wood, president of Lifetime Well Drilling Inc. in Denton, Maryland.
than 500,000 people at a cost of about $3.50 per person. • Run more than 30 miles of pipeline to carry water from safe sources to remote villagers. • Trained local residents in well drilling operations to the point where they are able to continue operations in his absence. The villages usually celebrate with singing and dancing for hours after a well is finished. They say water is life in Ghana. Following drilling, the well casing is sunk into the well and a concrete pad is poured and a hand pump is installed. Driving the rough roads through villages and seeing pumps working is the reward. “It’s just a good feeling,” Wood says in his soft tone. “You don’t have to say a word. It just hits you and you know it’s the right thing.” He drills between 12 and 14 hours a day with as few breaks as possible. Time is of the essence. “He’s just about ‘let’s go, let’s go, move,’” Powell says. “He knows how to drill and he doesn’t just poke around. He starts early and if he can get another well in before it gets pitch black, he’s going to. He just works like a dog.” Wood drills on average 25 to 35 wells each trip, which range anywhere from a week to 10 days or so. He spends up to three months a year in Africa. The total cost to drill a well is between $3000 and $3500. “When I consider that I can bring clean water to a person for the first time at an average cost of about $3.50 per person, it’s a no-brainer as to how I should be spending my life,” he says. In addition to drilling wells, Wood has performed or paid for numerous humanitarian acts, ranging from installing water pipelines and buying shoes for school children to rebuilding a woman’s home destroyed by fire, and buying a hand-operated cycle for a crippled woman.
ood insists naming him honorary chief won’t make him work any harder, joking that the local Ghanaians in the West African nation are trying to butter him up. The elaborate ceremony lasted a day and a half on Saturday, September 15, 2007 in Denu, a small town and capital of the Ketu Municipal district. It is located on the southeastern corner of the Volta Region of Ghana, near the GhanaTogo border. Wood was dressed in a ceremonial white robe, presented a silver ring, a silver chain around his neck, and other significant items important to the ceremony. Fifteen hundred villagers participated in a 4½-hour dance ceremony. He also has received chickens and goats for his work. He is moved by the expressions of gratitude. How inconceivable a farm boy from Maryland becoming an honorary chief in Africa is only matched by the story of how Wood was drawn to this line of work and how he maintains funding for it. More on that later. Since July 2006, Wood has made more than 18 trips to Ghana. By using mostly his own resources and equipment donated by his company, he has:
t’s spring 2005. Wayne Davis is watching a Robert Redfordnarrated documentary on Africa’s water plight. He is struck by it and how easy it is to fix. He is spurred into action.
• Drilled more than 1050 water wells in southeast Ghana, serving more
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