Long Island Rotary Clubs Unite for Clean Water

The community of Baie-Tortue in Anse-a-Galets, La Gonave, Haiti will be forever changed as Long Island Rotary Clubs unite to provide this third-world community with 1,000 gallons of clean drinking water each day. Currently, this area of Haiti, located north-west of Port au Prince, only has contaminated, brackish water sources, which is responsible for many of the area’s water-borne diseases such as high blood pressure, diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis, dysentery, and cholera. Together, the Long Island Rotary Clubs are providing a sophisticated, solar-powered, reverse osmosis, water filtration system that will remove harmful levels of minerals and microbial pathogens. This project is expected to drastically reduce the mortality and morbidity rate especially for children five year and younger. Clean drinking water is the answer for this community’s high infant mortality rate.

Rocky Point Rotary Club members which coordinate funding, communication with Haitian Rotarians and final beneficiaries of the project and members of various Suffolk county clubs joined together to make this project happen. Seatuck Cove Rotary member Clemens Nigg’s company Steri Technologies, Inc. in Bohemia, New York designed and built the filtration system. Brentwood Rotary member Chris Castro’s company, Star Power Solar Corp. of Brentwood, NY designed and procured the solar panels, inverters and back-up batteries to run this system. Next month, Mr. Castro and Mr. Nigg will accompany the system to Haiti and oversee its installation and start-up.

“I love it when a plan comes together,” said Clemens Nigg, president of Steri.

“As the club president and good friend of Clemens Nigg, I am so proud of this project that he has been working tirelessly on. He has taken a lot of time from his business and personal life to give a small village in Haiti potable drinking water. I am proud to call him a Rotarian and honored to have him as a good friend,” said Robert Dovale, president of Seatuck Cove Rotary Club.

The Rotary Club of Seatuck Cove is about connecting leaders, exchanging ideas, making lasting change, and building the community. We are neighbors, community leaders, and global citizens uniting for the common good. With you, we can accomplish even more. Please join us for a club meeting at 6:00 p.m. on Thursdays at JC’s Restaurant, 2 Country Club Drive, Manorville. For more information, call Pat Blake at 874-4100, go to http://clubrunner.ca/seatuckcove/ or Facebook.