Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 16, 1994                   TAG: 9408160078
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN WATER, VIRGINIA IS SUNK AT BOTTOM

In real life, there's not much fun in using an outhouse, especially in the dead of winter. Nor is it much fun to have to bail your water from a nearby creek before you can wash your face or wash the dishes, and boil it before you'd dare drink it.

Most Virginians don't worry about such things. They want clean drinking water, they turn on a faucet. They live in houses with flushing toilets, bathtubs and showers with hot and cold running water on tap. A water crisis for some is opening the refrigerator to find they're out of Quibell.

Most Virginians might also find it hard to believe that in some places not far from Virginia's cities and bedroom communities, life in at least one respect is not unlike life in Third World countries: The people lack access to a safe, dependable supply of water - a basic for health and sanitation.

The good news is that there are fewer such places than there were 25 years ago, thanks in large measure to the Virginia Water Project.

Begun in the Roanoke Valley as a demonstration project of Total Action Against Poverty, to deal with areas in the valley where homes did not have running water, the Virginia Water Project is now a nationally recognized leader in efforts to get water into homes of the rural poor. The organization, now separate from TAP, currently reaches into seven states, from Florida to Delaware, and has been instrumental in developing other regional programs that attack the water, environmental and housing problems of rural communities.

By its count, Virginia Water Project, with a mixture of public and private funds, has helped bring safe water and sewer systems to more than 300,000 households, 108,000 of them in Virginia.

But 1990 census data showed at least 30,000 Virginia households still without indoor plumbing, and project officials estimate that nearly 150,000 Virginians don't have safe drinking water. It's hard to know for sure, because water for many rural Virginians isn't tested for safety. The commonwealth ranks a sorry 46th in the nation in indoor plumbing; 45 other states have a lower percentage of homes without adequate water.

Virginia is not a water-poor state. But delivery systems, including city and county water-sewage utilities and private water companies, still bypass many rural households - which then often are left to rely on improperly dug wells, or on streams that have been contaminated by other areas' industries or by malfunctioning wastewater-disposal plants. And when public dollars are appropriated to overcome water problems, they tend to flow past rural communities.

This week, the Virginia Water Project is hosting a 25-year anniversary conference here in Roanoke to plan for the future. Its goal is to ensure that by the year 2000, potable water is in every Virginia home. Toward that end, perhaps it can look to help from the Clinton administration, which has launched an initiative, Water 2000: A Faucet in Every Home, with a similar goal for the nation.

Meanwhile, state support for the Virginia Water Project has not exactly been a fount of plenty. The current two-year budget gives the organization $600,000, a mere drop in the state's $30-billion-plus bucket. Considering the vital importance of clean water to the health of citizens, can't the governor and the General Assembly do better?