WarkaWater towers will soon be used in Ethiopia to harness fresh drinking water from thin air. Could they also be used in California?

1. Can Relief for California's
Devastating Drought Be Had for a
Few Drops?

2. As Californians prepare for a third
summer of drought, we may be
temporarily inconvenienced here or
there,

3. but we have no concept of how it
would feel to have not one drop of
water come out of a faucet when we
turn on the tap.

4. Yet, in villages in the mountainous
regions of Ethiopia, women and
their children spend most of their
days walking for miles on dangerous
roadways...

5. to collect water from worm-filled
ponds, which are basically cesspools
of human waste.

6. After they fill these heavy
containers, they haul them back to
their homes.

7. It not only takes hours out of their
days (oftentimes they make two
trips each day), but more
importantly,

8. the children are exposed to
dangerous illnesses from the
journey and the contaminated water
which compromises their fragile
immune systems and many die.

9. Those who survive, are kept out of
school to help haul the water to
their families.

10. It's estimated 40 billion hours every
year are spent walking for drinking
water.

11. Every year, unsafe water kills more
people than violence and that
includes war.

12. Children are the biggest casualties of
the more than two million people
who die from waterborne illnesses
each year.

13. Italian entrepreneur Arturo Vittori
has designed a seemingly
economical and sustainable solution
for harvesting atmospheric water
vapors --

14. literally collecting drinking water
from the air.

15. If his invention is doable in Ethiopia,
then it might just help California's
catastrophic drought crisis.

16. The WarkaWater name comes from
the Warka fig tree in Ethiopia.

17. They are 30 feet, tall -- 80 pound
pillars which are constructed in two
sections.

18. There is a semi-rigid exoskeleton,
built by tying bamboo or juncus
stalks together an an internal plastic
mesh, similar to polypropylene and
nylon fibers.

19. They act as a scaffold for
condensation and as they droplets
of dew form, they follow the mesh
into a basin at the base of the
structure.

20. Genius -- to capture water from thin
air -- as nature might have
intended? We'll see -- as Vittori
hopes to have the towers available
to the village residents in 2016.

21. I would venture to say that if the
proposed structures can pull in 25
gallons of clean water a day in the
desert,

22. it might be possible to design
structures specifically for the foggy
conditions on the California coast
that could help tap a source of
supplemental fresh water for the
state.

23. I'm starting to see more and more
solar panels appearing on the sunny
sides of roofs;

24. if something economical can be
designed to harvest fresh water
from the air, it would make a nice
use of the shadowed side.

25. Of course, they would need to
create a bigger harvesting device to
capture more water here in the U.S.,
in states such as California.

26. For the purposes of the initial
phase of construction --

27. cost wise-it appears to be had for
pennies for dew drops and at a mere
$550.00 to build with only a team of
four people,

28. using local materials, it beats the
many major corporations and
businesses who are vying for similar
sustainable water solutions with
costlier price tags.

29. While Californians could surely put
this technology to a much needed
use, I hope for the sake of the
families in countries like Ethiopia --

30. that the WarkaWater towers provide
them with safe, clean water, thereby
saving lives and affording them
opportunities to stave off the cycles
of poverty,

31. and enable them precious time
for more productive tasks.

32. Can Relief for California's
Devastating Drought Be Had for a
Few Drops?