Home and Farm*A*Syst Programs Continue to Assist Residents of the Columbia Basin

Washington's Home/Farm*A*Syst Program, with a grant from the USDA/CSREES Water Quality Program, to conduct a series of educational projects in the Columbia Basin of Washington. The Columbia Basin is a highly agricultural area with documented nitrate contamination in ground water.

The projects targeted undeserved communities living in the Basin, especially those at greatest health risk from nitrate contamination (i.e., families with infants, pregnant women, or nursing mothers). AmeriCorps volunteers will be trained to work with the staff of "Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Clinics." WIC clinics are nutrition education support programs for low income families. They are held weekly at various locations around a county, usually by county health departments and/or community health centers. The project targeted Grant, Franklin and Adams Counties. Benton County was also added..

WIC clinic visitors are able to receive information on how drinking water quality can affect their family's health and how to better protect it. Visitors were offered free nitrate screenings for their drinking water, Home and Farm*A*Syst risk assessments, drinking water protection information, and local resource and contact lists. Information is provided in both Spanish and English.

In addition, drinking water clinics targeting the public were arranged in each community and housed at schools, libraries, grocery stores, etc.

Over a six month period the AmeriCorps project reached 539 people, through 21 clinics in 15 communities. Eleven WIC clients who were determined to be at greater risk were able to receive coupons for free bottled water, 25% of all those reached were Hispanic.