美国国家公共电台 NPR On The Navajo Nation, Special Ed Students Await Water That Doesn't Stink

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

More than a third of the Navajo Nation lacks running water. And in some of the places with running water, people don't want to drink it. They say it smells, tastes funny and looks bad. Laurel Morales of member station KJZZ has more from Flagstaff, Ariz.

LAUREL MORALES, BYLINE¹: On the Navajo Nation, kids with the most severe developmental disabilities attend a school called St. Michael's Association for Special Education.

FELENCIA WOODIE: Say hi. Oh.

MORALES: There he is. A little sleepy.

DAMEON DAVID: (Groaning).

WOODIE: (Unintelligible).

MORALES: Eight-year-old Dameon is waking up from a nap in his classroom. He has come to the school in northeastern Arizona for four years. He has cerebral² palsy, seizures³ and scoliosis. His mom, Felencia Woodie, picks him up from a bed with Superman sheets.

WOODIE: Other schools that he was going to go to, they didn't have the nursing staff or the equipment he goes in or the trained staff that they have here to do his suctioning, his feeding and his medications daily.

MORALES: Woodie, who also works at St. Michael's, says the only problem with the school is its water.

WOODIE: Yeah, it has a certain stench to it. Sometimes you'll smell, like, kind of like a egg smell. Sometimes it's yellow, brown or even we've seen black.

MORALES: Black? Really?

WOODIE: Yes.

MORALES: Many of the kids at St. Michael's are medically fragile, so they have equipment that needs to be cleaned daily. The staff refuses to use the tap water to wash equipment. Instead they use five-gallon jugs⁴ of filtered water trucked in from many miles away.

(SOUNDBITE OF RUNNING FAUCET)

MORALES: In another classroom, volunteer Jacob Lundy helps two young girls with autism wash their hands at the sink. The water runs yellow.

JACOB LUNDY: What's odd to me is how normal it becomes for the water in the laundry room to come out black. And that's just, like - we don't think about it anymore.

MORALES: In the sink, you can see the residue⁵ from the black water. It looks like sand. The Navajo Tribal⁶ Utility Authority tests the water at St. Michael's monthly and says it meets national primary drinking water standards. It's not poisonous, but...

ADAM BRINGHURST: People typically won't drink water if it tastes bad or if it looks bad or if it stinks⁷.

MORALES: Adam Bringhurst studies water resources at Northern Arizona University. He says the Environmental Protection Agency has established two levels of standards. The primary standard, filtering contaminants that harm your health, that's required by law. The secondary standard, eliminating taste, color and smell, that's voluntary.

BRINGHURST: And the secondary standards are typically considered aesthetics⁸.

MORALES: But, Bringhurst says, those secondary standards are still very important.

BRINGHURST: We all need to drink water. And when your only option is to go to the store and pay really high prices that also carry a really big footprint with them, it's a bad situation for everyone.

MORALES: St. Michael's spent almost $3,000 last year on bottled water alone. That's a big cost for a school with so many expenses and one that a better water filtration system could alleviate⁹. So a school volunteer contacted a group called Dig Deep, a nonprofit that digs wells and makes water accessible throughout the region. George McGraw heads Dig Deep and is especially concerned for the disabled kids.

GEORGE MCGRAW: These are people that rely on us, on their teachers, on their government officials, on society at large to make sure that their most basic needs are taken care of. And what's more basic than having access to clean running water?

MORALES: The organization is raising $100,000 to build a water filtration system for St. Michael's. It hopes to install it this summer so the water is more than just technically¹⁰ safe. It will be something kids and staff actually want to drink. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Morales in Flagstaff.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA'S "APERTURA")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 cerebral   

adj.脑的，大脑的；有智力的，理智型的

参考例句：

• Your left cerebral hemisphere controls the right-hand side of your body.你的左半脑控制身体的右半身。
• He is a precise,methodical,cerebral man who carefully chooses his words.他是一个一丝不苟、有条理和理智的人，措辞谨慎。

3 seizures   

n.起获( seizure的名词复数 )；没收；充公；起获的赃物

参考例句：

• Seizures of illicit drugs have increased by 30% this year. 今年违禁药品的扣押增长了30%。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Other causes of unconsciousness predisposing to aspiration lung abscess are convulsive seizures. 造成吸入性肺脓肿昏迷的其他原因，有惊厥发作。 来自辞典例句

4 jugs   

（有柄及小口的）水壶( jug的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Two china jugs held steaming gravy. 两个瓷罐子装着热气腾腾的肉卤。
• Jugs-Big wall lingo for Jumars or any other type of ascenders. 大岩壁术语，祝玛式上升器或其它种类的上升器。

5 residue   

n.残余，剩余，残渣

参考例句：

• Mary scraped the residue of food from the plates before putting them under water.玛丽在把盘子放入水之前先刮去上面的食物残渣。
• Pesticide persistence beyond the critical period for control leads to residue problems.农药一旦超过控制的临界期，就会导致残留问题。

6 tribal   

adj.部族的，种族的

参考例句：

• He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
• The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。

7 stinks   

v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透

参考例句：

• The whole scheme stinks to high heaven—don't get involved in it. 整件事十分卑鄙龌龊——可别陷了进去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soup stinks of garlic. 这汤有大蒜气味。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

8 aesthetics   

n.(尤指艺术方面之)美学，审美学

参考例句：

• Sometimes, of course, our markings may be simply a matter of aesthetics. 当然，有时我们的标点符号也许只是个审美的问题。 来自名作英译部分
• The field of aesthetics presents an especially difficult problem to the historian. 美学领域向历史学家提出了一个格外困难的问题。

9 alleviate   

v.减轻，缓和，缓解(痛苦等)

参考例句：

• The doctor gave her an injection to alleviate the pain.医生给她注射以减轻疼痛。
• Nothing could alleviate his distress.什么都不能减轻他的痛苦。

10 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。