Terrell County’s Golden Triangle RC&D helps with access to clean and running drinking water

Nonprofit is in need of support until it can access more funding for its well water and septic program.

DAWSON – In rural Georgia, clean and reliable drinking water is not a given. 

Dorothy Ross, a 76-year-old Camilla resident, shared a community well with eight other households, each paying a monthly fee to the person who owned the well. The water came up dirty and sandy, meaning Ross often relied on bottled water she purchased to drink and clean her laundry.

“Most people don’t think about water … you go to the sink, and you turn on the spigot, and it’s there,” Rhonda Gordon, the executive director of the Golden Triangle Resource Conservation & Development, said. “You don’t think about it until you don’t have it, and then it’s a really big deal.” 

The Golden Triangle RC&D, a Terrell County-based nonprofit, is one of few organizations in rural Georgia that helps low income households have access to clean, reliable water through its Water Well, Septic and Water Testing Programs. Since its creation in 2010, it’s completed more than 135 well and 21 septic tank installs. In just the last six months, it’s helped 22 families. The uptick in its work means it ran out of funding for the first time in its history.

Ross is a recent recipient of a replaced or repaired well. The Golden Triangle helped her on a low-interest loan program to pay for her well. Her niece, Brenda Wade, said it’s changed her life. 

“It’s just a big help with the hardships that she’s faced day to day … having water that was not clear … getting groceries, gas, paying for medicine,” Wade said. “Now, she has her own working well, and in the next couple of years, she’ll get it paid off.” 

Ross joins a group of recipients who all have unique stories: from a veteran with a household of 10 without water, to a senior couple who lived off of three-liter water bottles from a local church for more than five years. 

The University of Georgia estimates that about 1.7 million Georgians rely on 681,000 household water wells for drinking, cooking and bathing. The Chattahoochee Riverkeeper reported that despite this number representing 10% of Georgians, the state lacks a centralized source of data or information on household groundwater drinking well quality or quantity. There are also limited regulations in place to protect the quality of well water. This means Georgians are ultimately responsible for testing their own well’s water quality. 

Many homes in southwest Georgia lie far from municipal water lines, miles apart along unpaved roads and close to agricultural fields and wells. Wells can fail for a number of reasons. Gordon said many of them are too shallow, drying up during drought. Many people are water-sharing, meaning they may run a hose from a neighbor’s or relative’s house with little water pressure.

“It’s just enough to get by with, but it’s very difficult,” Gordon said. 

Shallow drinking wells that are adjacent to industrial or agricultural wells may have water drawn away. They may be contaminated by surface water with bacteria or contaminants including arsenic, lead, radon, uranium or nitrate, according to water quality monitoring data. 

The USDA’s Rural Decentralized Water Systems Grant makes it possible for the Golden Triangle to issue a 1% loan to qualifying low-income homeowners to repair or replace damaged, contaminated or non-functioning household drinking water wells or septic tanks. This can look like drilling a deeper or more protected well from contaminants or adjacent well operations. 

Some of these repairs are urgent emergency repairs to help families stay safe and avoid costly disruptions. The Golden Triangle also conducts free water testing to help families detect contamination. 

The USDA’s program can be implemented by any nonprofit or any of Georgia’s 11 Resource Conservation and Development organizations, but the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper reported that it’s underutilized. 

The Golden Triangle normally repairs or replaces 10 to 12 wells or septic tanks per year across the 19 counties it serves. 

“What happens is these individuals lose access to running water … and don’t have the financial resources to drill,” Gordon said. “It depends on how deep … but some of these wells can run up to $20,000, and low income individuals just can’t afford that.”

The Golden Triangle gets the word out through church organizations and local well-drilling companies. Wade found out about the opportunity through her job at the Southwest Georgia Regional Commission during a conference. She said it was a simple process, seeing if her aunt qualified for the program, then getting the required water quality inspections and filling out needed documentation. 

Gordon said the program tries to meet rural communities where they’re at. While the application can be filled out online, she said many individuals don’t have access to a computer or to the internet. The nonprofit will send applications by mail or send out its water well specialist, Kelsey Powell, to collect applications. 

“I’ve met people … in the parking lot of a Dollar General and filled out their application on the hood of my car,” Gordon said. “She and her husband were both very ill … sometimes it’s hard for people to get out, and we just want to find the easiest way to make sure they get the information they need.” 

Gordon said it takes about 30 days, sometimes fewer, to complete the application process, take bids from local drilling companies and to complete the repair or replacement. She said well-drillers in the area are often backed up with work by a couple of weeks. 

“A lot of times … well-drillers will move them to the top of the list if a family is without water,” she said. 

Twenty-two projects in six months is unusual for the nonprofit, which Gordon said is seeing an uptick in requests after the nonprofit spread the word about the program. The Golden Triangle requests the competitive federal funds each year.

“Sometimes we run a little short, but we always have some resources,” Gordon said. “If we don’t have the funding, we will help find the funding.” 

For example, she said the community in Mitchell County banded together for one client to help fund a well project. 

Gordon said she’s not worried about losing the funding, but the Golden Triangle won’t know until October if its application was approved. She said so far the grant program hasn’t been impacted by budget cuts. 

“I know that several of our liaisons that we’ve worked with in the past maybe took an early retirement package … there are fewer rural development employees,” she said. “But the funding, as far as I’m aware, is still OK.” 

Until October, the Golden Triangle RC&D is asking for support to resume its well-water program services until it receives more funding. Currently, the organization has five pending applications for services, a number that could grow. 

Gordon said the program helps so many people. 

“When you can help somebody that doesn’t have water, and they tell you their story, it makes you want to go to work every day,” she said.

To donate or learn more, visit www.goldentrianglercd.org.