Malibu High School students went back to school, following winter break, with something new on their campus: filtered water stations.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on Thursday, Jan. 11, to commemorate the new water stations at MHS. Community members and students who pushed for years for the filters were in attendance at the event.
The stations (three in total, so far) were part of a project that has been almost two years in the making.
Initially, Sarah Ryan, the school’s librarian, attempted to provide filter water with a “rental bubbler,” according to Mindy Peterson, an active Parent Teacher Association member and MHS parent.
“In my early conversations with Sarah, I learned that she often ended up paying for water out of her own pocket,” Peterson described, “and as a Shark Fund board member, I opened up schoolwide discussions about how we could fund filtered water that would be available for all students.”
With fund money committed to other projects and programs, the funding wasn’t available.
Ryan, Peterson and Melisa Andino (math teacher and Associated Student Body advisor) helped the high school’s ASB and Environmental Club members prepare a grant proposal for the Malibu City Council Administration and Finance Subcommittee in 2016.
The original idea was to bring filtered Elkay bottle filling stations to MHS.
The proposal was initially rejected to the disappointment of the group, who had begun to call themselves the “core hydration team.”
A “small group of parents and alumni parents and teachers and administrators” continued to work and support the project, according to Peterson.
After the rejection, they searched for community donors. City of Malibu Parks and Recreation Commission Chair Carl Randall put forth effort to secure funding for units.
The growing team looked to install three units in joint-use areas, where the hydration stations would be available for students and community members alike, plus three units in academic areas.
In June 2016, the Cornucopia Foundation sent emails to Malibu schools’ PTA members—co-founder Debra Bianco wanted to donate a “water hydration station” to each school in Malibu. In addition to this support, MHS Class of 2015 donated leftover funds in their account to the project.
Elizabeth Villalobos, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District facilities technician, joined the project in fall 2016.
“She [Elizabeth] put together a location plan that detailed how the units would be installed,” Peterson said, in a phone call with The Malibu Times.
Villalobos explained that with the school’s proximity to the ocean and mostly outdoor campus, the units needed to be installed in places with enough depth to provide some form of cover.
Prior to ordering the units, Peterson said that Elkay “could not guarantee warranty if [the units were] placed outside.” This meant that if there was any sort of problem such as bacteria growth, the company would not be liable.
The whole project was put on hold.
In early 2017, local parent activist Jennifer deNicola joined the team and suggested switching to FloWater.
“Debra [Bianco] brought this to my attention in 2016,” deNicola said at the ribbon cutting ceremony. “ … We want to promote kids drinking water.”
“The more that we can save and promote the idea of healthy, safe water, the better we are,” she added.
“[Jennifer] has a child going to Oak Park who had experienced the FloWater,” Peterson said. “They actually have been aggressive with their pricing to try [and spread] their availability … “
The units are each priced at $99 per month, including servicing.
“Because it’s not actually attached to [the] school, the school district does not have to take liability for the units,” she said.
At the time, SMMUSD believed the stations would cause an equity issue—according to an email from Peterson, “that Malibu schools could not offer students filtered water if the same water was not available in all Santa Monica schools.”
At the December 2017 SMMUSD School Board meeting, Ryan, Peterson, deNicola and two MHS students—Lars Peterson and Sally Johnston—spoke in favor of installing the FloWater units. Superintendent Dr. Ben Drati decided that equity was not at stake.
The school board approved the FloWater contract for a three-month-long pilot program. The company agreed to waive fees in the interim.
Now, the group is looking to sustain the water stations through “getting consistent cash flow.” According to Peterson, the City of Malibu and the Cornucopia Foundation have already made commitments.
“Not only is Cornucopia Foundation going to fund one fountain per school this year, but will also help sustain this project by supplying the schools with water bottles so they can sell them in order to keep the program going for next year,” Bianco said in an emailed statement.
On the day of the ribbon cutting ceremony, according to the water station’s calculations, 378 bottles had been saved in its three days of use.
Anyone interested in supporting the project can send donations through The Shark Fund (thesharkfund.org). Donations should be addressed to the hydration stations.
