Steve Gleason

I moved here in 1986. Yep. It's amazing to live in one place for so long. 

Lana Gleason

Well, we chose to live here because we wanted to be out in the country, and we liked the peace and quiet. I was working at the school then and it's close to the school and there weren't a lot of options at the time and it was in a price range.

Steve Gleason

Pretty amazing that we could live so primitively all of these years. It's just hard to believe, but it was just our life. It was just the way we lived.

Lana Gleason

It's hard to find water out here. We're not the only people that pump out of the river and have to haul drinking water.

Steve Gleason

We haven't been able to drink water here for years, well ever. We've been here 34 years on this road and we pumped out of the river the entire 34 years.

Michael Frazee

I live in rural, northwest Arkansas, an area of great natural beauty, but where access to basic services like drinking water can be extremely difficult. Life without drinking water can be strenuous and stressful. You're constantly worried about how much water you have and how much water will be consumed in simple, day-to-day activities.

Lana Gleason

Well originally, we were connected to a spring up in the woods and I asked my husband, I said, well, what's the water system? And he said, well, it's a stroll up to the spring up there and it's in good condition. And after we moved in, it wasn't long and that wasn't working. So, we switched to the river and for a while that worked. All right.

Steve Gleason

And here's where the pump is down there. I have a 220 pump in the river, and then I have an electric box up above and one down here. And the power and water line come down and go over these logs down here and the pump is in a bucket. And then I have a quarter mile of buried water line and power line through the pasture. It goes under the highway out here to another pump, which runs another quarter mile up to a tank water tank, and then it's gravity fed. It's pushing air all the way from the river pump. So, our water pressure isn't real good. It is fact. It's starting to trickle nowadays.

Lana Gleason

Every time Steve would turn the pumps on, he was, is it going to work? Sometimes the wire would come off down there and

Steve Gleason

Sometimes I get it so I don't have to go for months, several months. And then there's other times when I have to go down there. Every time I turn the pump on. And in the dead of winter, that field is a nightmare. I drive a 40-mile round trip to a spring, and I get 40 or 50 gallons of water in gallon jugs and that's how we cook and drink. And then we just take our showers and do laundry with the river. It's been the way it is.

Lana Gleason

In December, before Christmas, the pump quit working. So, we got another pump, but we couldn't make it work.

Steve Gleason

So, we were out of water for two months living out of rain barrels. So, I'm getting too old for this stuff.

Ean Reves – Mitchell Lewis & Staver

We pride ourselves in being family oriented, but also really being engaged in our local communities. And I think we've found a partner that has those same values in Goulds. And when Goulds let us know about the Watermark project, it was something that piqued our interest right away.

Scott McMullen – McMullen Water Systems

So, in this area welding's pretty difficult. The formations are a dense clay stone. There's not a lot of water out here. The aquifers are very few and far between, and so we had a real tough time locating some water out here. We've been installing Goulds products for almost 20 years. Goulds has such a large variety of products and pumps that we can get a pump for almost any application we need from one manufacturer.

Lana Gleason

Well, we wondered if it was going to happen, if we would find water, and it was stressful. They told us that they do whatever it takes, but like my husband said, there's no water. And so we were concerned that it wasn't going to happen.

Steve Gleason

I kind of knew what was here and I thought, well, there's only one more option. And that's clear down the corner of the property, down on the property line. When they got to 300 feet and didn't find anything, I kind of thought maybe that was the end of it. So, we were starting to think maybe they're going to give up.

There it is. 

Lana Gleason

We were just very surprised and very grateful. Oh, my goodness!

Steve Gleason

Oh my goodness! There’s water coming out of our ground!

Scott McMullen

The plan now is to set up a 2,500-gallon storage tank. The well is going to pump into that on a timer, and then we'll pressurize that to the house. The water has a high total dissolved solid (TDS), and so we're going to use a small under the sink Reverse Osmosis System (RO) in the house for the drinking water.

Ean Reves – Mitchell Lewis & Staver

Our employees are also very excited to be involved and we've had quite a few people volunteer all the way from ordering products and getting those out to the installation site to we're building a pump house from scratch. Super exciting. It’s great to see the smiles of the Gleason’s when we're out there and it’s heartwarming to participate at a level. We take a lot of pride in that.

Steve Gleason

It's wonderful to have a well because if something happens to me, Lana will have a well. So, she'll be all right.

Lana Gleason

Well, it'll be wonderful to be able to drink Water out of the tap and to cook and do dishes with clean water and not have to worry about that. 

Steve Gleason

We're just thankful for everything. It's been so much way beyond our capabilities.

Lana Gleason

It wouldn't have happened, never would've happened, never would've happened.

Susan O’Grady - Senior Director of Marketing at Xylem/Goulds Water Technology

Everyone deserves water. It's a natural resource. Stories like the Gleasons absolutely touch our heart. This is a testament to our partnership with Water Well Trust and Waterboys that we can help solve water together.