If you live in Bahia Hondita, Colombia, a new technology that creates clean, renewable drinking water must seem like a miracle. Bahía Hondita is a small bay in northeast Guajira Peninsula, Colombia, bordering the Caribbean, where nearly 500 Wayuu indigenous people live. 

With no roads or infrastructure, it is cut off from the rest of the country. It didn’t have access to piped, bottled or even trucked water, and people had to walk for up to six hours to find water that was safe to drink.

Then on March 6, 2020, its residents celebrated creating safe water “from thin air,” reported Conservation. “The small community of Bahía Hondita now has clean drinking water, thanks to the installation of 149 SOURCE Hydropanels provided by a partnership between Conservation International and Zero Mass Water, a renewable water company based in Arizona.”