Good news for water-related nonprofits: The Agriculture Department wants applications from groups that want to loan money to rural homeowners to install or repair household water wells.

Read more about the Household Water Well System (HWWS) Grant Program on Agriculture’s website.

Click here to see the notice from the agency’s Rural Utilities Service, which lists all the program requirements. The RUS “will make grants to qualified private non-profit organizations to establish lending programs for homeowners to borrow up to $11,000 to construct or repair household water wells for an existing home.”

Plenty of stipulations come with federal cash, of course. Notably, the agency targets areas that have high poverty rates of 20 percent or more or areas that might have high rates of disease due to poor sanitation. The PDF I linked to earlier has all the details for applications and submissions must get into the federal hopper by May 27, 2014.

For more details, contact Joyce M. Taylor, community programs specialist with the Water Programs Division at JoyceM.Taylor@wdc.usda.gov or 202-720-9589.

This would be a great program for the Water Well Trust or another like-minded charity that wants to expand its scope.

According to this report, “more than 600,000 residents of rural communities still do not have the basic water and sanitation services the rest of us take for granted.” That’s a shame in a country as prosperous as the United States. But it’s also an opportunity for these nonprofits and for the drillers connected to them who can get referrals to do the work.

Good luck to those applying. National Driller supports any efforts that can put rigs to work.

Stay safe out there, drillers.