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September 5, 2025 12 mins
New Albany High School broadcast star Lydia Cosper and WaterStep founder Mark Hogg dropped by to tell the amazing story of water purification saving lives around the world. Lydia and Mark have organized a special 5k on September 20th at Lynn Family Stadium to raise money for more WaterStep projects.

Full details in the WHAS interview with Terry Meiners



WaterStep is an NGO based in Kentucky, USA, that focuses on sustainable solutions to the world’s WASH crisis. Since 1995, WaterStep has evolved from a small service organization to a global leader in safe water solutions and innovation.WaterStep has developed simple tools, patented technology, and effective training to empower people and communities to solve their own water and sanitation needs. We provide expert solutions for places where infrastructure is fragile and execution challenges are particularly difficult, especially in slums, rural villages, and in communities responding to natural and manmade disasters. WaterStep combines safe water and disinfectant technology, and health and hygiene education because safe water in a dirty cup is no longer safe, and dirty hands spread disease.Our technology offers scalable safe water and disinfectant access during disasters because no one should have to worry about whether their water is safe during an emergency. No other safe water NGO in the world does what we do.













Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A couple of weekends from now, like for you to
participate in a five k run walk at Lynn Family Stadium.
In the studio with me is Lydia, the high school
radio superstar. Is it okay to use your last name?
There is Lydia Cosper who's in the studio with us.
You only use Lydia on your radio station.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
So I go to New Albany and we have, of
course eighty eight point one.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Eighty eight point one. We rock harder than anyone.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Else, exactly, rock harder than Floyd Central. Also eighty eight one.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Oh, she's talking it now. I love that.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
There was some beef going on in here off of.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
We'll see Joe Lincoln, our sports guy. He's a Floyd
Central guy. Yes, And he was like, I don't know,
did we steal your radio signal? It's like you poached
it part time.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
They took an already beautiful signal that reaches all the
way to Louisville and all across, and they decided to
use it for themselves.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
I've heard your station for years. It's great. That's part
of instruction at New Albany High School, right you.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Radio is a dual credit class actually, so you get
some college credit for it, and basically your grade is
you go on air, do you have fun?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Great, it's a great class.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
That is awesome. Yeah, but you're very talented in front
of a microphone.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
I hope I am.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I've done it for four years, so I better have
something right.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I mean when I started, I was like, I don't
know if I can do this. But it's like it's
a weird feeling because you're oftentimes in a room by
yourself talking into a metal stick YEP and people think
you're kind of crazy. Okay, we're media nerds, that's what
we are. We just we understand the principle of broadcasting
and enjoy it. So were you a little kid and

(01:45):
you thought that's for me? Or was it just when
you were started at New Albany High School you thought
let me try that.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
It was really when I started at New Albany and
back in first grade, I had this best friend and
her dad and my dad also went to New Albany
and they were on air together on eighty eight point
one WNAS, so I already knew him going into the school.
He was he ended up being the teacher, and I
was like, well, I went from a Catholic school to

(02:11):
New Albany, so I knew all of two people in
that school. So I was like, well, you know, it
would be really good for me to have somebody I
know there in someplace where I know I can hang out.
So I ended up taking radio just for that benefit,
and I fell in love with it being on air,
but also the behind the scenes, the camera work. We
do election coverage and I directed all of that last year.

(02:32):
Oh cool head it down to a seating chart so
we could flip the cameras in right time.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
It was You're an MMJ. You're a multimedia journalist already.
You can handle all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
I hope.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
I am.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
I've done so much of it. That's good. You're going
to graduate here in a few months.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yep, I'm graduating in May. Think goodness, what's the plan
going beyond environmental engineering? Actually up at Purdue.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
So you have some media place where you can you
can also throw your backpack, you know, I hope.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
So I went up to a game and I saw
the kids on the sidelines who were doing the filming
and stuff like that, and now, like that would be fun,
that would be awesome. And I love talking into a
headset that is so much fun. Is to have that, like,
it just gives me an energy, you know, to be
doing all that behind the scenes stuff and I don't
need my face out there, but to make the other

(03:20):
people look good. I love that.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well good for you though, but I mean you've obviously
taken to this like a duck to water, So that's
all good. And since we're on the subject of water, water,
how about.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
That segue water Step that was beautiful.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
See how that's done? That is that is expert Right now,
Park Hogs at a studio with us. He's the founder
and CEO of water Step. Good to see you, brother,
It's awesome to be here.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Man. We love you guys, and thanks so much for
you and WHS for years decades being a part of
our story.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, your story is astounding. You've improved lives around the world,
not just here in the zip code, not in the Commonwealth,
but around the world.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
That's an incredible team.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
You're sounding lives essentially, sir.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
It's just a great multiplication factor. It's a way for
people to have simple equipment that they can understand not
only how to operate, but how to teach others to operate.
That we have folks and these other countries that have
teams of people, hundreds of people around them, and they're
just transforming entire regions. We have one gentleman and Kenya.
He just finished this past winter. Every single one of

(04:22):
the one hundred and thirty five prisons in Kenya, women's, men's, whatever,
they all now have safe water in them and disinfect it.
They didn't before. Everybody's sick. That gun at the security
of folks around the prisons. They were sick all the
time too. It was this horrible situation changed everything. Yeah,

(04:42):
because there's dirty water absolutely everywhere. And your devices are
they manufactured in Louisville.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
We manufacture them here, Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
And Louisville has a history in terms of cleaning water.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
You know, I love this story and the bummer is
not many people know about it. Just in the eighteen hundreds,
we were known as the Graveyard of the West. We
had located or wastewater and too close to our aquifers,
so people are getting sick all the time. We're on
the Graveyard of the West. People were scared to come here,
but they had to because of the river, because of
the industry that we had there in Portland, but they

(05:19):
were scared so none Spalding Nurse Spalding of Spalding University,
she was in doing a lot of great work with cholera.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Patients at the same time.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
We put this all called out, help us, help us,
somebody come up with some ideas. A guy named William
Jewel in the eighteen ninety six era showed up and
he said, I got this idea. Let's take some salt
water a bronze solution, Let's introduce some electricity to that.
We're going to create chlorine. We're going to dose chlorine
into the water and it'll kill the pathogens in the bacteria.

(05:50):
Saved the planet. But no doubt, Oh my gosh, every
single manufactured, every single metropolitan area in the world uses
that same process to finish and polish water, just like
we do. If you want to see it in a
big way, go down to Frankfort Avenue and if something's
going on down there, come to water Step and we'll
help them down at Frankfort.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Get back and rolling.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
You know, when I walk around that reservoir that you're
talking about, the water company's reservoir, they have signs up
to tell you about certain things that happen here in Louisville,
and it doesn't really sink in until you're telling this
story right now. Well, yeah, think of how many lives
have been saved, have been spared.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Absolutely, I think we're the water capital of the world.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
And I'm not the only one in town that thinks that.
The replication, the repercussion, the network that we've built around
the world with technology and ideas and framework from Louisville
is huge when it comes to water.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Absolutely, How do you fund water step? You're giving away
a lot of devices around the world.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
Well, actually, folks like you are helping us do that.
So we have a way that we bring in donations
that fuel a.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Lot of that work that we do around the world.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
We're able to send that equipment out and we also
sell our equipment. So a lot of other organizations now
that are working internationally are able to add They never
knew it, but they could add safe water and sanitation
and disinfected applications to whatever they're doing, working into children's
orphanage or doing sports camps or whatever that is. And

(07:21):
now we've come up with a very unique device that
we use in disasters here in the US. We're in
with the tornadoes, and we work closely with the Governor's
Office and Rural Water Association, the Water Company blah blah blah,
and this month were a unique device called the Wild Cart.
The water on wheels cart about the size of a
hotel cleaning cart, you can treat water from anywhere. Will

(07:43):
be the first mobile water treatment device that'll be approved
by the National Sanitation Foundation here in the United States.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
We're very excited about that. Is an incredible story. Water
Steps story is unbelievable. Is based right here in Louisville.
And again you're extending life absolutely everywhere. Well and Lydia
probably already learned all this in school.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
Well, the cool thing is is Lydia is a freaking
rock star at Water Staff. I mean, you've got this
young energy. She's found a place to take her heartbeat.
She's even wanting to now you know, apply that to
her life with her environmental engineering passion. She's come in
with this great energy and she and the teen board
are doing great things to be able to promote that.

(08:29):
The great idea they've come up with, this five K
is really cool. Most women on the planet Terry, are
walking three to six miles a day to get water
for their families. The water's probably contaminated. When we're helping
them with that, we have devices to help them roll
the water in front of them like a ballad of
carrying on their head, their back. They can treat that water.
They can transform their community, their schools, their clinics. So Lydia,

(08:52):
tell them, Lydia, why we got a five k? Why
it's that distance?

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Is that my cue?

Speaker 3 (08:58):
That's your cue?

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Baby, Let's go.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
You're you're the woman, You're the queen of radio in
New Albany.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Oh yeah, so our five k coming up. We've been
working on this since goodness February probably it has been
a work we are. It's five k, like Mark said,
that's how many miles that people are on average walking.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
And for me, that just it.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
That's sentence of that's how far that woman have to
walk every day to get their water. It holds so
much impact. But that these ladies have to walk to
get their water, and they can't go to school, and
they can't take care of whatever's going on a home.
If anybody has these water borne illnesses, you know, and
if they have the water born illnesses themselves, they still
have to walk to get that water and to further

(09:42):
that issue, and that just for me, it's girls who
are my age, you know. And I love that I
can be here and I can be in the studio
and share this story. But it's hard for me not
to think about the over two billion people without clean
water and the millions of girls who are right now
walking to get clean water for their get dirty water

(10:03):
for the.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Every day too. It's it's just this goes on every
day around the world, and you're slowly chipping away at
the problem. Yes, Yes, to eradicate this dirty water thing,
so that people that is our goal can have clean water.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
My favorite, my favorite thing is our water ball. It
even like is for carrying the water. You know. It's
like a it's like a glamorous wheelbarrow if you will.
And it has a pocket you can it's not a pocket,
it's it's some PBC pipes.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
But you can put a little cloth.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
In there or something kind of a blanket, and you
can use it as a stroller as well, so you
can just have your little baby in there and go
get your water.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
Well.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
So I love that what you're doing. All right, So
you have this five k at Lynn Family Stadium and
that is two weeks from tomorrow, September fourteenth. Where do people.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Register September twentieth. Yes, you can register at waterstep dot org.
It is linked on our website and I'm going to
give a shout out to our teen boards Instagram as well.
It's also linked on there water Step Teens I believe.
And then there's water Step I Intl on Instagram as well.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
That's the big account.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Also on Facebook for those of you. I am seventeen,
so I use Instagram, but we're on Facebook as well.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
I'm fifty years older than you and I use Instagram.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
You're hipp and young, fifty years younger than me. Now,
low about that? What if I can't get up and
go to the five k? What if I can't do
it that day? What if I can't be there? What
would you suggest.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
You can do it virtually?

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Oh my gosh, look at this guy. I'm showing you
my Instagram show me.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
His Instagram feed. It looks very aesthetic and well done.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Thanks for noticing. All right, so let's all help with
this project here two weeks from tomorrow, or you can
just go to the linked places we just cited, yep,
and be a help to people around the world unk
clean water.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
And if you're super busy, you can even just donate
on our ticket sign up page. That's totally fine with us.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Lydia coos for Mark Hogg. Great work, good hang buddy,
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Love doing it with you. So you, guys, I'm going to.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Take some vacation later in the year. You want to
host this show.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Absolutely, you're ready to go, all right, Lydia, thanks a ton,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
We're back in a minute on news radio. Wait forty
w h A s.
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