#Cuatro Comunidades
#Tamara
#Santa Rosa de Copan
#CCC Study
#Gracias

Cuatro Comunidades

Wednesday night 4.15 the plant was faced with its first large rainstorm. Incoming turbidity jumped to over 100 NTU. Gustavo, the operator, was not at the plant when the turbid water came so the plant failed. This was understandable since it was the first storm of the season and he lacks experience. It also suggests that two fulltime operators are necessary for optimal operation.

Antonio arrived at the plant Thursday morning and in a few hours they had emptied all the dirty water from the sed tanks and distribution tank, and were producing flocs. By noon the effluent was down to about 10 NTU. Thursday the incoming turbidity was down to 60 NTU and the effluent down to 6 NTU.

The plant is functioning satisfactorily, but not yet quite as well as we are hoping for. We don't think we have developed a floc blanket yet, which we think will allow us to produce 1 or 2 NTU water even with high incoming turbidity. Some of the flocs appear to be settling out at the end of the floc tank and don't make it to the sed tanks. Of the flocs that do make it to the distribution canal, more than half seem to fall in the chimneys going to the first sed tank, so that few flocs make it to the second sed tank. This suggests that velocities in the floc tank and canal are lower than they should be. This loss of flocs could be making it take longer to form a floc blanket. We also see some small pin flocs rising up in the sed tanks, which could be due to a dosing problem.

Gustavo, the operator, is taking a lot of interest in the operation of the plant. Currently he makes his last visit at 9pm comes first thing in the morning at 4 or 5 am, in an effort to minimize the time the plant is unattended. The water board has also purchased a mattress for him to spend some nights there if it is raining.

Inauguration of the plant is tentatively planned for Saturday 6.6.

Tamara

The Tamara plant was also hit by the same rainstorm that affected the Cuatro Comunidades. The operator was present but lost control when very high turbidity arrived suddenly at the plant. By the next morning the plant was under control again and producing 5 NTU water. Jose Luis, the operator we were training to relieve Carlos during his days off, has resigned. We will need to encourage the water board to look for another operator. Construction of the operator's house continues and should be completed soon.

Santa Rosa de Copan

The manager of Aguas de Santa Rosa, the business that runs the water system in Santa Rosa, and the municipality's director of water quality came to Tegucigalpa Wednesday 4.15 to learn about the AguaClara plants. After a presentation in the office, we took them to the Tamara and Cuatro Comunidades plants. Fortunately by the time we got there both plants were up and running satisfactorily after the rain storm.

Three communities (a total of 360 houses) of Santa Rosa are currently receiving water treated with pressurized anthracite filters. The filters work well in the dry season but are not effective to treat the 300 NTU water in the rainy season. They would like to install an AguaClara plant upstream of the filters to remove the majority of the turbidity in the rainy season. One complication is that the water is pumped from a river below the city and is only pumped 10 hours a day do to energy budget constraints. That means that the plant would have to be started and stopped each day, perhaps making it hard to maintain a floc blanket.

The representatives from Santa Rosa, both quite knowledgeable about water treatment, were very impressed with the AguaClara plants. The city already has multiple water treatment plants and operators, so would be well equipped to operate an AguaClara plant. We think this could be a great location for a plant, since the plant would be run by an experienced organization and because it would be a chance to try the plant with filters after it. The representatives from Santa Rosa said they would call us in the next week to set up a time for us to visit the city and make a presentation to the municipal corporation.

CCC Study

The SANAA technicians have not had as much time to supervise the project as we had hoped. Very little monitoring has been done in the communities. We will meet with the SANAA personnel involved Monday 4.20 to discuss how to proceed with the project. As the rainy season is fast approaching, it could be hard to get very reliable data from communities where the water gets turbid and untreatable with chlorine.

Gracias

Progress continues on the construction budget. We are trying to make a very detailed budget format that we can then use for future plants. We came out significantly over-budget on some materials for the Cuatro Communidades plant so will analyze those errors to avoid making them in Gracias. By early next week we should have a budget to present to the mayor.