Honduras Interns Progress Report
Date: 5/23/08
Location: Tamara
Ojojona - Carol
Follow up on monitoring
Saturday May 17th - Re-election of the Junta
The election took place with the cooperation of the Alcaldia. The Junta presented financial informacion over the past year as well.
The same Junta was re-elected and Martin asked for a raise in salary. The Junta is as follows:
President - Martin Gonzales
Vice President - Napoleon Gonzales
Secretary - Nubia Casco
Treasurer - Julia Matute
Fiscal - Armando Barrientos
Vocal I - Ramon Martines
Vocal II - Reyna Castillo
The issue of the tariff was raised but didn't get much attention. The next step is to work on getting the Junta moving on raising the tariff.
Visited yesterday May 23rd
Earlier this month we installed a FCM (flow control module) in AguaBlanca that was a clear thinner plastic bottle. The chlorine immediately ate through it. In the future these bottles should not be used as they don't maintain any resistance to chlorine.
When we visited the plant the chlorine FCM was also falling apart. It appears the life span of the FCM's are about a year. The bottle is not in bad condition but the hose clamps are rusting and the connectors are slowly disintegrating. A new way to connect the float valves for the chlorine should be a priority for the coming year.
NGO's - Entire Team
The hotel for the meeting has been reserved and the date set. The hotel is near the office and the date is June 12th
Invitations should go out in the near future.
Things we need from Cornell if possible
A video of the automated design
Some photos of students working on the project at Cornell
New Communities - Carol
Community standing/more information on New communities
Agalteca
We went to Agalteca on Tuesday May 6th to look at their water system. They are supposed to provide a design of their water system in the near future.
One concern is that they told us there is only 11 meters of elevation between the water source (a river) and the tanks.
When we went on May 6th they had already had a general assembly to start spreading word about the plant. We left them with a table to start filling out information to install a FCM..
We went back on May 20th and the fontanero was taking good data, and we will go back on Thursday May 29th to install the float valve and hopefully collect the information on the design.
They remain a strong candidate for a plant.
Zambrano
Zambrano has remained in close contact with us. Unfortunately after we installed the FCM there they had trouble with their conduction line. Currently they are still taking data and still really good candidates for a plant.
The administrator there is the most organized we have dealt with.
4 communities
We went to visit the 4 communities last week and were told that they were ready to chlorinate. Antonio returned Thursday May 22nd to install the FCM.
Possible new project in Marcala
This past week an Italian NGO came to visit APP with a project for Marcala. Two engineers (Gustavo and Maria Elena) came about fixing the distribution line. The plant was brought up and they are interested in putting another plant on the source called La Florida. We haven't talked to Fred yet and aren't sure he is aware of the project.
FCM
I have been collecting data and putting into excel to try and see if we can get any good data showing that they work better than hipocloradors.
There are two main problems that we run into, the first is that it is difficult to ask someone to monitor their chlorine residual more than twice a day and often the data can be incomplete or sampled wrong. The other problem is that at times they can be using so much chlorine that they are still maintaining a chlorine residual in the tank and the houses even if the chlorine drip clogs or changes.
Overall good data from communities is hard to come by.
Budgets for new communities
We are currently still working on the budgets for the communities
The engineer would like to get a more accurate price of the plants before we do more budgets
We are waiting on information from the community on how much local materials were spent. I am working on making the accessories list more accurate.