#Cuatro Comunidades
#Atima
#Validation Study

Cuatro Comunidades

Cornell student Julia Schoen arrived in Honduras Wednesday 5.26. With funding from Cornell she will be living and working in the Cuatro Comnuidades until August. She will be observing and documenting the operation of the plant, supporting Dan Smith with the AguaClara validation study, and working with the operators to improve their handling of the plant.

Thursday 5.27 we did a complete cleaning of the Cuatro Comunidades plant. We emptied all tanks, removing all of the baffles, lamella, and cement entrance tunnel covers from the sed and floc tanks. In the sed tanks, about 15 cm of thick sludge had accumulated in the bottom of each of the entrance manifolds. The bottom layer of mud had consolidated and turned dark grey in color from being in the tank so long. In one tank we removed the sludge with shovels and buckets. In the other, we removed one of the drain canal covers, so there was a large opening to the drain canal, and flushed the mud out with water. The entire cleaning process took about 5 hours.

To prevent so many flocs from settling in the sed tank entrance manifolds, we will try increasing velocities in the entrance manifolds by sending all of the flowrate through just one of the two sed tanks.

Atima

Friday 5.28 we submitted a proposal to the Japanese Embassy to finance the materials and skilled labor for the construction of a plant in Atima. They returned the proposal because we were missing some information and also need to show proof that the municipality will be able to finance their part of the project. Assuming the municipality is willing to make that commitment, we will resubmit the proposal within the next couple weeks.

Validation Study

Tuesday 5.25 we met with Dr. Mirna Argueta and Lizeira Polanco from SANAA and Martin Rivera, the director of water and sanitation for Peace Corps. Dr. Argueta said SANAA would not be able to finance the laboratory costs of the study because they have still not received this year's budget from the government and are working under the limitations of last year's budget. They suggested that the Water Quality Group of the RASHON (Water and Sanitation Network of Honduras) would likely be able to finance the laboratory costs. Monday 6.01 Dan will meet with the Water Quality Group to present the proposal.