#Tamara
#Ojojona
#Talanga
#Presentations
#Cuatro Comunidades
#Rotary Proposal

Tamara

There are still problems with the La Chorera source and conduction line. The Junta just hired a new fontanero (person in charge of maintenance of the water distribution line) who will operate the water system. Antonio trained him to measure chlorine in the household connections.

Wednesday August 6th we will join the Tamara Junta meeting to discuss the current situation with Carlos, the plant operator. Since he is working full time 24/7 we need to discuss vacation time and finding another person to switch off in the evenings. We will also make a plan for how APP will provide technical support over the coming months and discuss the progress with fixing the conduction line.

Ojojona

On July 24th we met with the Junta. They were reluctant to keep entering the plant data into the computer but Martin agreed to enter all the past data and send it this week. We also discussed the need to name one permanent operator for the plant rather than rotating between the three right now.
At Martin's request Antonio wrote a note to the entire Junta suggesting that they name a permanent operator, contract an operator during the night, and to consider the possibility of hiring more personnel with money from the tariff increase, and keep better track of plant and water quality data. Also, it was suggested to look for funds to build a roof on the plant.
We also provided the Junta with a design for the roof provided by Engineer Will Serrano.
We decided to let Ojojona keep the 150kg of alum that was loaned from Tamara for another month.

Talanga

The subdirector of Dimas, the Talanga water authority, named Carlos Diaz accompanied Antonio, Carol and Tamar to visit other communities in the area that might want treatment plants on Tuesday July, 22. We visited Jalaca and La Ermita. We taught Carlos to record turbidity data. It seems that the turbidity in Talanga is not sufficient to need an AguaClara plant. We planned a Mayor's meeting for the following week, July 31st.

Presentations

Representatives from San Ignacio, Talanga, Jalaca, Guaimaca, Cantaranas came to a presentation on July 31st. Jacobo, Arturo, and Wil, Antonio, Carol, John and Tamar gave the presentation and displayed the demo plant. Only the Mayor from Guaimaca was there even though the meeting was supposed to be for mayors. There was interest from all the participants. We plan to visit Guaimaca and La Ermita on August 7th, and Orica and San Ignacio on July 8th.

Cuatro Communidades

On Friday August 1, Antonio, Carol, John and Tamar visited 3 members of the Junta (Jorge, Antonio and Santos) to discuss the costs of the AguaClara plant. We explained again the technology and also discussed how much the basic maintenance of the plant would be each month. We were also able to bring up the importance of paying the operator well, because the success of the plant depends greatly on the continuance of a skilled operator. We showed them using excel that to pay the operator better than the minimum wage would only cause each abonado to pay an extra 2L. We tried to explain the assets of creating a job in their community that was a respected profession.

The Junta organized a general community assembly to promote the plant on Saturday August 2 at 2pm. Arnoldo Canales, Antonio, Carol, John and Tamar attended. Out of 241 houses that were invited, only 57 houses were represented. However, there an overwhelming majority of those present supported building the plant and raising the tariff from 30L to 75L. Using the demo plant was very helpful and convincing to explain the technology. Many of the people at the meeting expressed the fact that since there was not a majority of the community there, it was difficult to reach a decision at that time. We have asked for an answer by Monday, August 11th. The Junta and Arnaldo Canales will hold meetings in different sectors of the community this week to get the opinions of more users.

We have completed the constructions costs for the shallow tank design for the 4 Communities. We are waiting for a detailed design from the Cornell AguaClara team within the next two weeks.

Rotary Proposal

We have finished the draft of a proposal for plants in Agalteca, Zambrano, and Talanga. It was sent to Dick Atkins on Monday August 4th.