#Cuatro Comunidades
#Gracias
#Guaimaca
#Tamara
#Ojojona
#Presentations
#Marcala

Cuatro Comunidades, F.M.

We have yet to discuss the construction schedule and when purchasing will begin. The community is concerned that they will not be able to come up with the 1000 L per house that we initially asked for as their share of the construction costs. This is understandable since they just finished two other projects that they paid quite a bit for. Arturo sent a proposal to Spain for $12,500 in construction materials that we will get an answer on Sept. 12th. We are waiting to hear back on that since the money from Spain would mean we could reduce the amount required from the community.

Gracias, Lempira

On Friday 8/29/08, Jacobo, Wil and Tamar presented to the Mayor of Gracias, the local Doctor and other people that work in the Municipality about AguaClara. They were extremely interested and have asked us to come up with a budget for a treatment plant. We are waiting for Wil to get the exact flow rate, but we believe it is approximately 800gal/min. According to a Peace Corps volunteer there, the community is in the process of improving the water system and is also considering a filtration plant that would be built with some large loans. The Peace Corps volunteer is interested in working with us to see whether AguaClara would be a more affordable and more appropriate technology.
Since the flowrate is the largest we have designed using AguaClara technology, it would be great if the team could begin thinking about how the layout may change to accommodate this flowrate.

Guaimaca, F.M.

Because of the layout of the system, two plants will likely be necessary for Guimaca. We are still working on getting good flowrate and population data to request a design from Cornell. We'd like to get budgets for Guimaca and Gracias put together by October since that is when the mayors do a lot of their planning for the next year.

Tamara

The influent tubes to the sedimentation tank are getting clogged. We think either flocs are building up at the exit of the influent tubes or they are settling inside the tubes. We think flocs may be building up at the end of the influent pipes because of the new sloped floor design for the sed tanks. Maybe flocs are getting trapped in the V. We plan to raise the level of the influent tube exits so that there is more space between the tube and the floor. Instead of having equal flow into the three sedimentation tanks, it is clear that the sedimentation tank closest to the flocculation tank has the highest flowrate because the influent tubes are not clogged there. There is probably less build up of flocs in the first sedimentation tank because there is the most turbulence in the channel bend from the flocculation tanks at this point.
On Thursday 9/4/08 we shut down the plant and cleaned out all the sedimentation tanks and discovered just how bad the floc/sludge build up is. It is possible, that because the plant is functioning at below the designed flow rate, (currently averaging 50-100gal/min instead of the designed 195gal/min) flocs are starting to settle earlier than they should in the sedimentation tank.
The plant data from Tamara is not currently being inputted by the Junta. Ideally, the Junta would input plant performance data in their computer, and then monthly we would pick up the data to upload to the WIKI. We hope to discuss this with the Junta this week.

Ojojona

Antonio picked up the data from Ojojona, they are putting the plant performance data in Excel.
On Friday 9/12 we have a meeting with students from Universidad Autonoma de Tegucigalpa. We met the Professor Guadalupe Nunez at the RASHON presentation on Friday.

Presentations

On Friday 9/5/08 we presented at the Clarion Hotel to RASHON, Red de Agua y Sanimiento de Honduras. We made some interesting contacts:
REDCOAGUASH - a new newspaper called 'Prensa Verde' which might be able to help with publicity of the AguaClara project.
Laura E. Suazo - did her Ph.D at Cornell University, works at Zamorano, very interested in helping publicize our project. She has worked with Luis Cabalallo
Ing. Gerardo Martinez from CARE - He met with Arturo for breakfast Monday after we presented and has three ideas for cooperation:
Using a prefilter to reduce the turbidity of very turbid water before it gets in the plant. They would like to work together on a project trying this.
A workshop for Honduran engineers to present the AguaClara technology and get suggestions.
That we could meet with the minister of FHIS (the government organization funding the FIME multistep filtration plants). They might be interested in working with AguaClara technology as well.
Ing. Herbert Caudil who formally worked for USAID was at the presentation and is also interested in staying in contact.

On Thursday 9/11/08 we have a scheduled presentation with the Peace Crops Sanitation and Water Engineers in Siguatepeque.

Marcala

We plan to meet Chris Bordlemay and Fred Stottlemeyer in Marcala on Tuesday 9/16.