#Cuatro Comunidades
#Guimaca
#Tamara
#Ojojona
#New Communities
#Mercedes

Cuatro Comunidades

This week we solidified the design and finished the construction budget for the plant in the Cuatro Comunidades. Adding a small room where the operator can sleep and increasing the sed tank depth from 1.2m to 1.55m did not increase the budget by all that much. The main change we made in the layout was to put the chemical tables and entrance tank on the uphill end of the plant in order to take advantage of the slope in the land.

Friday evening we met with the water board. We presented a proposal for what the community will contribute (sand, gravel, rock, wood, brick, the land, and all unskilled labor) and they were in agreement. We also left a draft of the construction agreement for the board to revise and started to analyze their operation costs to determine the necessary water tariff. To avoid confusion, a general operating budget for the entire water system and treatment plant will be included in the construction agreement. Another meeting is programmed for this Wednesday to further analyze the tariff and meet with one of the four communities that is still reluctant to support the project.

Guimaca

We visited Guimaca on Wednesday to verify the flowrates arriving at each tank. Currently, during the rainy season, about 650 gal/min enter Tank #1 and 950 gal/min arrive to Tank #2. This is plenty of water for everyone to have water 24/7 in the community. However, the dry-season flow is only about 30 or 40% of the rainy season flow. During the dry season, they have to ration water, and some of the higher parts of town hardly ever receive water.

Tamara

On Saturday, 9.20, Naaman, a technician from APP, went with members of the water board to install new air-release valves in the conduction line from the Chorrera. When they sent water down the line again it appears that the pipe ruputured again, so work will need to continue on that problem.

Ojojona

The Ojojona water board is interested in installing 50 to 100 water meters for houses that they know consume more than their share of water. They requested that we help them find a place to acquire the meters, donated or at low cost. We spoke with Fred Stottlemayer from IRWA and he said he is expecting a large donation of meters from the states and that some might be available for Ojojona. However, he still needs a final report of what the Ojojona water board did with some funds he donated last year before he will be able to make another donation.

New Communities

On Thursday, Antonio visited Villa de San Francisco and Cantarranes, two municipalities we had previously investigated, to leave turbidimeters.

Mercedes, Ocotepeque

We will be going to Mercedes, Ocotepeque this week to install more chorine flow controllers. Tamar and Antonio installed two controllers a month ago and the municipality (with funds from a Swedish project called DESEAS) is going to buy 16 more. In this trip, we will work with two APP technicians there to install about 6 flow controllers and hopefully with that experience the technicians will be able to install the remaining 10.