Honduras Interns Progress Report
Date: 10/19/07
Location: Ojojona
Work Completed This Week
¿ Improvements to Plant
¿ Progress in Problem Solving
o Fred visited Sunday, Oct 17 and had some ideas for us
¿ He suggests trying to purge each sed tank every other day or so by opening the cleaning valve for 30 seconds to a minute. This will allow some mud to escape without the hassle of emptying the entire tank. We are trying this with one tank. When the cleaning valve is opened water starts flowing backwards through the effluent launderer as water enters from the other tanks into the tank we are cleaning. This causes some flocs that are stuck to the effluent launderer to be disturbed but hasn't made the effluent turbidity rise above 5 NTU.
¿ Fred says the best plant operator is someone living near the plant. He says someone who lives nearby could be trained to change the dose just in the night. If the permanent plant operator lived nearby even their spouse could be trained to make dose changes.
o We suggested Monroe's idea of paying a fontanero on a trial basis to operate the plant at night. Jacobo and Antonio agreed that for APP or Cornell to pay someone from the Junta to do this would set a bad precedent. Instead, Antonio is going to stay at the plant during the night for a week.
¿ Capacitation of plant operators, Sustainability in Ojojona
o This week Juan is at the plant. Although Juan probably has the least written education of the three fontaneros, he is doing the best job, even with recording data in the table. He has been taking data at intervals of a half hour to an hour and seems interested in the operation.
¿ The Next Plant
o Met with Jacobo, Ing. Serrano and Antonio Tuesday, Oct 16 to discuss how to proceed with the next plant.
¿ They want to put Moroceli on hold, but not forget about it.
¿ Serrano said that a quick fix to reinforce the pipes in low areas so that water can arrive at the new tank would not be easy and would not be worth the effort.
¿ Serrano says the pipes should be designed to withstand static pressure when the system is turned off at the tank.
¿ Their plan seems to be to wait until a complete improvement of the conduction line can be done.
¿ APP will suggest that the municipality of Moroceli contract Ing. Padilla (the engineer in charge of the first Por Cuencas phase) to write up a proposal for a second phase.
¿ Jacobo said it is important that we continue to have a relationship with Moroceli and try to build a plant there in the future. We have created certain expectations with the Junta and it would reflect badly on APP to cut the project off here.
¿ Jacobo will write a letter to the Moroceli Junta explaining the situation. If the Junta wants to we might have a followup meeting with them.
¿ Tamara appears to be the preferred choice at this point.
¿ They have an ideal population size
¿ APP already has an ongoing $24,900 project there that is funded through Rotary.
¿ APP will approach the municipality of Tegucigalpa (Tamara is an aldea of Tegucigalpa) to see if they would provide some raw materials and support for a potential plant. Alan Montenegro, director of aldeas for the municipality of Tegucigalpa, has had good relations with APP in the past and Jacobo and Antonio met with him Wed, Oct 17. He is in support of the project.
¿ We met with the Junta of Tamara Wed, Oct 17.
¿ When we were at the meeting they said that they only had 500 houses.
¿ They seemed in favor of the plant and they are waiting on us for the next move. I think they want to know how much they'd have to contribute for the construction and a rough estimate of the tariff.
¿ There has already been a study of their water done, and we are going to try to get a hold of that.
¿ Trips
o Marcala
¿ We visited Marcala on Thursday October 18, 2007. The wall of the old filter was built one wall thickness and was designed by Ing. Serrano. However, he says that he only did the design and another engineer oversaw the construction and that there wasn't enough steel bars put in the wall.
¿ Fred would like us to be involved in the capacitation of the fontaneros and with the running of the plant. He is hoping we can help train Nick Wobbrock (who also came with us) as he might have more time. He would like us to have a presence during June if possible.
¿ Fred also mentioned sloping the bottoms for drainage. For making the slopes he seemed to prefer using cement and said that if we were going to make a fake bottom for the tank that we would need to find something slippery or paint wood.
¿ He has his distribution tubes for the sedimentation tank staggered along the length of the tank but wants to use 45 degree elbows to place them all in the center of the tank width wise.
¿ He also mentioned that if there are tubes that go through walls or concrete that putting a rubber gasket around them would be helpful, and that would seal better.
¿ We also saw a way to seal flow in a tube where there are two plates and rubber between them, you then turn a screw that brings the plates closer together and squishes the rubber and seals the tube. It seems like a good idea, though you'd still have to stick your hands in the canal.
o La 34 - scheduled for Thursday October 25th tentatively.
Questions, work for Cornell Team
¿ Do you think 1 thick brick walls will be enough for the walls of the tank? When we met with Fred he didn't seem to think so. The walls in
¿ Are the launders and exit tubes for the Moroceli design going to be 6" we have been assuming so but thought we'd ask?
¿ Suggestions for materials for sloped bottoms?
¿ We were wondering if you could send us a more detailed description of the drawings you had for the waste valves. Where the water would flow, what the valves would be for, etc.
Plans for the Future
o Follow up with Marcala
o Trip to La 34