Honduras Interns Progress Report
Date: 6/25/08
Location: Tamara
Tamara Construction and Socialization
WORK COMPLETED THIS WEEK
Data from the start of the Tamara water plant is attached
We have had trouble with rising flocs in the sedimentation tank but the turbidity does not go above 5. This could be a product of overdosing. Wednesday June 25th we changed the sulfate concentration in the main barrel so that the operator has more control over the dose.
Everyday about a ¼ in of sludge accumulates on top of the water in the floc/sed/canal of the plant. Tried to install 3" foam drain pipes. The design didn't work too well the 2" pipe fills up too fast and doesn't drain well. Any movement of the top sludge causes flocs to enter in the exit tank.
The valves in the entrance tank are being regulated to control the water level in the entrance tank.
No progress has been made on the house for the plant operator. The Junta is not sure it has the funds to do the job. Making sure the house gets built should be a priority.
Currently the operator, Carlos, is staying day and night at the plant. He is being paid 4,000 L a month for this job. We are worried that this is too little and that it is hard for him to work day and night at the plant.
We will have a final training with the Junta on Wednesday July 2nd and July 3rd. They have been asked to identify at least 2 more operators so that we can fully capacitate them.
We are currently working on adding more water the plant to give to the community and working our way up to having water 24/7. I have concerns about how the plant will function at full flow. We reached 180 gal/min and the flocs appeared to be significantly smaller.
Karim the fontanero that works on the system is learning the plant and Antonio is working with him to collect data on chlorine below and communicate with Carlos on chlorine residual in the houses.
Chlorine residual in the tanks has been a problem, but are monitoring and investigating the cause.
FUTURE PLANS, ONGOING TASKS
Revise the manual written at Cornell last year for the lamina modules. This will probably happen after we start building the modules and can take pictures.(John)
Help the Junta with a maintence plan for the sources
La 34 (not till later in the year, closer to rainy season)
Communicate to set up a visit to La 34
Make minor repairs and capacitate Jose Angel
Marcala
Nick Wobbrock came to the Tamara inauguration and toured the plant and asked questions about operation and maintence. He has since been back in Marcala helping out with the plant.
Ojojona
The meeting to raise the water tariff for Ojojona has been set for Sunday July 5th.
We loaned the Ojojona Junta 6 six sacks of 25kg of Aluminum sulfate. They are to replace it before the end of July. They were recently robbed of 35,000L and as such aren't in a position to pay for sulfate.
Improvements - Thursday June 19th Antonio, Ing. Serrano, John, and Carol went to Ojojona to make minor improvements to the plant.
We tested cleaning the Controlador de Caudal de Cloro(CCC) with Vinegar and it worked well. Perhaps this should be recommended with all CCC's. We will try working with it more in Tamara.
We installed sludge drain pipes in the two sed tanks that currently just had drains. They now all have 3 1 ½" tubes connected to the drain running the length of the tanks with 18 holes of 3/8" Diameter.
The water level in Ojojona was raised another 10 cm by putting two 45 degree elbows in near the elbow that maintains the water level.
We are going to try to limit our visits to Ojojona to once a month to collect data.
Meetings
Meetings with Mayors en San Marcos, Ocotopeque
Arturo and Jacobo are currently in the process of working out the details of this presentation. They are hoping the Mayor of Mercedes will set a date and extend the invitation to other Mayors in the area.
We are hoping that some of the funds the Municipality receives could be used for supporting the construction of part or all of the plant.
FCM - Carol and Antonio
We have started the search for parts to make a CCC in Honduras. We found the bottle in a laboratory store. We found parts that are similar to the connectors in Do it Center Indufesa. When we went they were unable to attend to us to figure out if there the parts we needed were in their catalog or could be ordered from the states.
We will make a return trip this week
We have been unable to find anything similar to the float valve in Honduras
Circuit Rider - Entire Team
Still working on setting up a meeting between Fred, Jacobo and Arturo.
New Communities - Carol
Community standing/more information on New communities
4 communities and Agalteca still are at the top of the new communities list. Zambrano has currently had extremely clean water (under 3 NTU) for about 98% of the monitoring time and we are already into the rainy season. We will continue monitoring their water quality.
Ingeniero Garcia va llevar turbidimeters for Mercedes and Plan de Rosario to measure their turbidity during the rainy season. We also have a turbidimeter in Tambla. We hope to put more turbidimeters in other communities and gather as much information as possible.
Controladores de Caudal de Cloro Installation - Carol & Antonio
We are still monitoring Ojojona, Tmara (la flor), Zambrano, and 4 communities.
There will be a manual made on the installation of CCC's
FUTURE WORK
Work on meeting with CRS to install CCC's
Work on finding parts for CCC's
Identify communities in which to leave turbidimeters
Plan meetings for Mayors and with Fred