Gracias, Lempira

John, Tamar, and Lic. Arturo presented to an audience of about 20 people in the Municipality of Gracias, Lempira on Tuesday 11.25.08. This was our second meeting to discuss the potential of an AguaClara plant in the community. There was very positive interest, especially from the mayor. We brought the demo plant, but unfortunately it was not functioning well.

Aside from the mayor, the head of Tourism, members of various community organizations and NGOs and people from the Health Center attended. At the end of the presentation after many questions, we decided the next step would be to leave a turbidity meter for data collection. The day we were there the turbidity was 0.90 NTU, creating some doubts as to the severity of turbidity problems there. Unfortunately, the rainiest part of the year has already passed and we might need to wait for next year's storms to see real turbidity.

There was also interest for attendees to come and visit the Marcala plant. We are hoping to schedule this for Thursday Jan 15th, to coincide with when the students from Cornell are visiting. We left copies of the presentation with interested people from the health center. Since they are currently working on a budget proposal to upgrade their entire water system, it seems they would be able to provide all the construction costs for the plant.

Mercedes, Ocotepeque

Tamar continued with Lic. Arturo to Mercedes to check on the CCC's. Working alongside Antonio Cuellar, the technician working for APP and the municipality, we visited Limoncito, Miraflores #1 and Miraflores #2.

Limoncito: Lots of sediment had settled in the CCC and it seemed not to have been cleaned in quite some time. The fontanero ______ mentioned that a lot of people where not happy with the smell of chlorine in the water. They are sometimes putting about 2.5lbs of chlorine instead of the 3.5lbs sugested by the formula. It appears that the float was not sitting level with the water, and therefore rusted, not closing properly and submerged in chlorine. We decided to install a new CCC with a wider-neck bottle so that the fontanero would more easily be able to clean the bottom of the bottle and ensure the float is working. (The old bottles do not allow you to put your arm inside the bottle.)

Miraflores #1:

Miraflores #2: The CCC was functioning well and the fontanero Jose Eldaza Mancia Alvares has been cleaning out the tube with vinegar every 2 weeks.

Las Cuatro Comunidades

Construction continues. This week they put together all of the reinforcement that gets anchored into the floor of the tanks. This includes a re-bar grid inside the floor and columns and uprights that rise up out of the floor and reinforce the walls. On Friday, they poured the floor.

The first training session, focussing on water quality and the measurement of turbidity, chlorine residual and pH, is planned for this Friday.