Africa Water Purification

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
Fun Reading

Josh,

I am taking the liberty of answering publically, as many people are interested in being helpful.

It is clear that religion is important to you. Religious groups working in the CAR include:

http://www.bmm.org/BMM/WhereWeServe/Africa/centralafricanrepublic.htm

http://www.sim.org/index.php/country/CF

http://www.icdinternational.org/about.html

http://www.fateb.net/

Many of these folks were born here or grew up here and would be willing to tell you the truth.

Other groups include:

http://www.merlin-usa.org/Where-we-work/Central-African-Republic.aspx

http://www.imcworldwide.org/section/work/africa_central/car

http://www.acted.org/2009/01/27/motorcycle-diary-in-the-central-african-republic/

... and the usuals, Medicins sans Frontiers, Human Rights Watch, etc.

Before even thinking of actually coming here, you should read and fully understand the Department of State Travel Warning: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_940.html

And finally, read the US Embassy website: http://bangui.usembassy.gov/ (Not much there yet, but at least it exists and has the latest travel information.)

The CAR is one of the most difficult, dangerous, and expensive countries on earth in which to try to operate. Good French and Sango are essential. Arabic is useful in the north. (But the north is pretty much inaccessible these days.) As a point of reference, many more Central Africans flee to Darfur as refugees than flee to the CAR. (About 3000, tops) In contrast, there are between 100,000 and 200,000 internally displaced persons in the CAR as well as over 80,000 refugees (mostly Fulani) split between Cameroon and Chad. Since February, another 15,000+ women and children have fled to Chad. Now you see why people prefer to go to Kenya. And besides, Kenya has hotels. And electricity. And water. And doesn't have Yellow Fever.

Charlie Jewel and Jim Hocking in particular can share real insights.


Happy reading! I hope this is useful.
 
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Vision Quest

Observer
Well if you investigate it a little it doesn't take much a good solar panel could probably do it. Or some type of a D.C. source, automotive batteries or such. We're brain storming here. If this system can be used in Northern Afghanistan after a major earth quake then it could possibly work here.
 

UK4X4

Expedition Leader
It sounds so easy- the american military supplying a wonderful safe water making machine in a remote area.

The US military is not known for its lack of equipment..........

Rural Africa....is slightly diferent

and even if you shipped something wonderfull in.........

it has to be sustainable

batteries wear out - and equipment fails

here in Oman 1 year is about average for a car battery due to the heat

Lets discuss

The fuse blows on the simple solar panel system -due to a small solder problem on the charge controller

who in the village knows what the fuse is
who in the village knows how to check it
who in the village has a multimeter
does the village multimeter have a battery
OK who stole the screwdriver to open the fuse holder
Dam who used a allen head screw...
two day trip to main town to find a allen key
faulty fuse is removed
spares kit was lost the last time the village was raided
a nail is put in its place
The system fires up again
due to the fuse being changed out for a nail the
charge controller fry's.

system is now defunct

the next month while Mr Utombi is in the main town 100km away sending out his e-mails about the lost millions in his cellar.

he decides to contact the original church group who sent them the wonderful system in the first place.

they hold a bake sale and swap meet to raise the cash for the spare parts.

A month goes by

Shipping by sea takes 2 months

The package gets opened by customs and the shiny allen screwdriver set
gets mis-appropiated.

The unit gets loaded onto the next truck heading to X village, but breaks down on route- another three week delay occurs while a spare part is located.

The unit arrives at the village- they can't remove the old one as the shiny allenkey set is missing.

so the unit is wired up using some bailing wire and held on with string

The batteries by this point have been sat in the sun for 4 months and are completely dead.

The system luckily starts up but dies every night as the batteries wont hold a charge.


the next month while Mr Utombi is in the main town 100km away sending out his e-mails about the lost millions in his cellar.

he decides to contact the original church group who sent them the wonderful system in the first place.

...............


meanwhile the villagers have been drinking unsafe water for 6 months
and there are 4 less villagers.

The village cow uses the solar panel as a scratching post,
the kids sit underneath in the shade picking off the crumbling insulation off the chinese made wires...hey look these spark when touched together...szzzzz zzzzzzz pop.......

while the batteries are underway
hopefully missing the somali pirates

1 small copper track on the panel becomes fried.

During the rainy season the panels get used to mend the hole in the village heads huts as they are worthless not producing enough water.

By the time the new batteries arrive no one can find the cables, the bailing wire got used as a hinge on the cattle coral.

The charge controller sits on the ground smashed where the village cow finally rubs it off the post where it was held on by string.

The batteries get sold for medicine for the sick, two cases of beer and 3 new cows are purchased for the village

The heads hut has the prettiest roof in town and still no clean drinking water.

6 months later they get visited by another misionary from Tibets church of the golden fleese, Down town detroit branch
who notice the bad situation with the water and promise the villagers that their problems will soon be over
and that the blue portaloo they brought with them will help with the water quality issue by keeping the water supply clean.

They leave with smilling sunburnt faces 3 new converts and left behind is 1 blue tardis and a gallon bucket of chemical

The cow is happy as he now has a new shiny scratching post and the kids love the new indoor fishing pool

:costumed-smiley-007

Funs over and now back to the challenge


Clean healthy drinking water is not as easy as it first seems


I think Preacherman is approaching it in the right way, thinking through the issue and looking at long term sustainable, rather than a quick fix.

His projects to date look to be established and continually supported......which is the only way outside help works in Africa and others.
 
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DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
Solar Panels ...

Put in lots to power wells in the Ogaden.

-- Half stolen within six months, (see comment below about discos)

-- The rest are bright and shiney - great for target practice.

(Both true stories.)

Technology flows out of the society, it cannot simply be imported. Africa is littered with useful and appropriate technology that was rejected by various societies.

On the other hand, things that people want - AK47, Thuraya - becomes a sustained part of society immediately. I don't see many solar powered wells but I do see lots of solar panels being used to recharge cell phones or to provide power for batteries to provide power for sound systems at the local disco. Similarly motorized bicyles, motorcycles, and motorized mills to grind corn or manioc are completely supported while powered pumps are rare.

Fresh water is essential for health, but it is not always the highest priority of a given society - incredible as that may seem. Same is often true for roads.

Of course, the reverse is also true. In areas where people cooperate to sustain irrigation, etc., standards of living surge forward. The folks in the linked article about the PRT are doing it right - they are seeking local buy in. With luck they will have 10-25% success. If they achieve that much, they will have done great things and it will have been worth the effort.
 
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dlbrunner

Adventurer
http://www.waterforpeople.org/site/PageServer

check the above link for resources.

I am surprised no one has mentioned a slow sand filter yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_sand_filter

Also when chlorinating, it is best to dose then test the water, if the levels are low, dose again. Not only is the Free chlorine residual be based on the initial concentration of the chlorine added, it is also based on the constituents in the raw water. If you have a lot of Nitrate, that Cl will get tied up pretty quick forming chloramines. Also high turbidity and/or high levels of TOC (not genreally a problem with well water) will sequester chlorine quickly as well.
 

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
Good Link

But notice that Water for People only operates in relatively developed countries. To their great credit, they specifically focus on sustainable technologies. Countries like Bolivia and Guatemala are, however, light years ahead of places like the Congo and much safer than the triborders of CAR with Chad, Sudan, and Congo.

Sand filters generally have to be large to produce enough water to be effective, require access to sand and gravel, and require a fair amount of large scale maintenance. They may also require serious earth moving/pumping effort to get the raw water above the filter bed. (One reason that they work well for municipal water supply in a developed country.) However, in developed societies, you usually chlorinate the final water to kill the crawlies. Third World water is simply alive with parasites usually from human/animal feces. No sand filter removes amoeba. (Ameoba can, however, remove your liver, assuming you live that long.)

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, if it were easy, people would not be dying every day from water borne disease. One way people can help is by providing the money to dig that initial deep well and by paying for the maintenance for a pump. All of these organizations help meet a heartbreaking need.
 

dlbrunner

Adventurer
But notice that Water for People only operates in relatively developed countries. To their great credit, they specifically focus on sustainable technologies. Countries like Bolivia and Guatemala are, however, light years ahead of places like the Congo and much safer than the triborders of CAR with Chad, Sudan, and Congo.

Sand filters generally have to be large to produce enough water to be effective, require access to sand and gravel, and require a fair amount of large scale maintenance. They may also require serious earth moving/pumping effort to get the raw water above the filter bed. (One reason that they work well for municipal water supply in a developed country.) However, in developed societies, you usually chlorinate the final water to kill the crawlies. Third World water is simply alive with parasites usually from human/animal feces. No sand filter removes amoeba. (Ameoba can, however, remove your liver, assuming you live that long.)

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, if it were easy, people would not be dying every day from water borne disease. One way people can help is by providing the money to dig that initial deep well and by paying for the maintenance for a pump. All of these organizations help meet a heartbreaking need.

Certainly. Clean water and sanitation is the major contributor to 1st world countries life expectancy.

As for Sand filters, They can be built on just about any scale, obviously the bigger, the more effective. As for materials, I would say it would be easier to source sand and gravel in a remote locale than say a filter cartrige, or having to wait for the next truck to deliver some complex mechanical part.

Maintenance- Sure it is labor intensive, but it is simple. No moving parts, nothing to break really.

As for Amoeba- a sand filter can remove them, not 100% sure, but the risk is lowered.

The water argument really opens up a whole can of worms, if you want a villiage to be healthy and happy, it would seem that more than just clean water is needed, surely water is one of the keystones though. You need Sanitation, a good food source, Education, health care, and other infastructure in a sustainable manner. It almost becomes a chicken and egg question, how do you sequentially or simultaneously solve each problem to get the best possible output.

As for deep wells- It will require more than pump maintenance. Depending on the chemistry of the water, the casing will require maintenance work, the slotts in the well may need to be cleaned on a periodic basis. How are you going to power the pump? Generator? If you don't have power, then the generator will need maintenance. How do you fuel the generator? While I think it is a good idea to have a deep well, in my mind it brings up a lot more issues to deal with. The maintenance issues will require specialized tools, people who do that kind of work on a regular basis.

Here in the USA, we have communities that have a difficult time keeping their well operational because they don't have the resources to do it, I see it every day. Given the limited resources (financial, techical, and operational) that these small African villages have (listed above), It seems the challenge would be even greater...
 

UK4X4

Expedition Leader
"Here in the USA, we have communities that have a difficult time keeping their well operational because they don't have the resources to do it, I see it every day. Given the limited resources (financial, techical, and operational) that these small African villages have (listed above), It seems the challenge would be even greater... "

yep if it were easy it would have been done by now..........

Its not just the physical equipment but how to make it work long term
 

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
People Power

Wells are driven by people, usually women and young girls. See: http://www.icdinternational.org/wells.html Note the essential community engagement to build and later maintain.

BUT! Ten thousand points for the chicken or egg question. People are not poor because they lack wells, they lack water because they are poor. And they are poor because they lack to political/economic structures to gain an education, amass capital, and build communal structures.

It is as simple, or complex, as that. Over twenty years of civil war makes it hard to live better. :-(
 

Vision Quest

Observer
We the do gooders usually end up dead heroes with a lot of expensive junk laying around. I guess I forgot that lesson since it happened in Somalia. No matter how hard we try, if people are unwilling to come together for the common good should we continue to try? If the Marine Corps taught me nothing else, you help those who want it and protect them from those that don't.
 

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
Somalia Scars?

Fortunately, mine are not deep.

"No matter how hard we try, if people are unwilling to come together for the common good should we continue to try?"

To make your point, compare Somaliland with Somalia around Mogadishu. Somaliland has been at peace for fifteen years, Mogadishu, well, maybe this year, if Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed can stay alive. The CAR has been in some form of civil war since 1980. Life expectancy here is lower than Mogadishu.

As you might gather, these issues are at the core of my day job and I spend a lot of time worrying about war, peace, and development. The point is not that people should not try to help; quite the contrary. But rather they should moderate their expectations and understand why things that might seem obvious may not always work in the real world. Conversely, other things, which may not seem like the best idea, have been proven to be effective.
 
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Vision Quest

Observer
Well if nothing else I'm glad that their are people like yourself that are willing to to endeavor in diplomacy. Not every problem can be solved with a "big stick" so to speak. Is clean water a feasible prospect in a village in the middle of nowhere? Apparently a bottle of bleach or a touch of Iodine might be the only prospect.
 

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