28 August 2016

New 5 L/s Plant in San Juan Guarita, Lempira, Honduras!

Construction of Honduras' smallest AguaClara plant yet is under way in San Juan Guarita, Lempira. The plant will treat 5 L/s for about 200 households in this small municipality in southwestern Honduras and will feature several innovations to the AguaClara technology.

The San Juan Guarita plant will be the first to include our new, compact entrance tank and flocculator design. The new entrance tank is compact enough that it fits in the first channel of the flocculator, eliminating the significant capital cost of building a completely separate tank. The new flocculator design incorporates additional obstructions between baffles to provoke more collisions (more chances for flocs to stick together!) in the previously unused space.

The plant will also be the first in Honduras to use the EStaRS (Enclosed Stacked Rapid Sand Filter) technology. These filters are closed to the atmosphere, as opposed to the OStaRS (Open), and will be pre-fabricated from 24" PVC pipe in a PVC workshop in Tegucigalpa. These filters don't require as much depth, or excavation, so they're less expensive to build.

Construction of the plant began at the beginning of July and is expected to continue through the end of October. Operator training and water board capacity building will be starting shortly.

Click here to see the latest pictures of the plant in San Juan Guarita!