Updates from San Juan Guarita and Las Vegas!

The 5 L/s plant in San Juan Guarita is now nearing the final stages of completion!  

The team is currently wrapping up fabrication of two Enclosed Stacked Rapid Sand Filters (EStaRS) with a PVC workshop in Tegucigalpa, and next week the team will travel to San Juan Guarita to begin work on the chemical dosing system.  On the social side the team has already narrowed the operators down to 6 final candidates, and there have been several water board meetings to discuss community expectations, plant sustainability, and a new tariff price.

In Las Vegas, the team is expecting to test the 70 L/s plant for the first time within the next two weeks!

This week the team of operators and APP technicians finished installing the entrance and exit modules for each of the four Open Stacked Rapid Sand Filters (OStaRS).  On the community level, six incredible operators have been chosen as final candidates, and APP has been holding neighborhood level workshops to create awareness and support for the new AguaClara technology. A chemical engineer was also hired for a full time role with the plant, and he will be in charge of monitoring the dose of HCl that is administered to prevent the formation of Calcium Carbonate in the distribution system.

Two new projects will begin in January, one a 30 L/s plant at the Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural School, and the second a 105 L/s plant in the city of Gracias, the capital of the department of Lempira. It also looks like a plant in La Concordia, Nicaragua is on the horizon early in 2017, and the team will be heading to Guatemala next week to assess the feasibility of a 70 L/s AguaClara plant in Quezaltepeque, Chiquimula. APP is taking steps to prepare for the busy year ahead and has hired an additional technician, and will also hold an internal workshop on Dec 2-3 to discuss best practices for our civil and environmental engineers, architects, plant foreman, and technical support roles. The future certainly looks bright here in Honduras and beyond!

Celebrate 3 milestones for AguaClara

1 L/s plant ships to Honduras for testing

The 1 L/s sedimentation tank is shipping to Honduras VERY SOON. It will leave the Hollister Hall loading dock for Miami this afternoon! The pallet weighs 625 lbs without the flocculator. We will assemble a new pipe flocculator in Honduras in January.

We have 2 student teams working to design a shorter filter that can be added to the 1 L/s plant and that won't require placement at a lower elevation than the rest of the plant.

I dream that by the end of summer 2017 we will have a full plant including flocculator and stacked rapid sand filter that makes a complete prefabricated package.

The AguaClara team is raising funds for the trip to Honduras. 

This trip will include testing of the 1 L/s plant and if all goes well we will create a plan for the next steps toward using the plant to provide safe drinking water for a community. It takes a community to provide the financial support so that Cornell students can continue the AguaClara RIDE.

Demand for AguaClara water treatment plants continues to grow 

Agua Para el Pueblo has requests for preliminary designs for communities in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras. My dream of expanding to more countries seems to be happening organically based on the reputation of the plants in Honduras. The growing demand will require evolution of the AguaClara program as we work to ensure that our designs are construction ready and that we have designs for a wider range of flow rates. I'm always looking for wisdom for how to guide the program to expand while maintaining high quality water and the highest quality education!