[AguaClara Summer Internship 2014] Introduction to AguaClara

With the summer session already underway, the basement of Hollister Hall is already abuzz with activity as 15 summer interns and their advisers work on 4 different projects. Under the direction of Monroe Weber-Shirk, these interns, ranging from undergraduates, graduate students, and even recent alumni, are volunteering 40 hours per week to work on these projects through June and July. This intensive summer program aims to bridge the gap between school years effectively without any loss of productivity and to set the stage for a successful new school year. With a full work week to devote to this project team, these students can discover and answer questions that may require intensive research and focus.

 

The teams that are working this summer are the Design team, Low Flow Stacked Rapid Sand Filter team, Foam Filter team, and the Tube Flocculation team. From now until the end of the summer session on August 1st, this blog will feature the subteams that are working together this summer and anything else happening within the project team.

Expectations are high this year for AguaClara in general, with two new plans expected to be put into operation as well as four Cornell engineers eager to join the engineers of AguaClara LLC working in Honduras and India. Expectations with the research groups back on campus are just as high with the projects on the tails of a productive 2013-2014 school year, and the students are eager to see how their research will translate to real applications in sustainable water treatment, sanitation, and health.

 There are real consequences to the research done on campus with real communities being affected. This video gives a glimpse of the problems we face in terms of clean water, and the next few blog posts will expound some of the solutions that the project team is developing this summer.

If you want to stay up to date with our upcoming achievements, check out our website and various social media accounts:

Official Website - http://aguaclara.cornell.edu/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CUAguaClara

Twitter - https://twitter.com/CUAguaClara

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXq9V81yyUOTQYokfp5wXfw

AguaClara Inc.: Seize the day

AguaClara is out of the box

It is no longer the best kept secret. We are receiving requests for designs from more and more countries. It is time to seize the moment. This is our time to make a difference. It is time to create AguaClara Inc. AguaClara is seeking impact investors who will make it possible to open a central office with a staff to begin networking and providing support services for implementation partners. In the coming weeks we will also need to identify the individuals who will provide the skill set, leadership, and experience necessary to establish AguaClara as the drinking water treatment technology of choice.

We've been preparing for this day!

I have been dreaming for many years of the day when news about AguaClara would spread globally and more importantly, that rapidly increasing demand for AguaClara technologies would leave us scrambling. My goal was to be as ready as possible for that moment so that AguaClara could scale quickly. Over the years we've had various ideas of how the spread might happen. Given our strong presence in Honduras we explored the possibility that the spread would be regional with an initial focus on Central America. Two years ago during the summer of 2010, I gave a short course at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala and I expected that it would result in the construction of AguaClara plants in Guatemala. Perhaps that short course was premature given that it was a stretch for us to provide adequate detail in our designs. We also didn't have a system in place then to provide technical support for a new partner to build AguaClara facilities. In any case, construction has not yet begun on AguaClara facilities in Guatemala. If we weren't ready in 2010, why do I think we are ready now?

Now we are ready!

Here are a few factors that suggest that scale up can begin. 2012 is a year of rapid transition for AguaClara.

• For the first time Honduran towns are paying Agua Para el Pueblo for AguaClara facility designs.
• I was invited to give a presentation to water sector professionals at the World Bank headquarters in Washington this spring.
• Arturo Diaz, subdirector of Agua Para el Pueblo, will be presenting the AguaClara program at the CLOCSAS (Latin American community based water and sanitation) conference in Cuenca, Ecuador next week.
• I was invited to present the AguaClara program at a World Bank conference in South Asia in early October.
• Our designs are now easily accessible.
• AguaClara plant performance data is available in real time.
• Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia is preparing to build an AguaClara plant to serve the campus community and to be a model.

Observation 1: The spread of AguaClara technologies is not going to be based on geographic proximity. The ease of communication and our strong presence on the internet means that the spread of AguaClara will be based on our rich network of connections rather than on geographic proximity.
Conclusion 1: AguaClara should prepare to spread globally and not just regionally.

Observation 2: Publicity about AguaClara is spreading at three levels. In Honduras the word is spreading among towns and cities. The word is spreading at the level of institutions that have the potential to become implementation partners. Finally the word is spreading within the development banks and at the level of policy makers. The AguaClara design server is receiving several requests from new countries every week.
Conclusion 2: The global spread has the potential to happen very quickly.

Observation 3: AguaClara technologies will only be implemented successfully with strong technical support. One of the reasons that AguaClara facilities have not been built outside of Honduras is that infrastructure is expensive and that new implementation partners are not willing to take the risk of adopting a new technology unless there is engineering support and institutional backing.
Conclusion 3: Services that include site specific design customization, capacity building, fabrication methods, certification, and ongoing technical support will be essential if AguaClara technologies are going to be widely adopted. AguaClara Inc. is needed to provide these services.

It is time for the count down!

The time to create AguaClara Inc. is now, before the end of 2012. AguaClara Inc. will make it possible for AguaClara technologies to spread globally. It is an opportunity to bring safe drinking water to hundreds of millions using technologies that are sustainable. It is an opportunity for graduates from the Cornell AguaClara program to use their engineering skills to make the world a better place. It is an opportunity to create a new standard for sustainable infrastructure based on simplicity on the other side of complexity.

We need your help to launch AguaClara Inc. We need wisdom. We need money. We need the best people we can assemble. Please contact us with your ideas and connections to help AguaClara Inc. launch successfully.

Contact us at AguaClara@cornell.edu or add to the discussion below!

8th AguaClara Plant Inaugurated

Yesterday on a small knoll on the outskirts of Atima, Santa Barbara in Honduras, a crowd gathered to celebrate the inauguration of the 8th AguaClara water treatment plant. There were speeches by Jacobo Nuñez of Agua Para el Pueblo, Rotarians from Baltimore and from Santa Barbara, and the mayor of Atima. Town residents toured the new water treatment plant and all enjoyed a celebratory meal together.

Jacobo Nuñez demonstrates the difference between the
dirty water entering the plant and the safe drinking water
produced by the plant.

The Atima project was several years in the making. An early potential bilateral donor turned down the project in part because the AguaClara plants don't use electricity and the bilateral donor thought that since Atima has electricity that we should use their "locally available materials". (Including electricity...). Eventually Dan Smith made connections with Rotarians and that turned into a strong relationship. The Rotarians funded the project, Atima provided labor and local materials, Agua Para el Pueblo provided the local design, construction supervision and capacity building, and AguaClara at Cornell provided the plant design. A partnership that is truly win-win-win-win with everyone contributing what they can and together doing what no one could do alone.
Atima marks a transition for the AguaClara program. AguaClara water treatment plants now produce over 100 L/s (more than 3.5 billion liters per year) and serve over 30,000 people. AguaClara is now a significant player in the world of safe drinking water. And AguaClara has technical capabilities that give us an unparalleled opportunity to scale up.

For the last seven years AguaClara has been synonymous with innovation. We've developed a whole suite of technologies and every plant that was built included multiple innovations. We used the power of feedback to drive continual improvements in our technologies and our implementation methods. AguaClara facilities were built at the rate of about 1 per year and even at that pace it was challenging to update our designs to include the new technologies for each new plant. I remember in 2007 when we were designing both Tamara and the retrofit plant at Marcala and the design team clearly stating that designing two plants in one year was too much. Since then the design team has developed amazing scalable design capabilities with our automated design tool. Beginning a few months ago we now maintain a stock of standard designs ready for use by implementation partners.

Atima marks the transition from full focus on technology development to a shared focus on deployment of the AguaClara technologies. Atima will likely be the last AguaClara plant to be built without a stacked rapid sand filter. Of course, innovation and technology development will continue! We have many years of productive research ahead to optimize plant performance and reduce construction costs. But now we have a new focus on taking the technology to scale.

We have an opportunity for a friendly competition between implementation partners. Where will the 9th AguaClara plant be built and who will build it? The 9th plant could be built in Colombia by AguaNova, in Guatemala under supervision of INFOM, in Nicaragua by CARE, In Ethiopia by Bahir Dar University, or in Honduras by Agua Para el Pueblo.

Help us take AguaClara to this new level where we methodically add new implementation partners who can build AguaClara plants.