Final Report: Design of Sustainable Water Supply and

Distribution System for Pignon, Haiti

EPA Grant Number: SU833549
Title: Design of Sustainable Water Supply and Distribution System for
Pignon, Haiti
Investigators: Pagilla, Krishna , Abdullahi, Abdulkamal B. , Ballog,
Matt , Bielskus, Algirdas , Dike, Chukwuderaa , Miot, Alexandre , Nizich,
Adam , Radloff, Eric , Rokita, Mark , Taylor, Mark , Venkatesan,
Dhesikan , Weissman, Kathryn
Institution: Illinois Institute of Technology
EPA Project Officer: Nolt-Helms, Cynthia
Project Period: October 1, 2007 through May 29, 2008
Project Amount: $10,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability
Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2007)RFA Text | Recipients
Lists
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3
Challenge Area - Water , P3 Awards , Sustainability

Objective:

We created the Haiti Outreach student organization with a long-term vision,

given the impoverished, underdeveloped environment the people of Haiti live
in today.

All people deserve access to clean water, and an adequate level of

education. We may not change the face of Haiti but we can certainly improve
the lives of many -one community at a time.

Because of better awareness, more and more students are interested in

sustainable development and are willing to volunteer to help communities in
need. Our organization gives them the opportunity to learn and make a
difference in Haiti; our poor neighbor situated only 600 miles away from
Floridas coast.

Haiti Outreach has been working in Haiti for over ten years, they are aware
of the real needs of the population and the social context of their country.
Combining their field experience, the expertise of the IIT community in many
fields and the enthusiasm of the students will lead to sustainable solutions
for the Haitian people. In addition to helping population in need, students are
given an opportunity to apply their skills on real life team projects that
challenge them outside of the classroom.

As of January 2008, we have had over forty students work on this project.
Some students compute, design and draw; others manage, communicate
and fundraise, but they all work towards the same goal: to make a difference
and spread a bit of their good fortune to those less fortunate.

The main components of the project are as follows:

1. Supply an adequate amount of safe water to the village of Pignon we

be able to improve the living and working conditions for its 7,500
citizens. The current practice of going to the water source for collection
is time consuming and exposes populations in lower altitudes to
contract water borne diseases.

2. Students from engineering, architecture and environmental science

backgrounds will collaborate with the water committee of Pignon to
collect data, and determine the capacity and service area of the
proposed water distribution network.

3. The design of the system will utilize sustainable methods of pumping,

maximize existing infrastructure and it will incorporate methods of
monitoring that will reduce waste from the network. Strengthening
existing links between stakeholders and interested partners will further
enhance the long-term sustainability of the proposed project.

4. The multi-disciplinary hands-on learning experience this project

requires will promote the value of collaboration. It will also challenge
students to devise new methods of information and data collection in
the context of a developing community.

Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):

In conducting a survey of the population we found that Pignon is in need of a

sustainable water supply and distribution system. We had no prior available
data on the town, so we collected elevation data, figured water demand and
modeled it against the supply, mapped the entire town, took a census of the
population, and analyzed the flaws of the existing system. In examining the
spring caps and stand pipe we found that it was necessary to repair them. It
was also necessary to burry the pipe line connecting them in order to protect
the pipe. We decided to use ramp pumps following the stand pipes. The ramp
pump uses the energy from the drop of the water from the top of the stand
pipe. This will not nearly be enough water to supply the town, so we
designed a 15000gal buffer tank to collect the overflow from the ramp pump.
A 125 gpm vertical pump will pump the water from buffer tank to the cistern.
This requires lot of energy as it has to pump the water 140ft of head. A solar
power system will power the pumps as Pignon does not have any other
sources of reliable energy. In order to prevent water borne disease a
disinfection system was designed which will inject the required chlorine dose
of 2mg/l into the pipes. The 45000gal cistern standing above the town will
gravity feed a PVC distribution network. This network will connect the cistern
to 10 public water kiosks and private connections to 10% of the population.
We have also laid out management strategies to make the system self
sustainable. The people will pay for the water and this will cover the
expenses of operating and maintaining the system.

Conclusions:

One projected outcome of the Haiti Outreach water project for Pignon, Haiti is
to be a good barometer for future water projects for third world countries.
One of the obvious direct benefits of this project is potable water for a large
group of people, in a country where potable water is the exception rather
than the norm. Having quick and easy access to potable water will lead to a
variety of vast improvements in the quality of life, such as increased life
expectancy, reduction in water-borne illnesses, and increase in usable time
daily. The people of Pignon stand to see a positive change in all of the above
when the proposed system is implemented. In addition to these, the citizens
of Pignon will see an increase in investment opportunities in the local market,
as clean water is an essential part of any restaurant, bar, or food service.
This will lead to the citizens moving toward prosperity and naturally evolving
economic opportunities. An immediate economic impact will be the creation
of jobs involving the maintenance of the system. With these further
economic opportunities, citizens will reinvest in Pignon and life will be better
for all.

Proposed Phase II Objectives and Strategies:

The scope of the Phase II involves meeting with the Pignon water committee
and finalizing preliminary design, completing respective detailed design, and
implementation of the project. Our preliminary design is complete, so we
need to discuss it with Pignon leaders and the water committee. Once we are
in agreement and we finalize the preliminary design, we can begin work on a
detailed design. This design will incorporate all details necessary for
construction. While working on this detailed design, we will be fundraising
and presenting our project everywhere possible. We have recently presented
at the ISAWA, IWEA, and CSWEA conferences, making many contacts and
receiving much support. We had a celebration dinner celebrating the
progress of our project and this dinner had 250 attendees and we received
over $10,000 in donations. Everything is working itself into place and it wont
be long before construction begins in Pignon. As the water system is under
construction students will periodically be travelling to Pignon to monitor and
supervise the project.

Supplemental Keywords:
Drinking water, groundwater, health benefits, pollution prevention, public
good, pump, storage tank, gravity fed water system, ram pump, micro-
turbines, source capping, waterborne disease, renewable energy, solar
energy, Geographic Information System, Map, Haiti, Pignon, environmental
engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, technology for
sustainable environment, sustainable development, waste minimization,
education, training,
Relevant Websites:

http://www.iit.edu/~haiti/ Exit
http://www.haitioutreach.org/ Exit

original abstract

Objective:
This project proposes a design of sustainable water supply and distribution
system for Pignon, Haiti by the students of Illinois Institute of Technology
with guidance from faculty and practicing professionals.

Approach:

The main components of the project are: 1) By an adequate amount of safe

water to the village of Pignon in the Central Plateau Region of Haiti, we will
be able to improve the living and working conditions for its 30,000 citizens.
The current practice of going to the water source for collection is time
consuming and exposes populations in lower altitudes to contract water
borne diseases. 2) Students from engineering, architecture and
environmental science backgrounds will collaborate with the water
committee of Pignon to collect data to determine the capacity and service
area of the proposed water distribution network. 3) The design of the system
will utilize sustainable methods of pumping, maximize existing infrastructure
and incorporate methods of monitoring that will reduce waste from the
network. Strengthening existing links between stakeholders and interested
partners will further enhance the long-term sustainability of the proposed
project. 4) The multi-disciplinary hands-on learning experience this project
requires will promote the value of collaboration. It will also challenge
students to devise new methods of information and data collection in the
context of a developing community.

Expected Results:

The project has the potential to be a model of water resource management

in the region. The project embodies the concepts of people, prosperity, and
planet in improving the lives of people in Pignon, Haiti.

Supplemental Keywords:

Dri
 The Development of Effective Community Water Supply Systems Using Deep and
Shallow Well Handpumps
Report No TT 132/00

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

Hand pumps are already used extensively allover South Africa for community water supplies. In
some areas these pumps, or additional ones, are also used for livestock watering and even
micro industries such as brick-making. Yet, despite the fact that boreholes equipped with hand
pumps are among the simplest of community water supply technologies, much of the
investment has been very ineffective in providing for the basic needs of these people because
of high failure rates.

At any time, approximately 50% of the pumps installed for these dependent communities are not
working. Often the users cannot even find out if the failure is due to the borehole drying up or to
a mechanical pump failure. Of the pumps that are working, the majority are in extremely poor
condition, causing long priming times in the morning and continued low delivery rates thereafter.
The reason for the low delivery rates is not always clear. Pump handles have often been
replaced by improvised ones, are loose at the point of attachment and have bearings that are
worn right through. When pumps fail completely, it is often several months before they are
repaired. The atrocious availability and performance are due to poor borehole development,
inadequate pump design, poor pump selection and installation and, above all, completely
inadequate monitoring and maintenance.

Water quality from many of the installations is poor. Sometimes the poor water quality is due
solely to contamination caused by corrosion products leached from an incorrectly selected
borehole pump and/ or casing material.

International experience has demonstrated that high failure rates are not inevitable and that
hand pump installations can be transformed into effective reliable low-cost solutions through the
systematic adoption of appropriate design technologies and implementation policies. A key
factor in achieving this transformation, as motivated and reported by the World Bank, has been
the adoption of the VLOMconcept for the provision of these hand pumps. This concept starts
with the selection of handpumps specifically designed for Village Level Operation and
Maintenance and extends to the whole question of the benefits of community participation,
management and ownership, the training I, and employment of community operation and
maintenance technicians, and the reduction (but not elimination) of the communities'
dependence on external support systems.

The latest information available from the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF)
indicates that there are approximately 18 million people living in South Africa without access to a
basic safe water supply, as defined by the RDP minimum level of service (DWAF, 2000), and
that at current rates of investment it will take between 25 and 40 years to bring these people up
to this minimum adequate level of service (DWAF, 1999). For health reasons alone, there is an
urgent need to make an improved water supply to the maximum number of people in the
minimum period of time a major national goal. On the basis of requiring the shortest lead time
and lowest total monetary investment, the hand pump option is probably the best current choice
for an intermediate improved level of service for at least-one third of the 18 million people
currently with an inadequate water supply.

It is therefore of vital importance that hand pump manufacturers, suppliers, users, planners and
project implementation agencies have access to up-to-date comprehensive information on the
strengths and weaknesses of hand pump installations and how the VLOM concept can and
should be implemented.

AIMS

The aims of the research project were therefore to propose a strategy for overcoming these
diverse problems in a cost-effective manner in order to improve the effectiveness of hand pump
installations in meeting community needs nationwide.

With these aims in mind the work was planned in two phases.

The aim of phase I was to review the situation in South Africa by:

establishing the essential requirements for effective hand pump installations,

evaluating current practices to highlight problem areas,

assessing the economics and effectiveness of centralised maintenance, and

evaluating the handpumps currently available in South Africa and the back-up service
provided by suppliers.

The aim of phase 2 was to formulate a cost -effective strategy for overcoming the key
organisational and technical problems highlighted during phase I. This was done by:

assessing the potential of VLOM pumps for use in South Africa, such as the SKAT
Afridev, the India Mark III and the Netherlands Volanta, and

assessing the potential for training community-based operation and maintenance

personnel and for introducing community management of maintenance.

The research succeeded in taking account of these objectives and has resulted in this report
which comprises the following chapters:

a literature survey supplemented with information obtained from hand pump suppliers
and personal communications,

an overview of South African hand pump installations and an analysis of records of

groundwater levels and corrosiveness, and borehole recovery rates,

the results of a survey of hand pump stakeholders comprising a survey of South African
hand pump manufacturers, a worldwide survey of hand pump purchasers and a survey
of hand pump users in rural villages from the Southern District of Northern Province,
South Africa,
 a description of the planned test-rig evaluation of hand pumps, and

a discussion of the previous sections leading to conclusions and recommendations.

MAJOR FINDINGS

The literature survey was done to highlight the critical constraints impeding effective service
delivery and to check how others had solved them. Technical problems reported were more
extensive than anticipated. Whilst practical solutions were usually given, the occurrence of
these problems does stress the need for careful project implementation and the systematic
checking of site-specific criteria as implementation proceeds. The criteria to be checked are set
out in five boxes in the final chapter of the report. Soft issues related to community participation
and empowerment, skills training, cost recovery, transparency, the setting-up of a proper spares
network and the building of capacity in decentralised institutions were also reported in the
literature. The need for ongoing monitoring of village-level institutions was not stressed but
appears to be essential for long-term effectiveness.

The in-depth analysis of borehole and hand pump installation records was done to determine
the extent to which the different critical constraints highlighted from the literature apply in South
Africa. The analysis confirmed that they all apply. In addition, there is strong evidence that daily
water level drawdown during pumping causes the average depth from which water is pumped in
South Africa to be significantly greater than in the rest of the world.

The survey of different stakeholders was done to achieve better problem definition, to learn from
the experience of others and to examine conflicting evidence before proposing a plan of action
to implement effective community water supply systems using hand pumps. The survey of
South African manufacturers established that they make robust products in adequately
equipped facilities to comprehensive quality control procedures. However, despite the urgent
need as evidenced by all the other sections of this report, none make hand pumps incorporating
VLOM concepts or corrosion- resistant materials. This appears to be due to purchasers' buying
on price alone and without an adequate specification. The survey of hand pump purchasers
revealed that most understand what is required to produce more effective installations.
However, in contrast to purchasers from outside South Africa, local purchasers generally had a
very negative attitude towards hand pumps, which must lower their motivation to strive for
improved installations.

Users made it clear that they appreciated the hand pumps in their villages (when they worked).
The alternatives, buying water from vendors, using unsafe water from rivers, relying on springs
that dried up every winter and digging in river beds in search of clean water, all gave the users
an appreciation of the benefits of village hand pumps. As well as using them for domestic water
supplies, the majority of communities use their hand pumps for at least one other purpose:
livestock watering 47%, community gardens 33% and building 13%. This indicates the
importance of ensuring the effectiveness of hand pump systems until they are upgraded to a
higher level of service.

However, this appreciation should not be confused with satisfaction. Varying levels of
dissatisfaction and unrealistic demands will still be the norm until users understand the costs
associated with other options and see equitable tariffs more closely related to these costs being
introduced systematically throughout their region for those who can afford them. In addition
many communities fear that making hand pump systems more effective will jeopardise their
hopes of obtaining a higher level of service later. All communities want to know that they are
being heard with consideration. A synthesis of their comments on what is required to provide an
effective service using hand pumps follows.

"Check the quality of the water before deciding if and how the borehole is to be fitted out.
Improve the delivery rate of the pumps; this includes ensuring good preventative
maintenance. Make the pumps more reliable. Above all shorten the time for repairs. Put
in more pumps closer to our homes; this will cut down the walking and queueing times,
and will also reduce the number of breakdowns because the pumps will not have to work
so hard."

RECOMMENDATIONS

The consolidated findings from the literature survey, the analysis of borehole and hand pump
installation records, and the surveys of hand pump stakeholders indicate that three broad areas
of project implementation have to be carried out competently to achieve effective community
hand pump systems. The three broad areas are:

the development of the borehole and the measurement of recovery rates,

the selection and installation of the hand pumps, and

ensuring adequate village, local government and private enterprise institutional and skills
capacity.

The three broad areas of hand pump project implementation can be broken down into greater
detail as follows:

The borehole

Select drilling positions with the future customers.

Check that the water quality is fit for purpose - health, taste and colour.

Check if the borehole should be developed by over-pumping, intermittent pumping,

backwashing or surging.

Check the borehole pumping yield and recovery rates for different drawdown depths by
doing, a simple constant drawdown and recovery-from-drawdown test.

If the recovery rates are all very low consider hydro-fracturing, and retest if hydro-
fracturing is carried out.

Check for indications that the water may be abrasive - if yes, select suitable filter packing
to be used outside the well casing to minimise such abrasion.

Check for indications that the water may be corrosive - if yes, use a uPVC casing
material.
The hand pump

Check the preferences with future customers.

Check the need to consider the corrosiveness of the water.

Check the pump's likely future operational duty point by looking at the intersection of a
good hand pump's QH curve with the borehole's recovery rate curve.

Check if the demographic area has already standardised on a VLOM pump which
satisfies the three criteria described immediately above.

If yes, buy the standardised pump. If no, write a specification for a suitable VLOM pump
covering the three criteria described above. Buy against specification: never buy on price
alone.

Select a suitable pump platform to cater for all customer ergonometric and hygiene
needs.

Install the pump in a manner which allows the level of the water in the borehole to be
measured without removing the pump. The level measuring area must normally be
sealed off.

The institutional requirements

Local water authorities and their agents need to have a positive attitude towards
handpump installations.

Before installing the hand pumps, ensure that the location and number of hand pumps
installed is acceptable to the customers. The daily demand from each pump should be
supplied in five hours.

Having sufficient village level institutional capacity and technical skills for the day-to-day
care of the installed hand pumps is critical. Instruction books for monitoring the borehole
and caring for the pumps must also be available.

An equitable cost recovery system managed transparently by village level institutional

structures is also critical.

Sufficient local government capacity to monitor village-level institutions and manage

major maintenance work is needed.

Sufficient capacity needs to be built up locally to carry out major maintenance work.

A proper spares network needs to be set up.

CONCLUSIONS
The project results clearly highlight what is required for the development of effective community
water supply schemes using deep and shallow well hand pumps. Despite the South African
focus, the majority of the findings apply universally. The report also gives comprehensive details
on how to implement the majority of the micro recommendations. For example, the report
explains how to carry out a simple borehole recovery test, how to use the test results to draw a
curve indicating the recovery rate at different drawdown depths and, finally, how to use the
curve to help with the selection of a suitable hand pump. Having demonstrated clearly that
VLOM pumps do play an important role in the implementation of cost-effective sustainable
projects, the report goes on to indicate that choosing the correct VLOM pump is still critical.

More countries around the world are paying attention to such technical details and critical socio-
economic factors. The results can be seen in the improved percentage of pumps operable at
any time. However, in South Africa, in most areas of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and
Northern Province this is not happening and the situation is critical. In neighbouring Botswana
and Lesotho the standard of domestic water supplies is high but hand pump installations seem
to have been left out of the thrusts which achieved these impressive standards. Mozambique
recently embarked on an ambitious programme of water delivery to rural areas using hand
pumps. However, there have been problems, many of which could be solved using the findings
of this report.

The strength of the report lies in the manner in which it integrates information from diverse
sources and comes to new insights through dealing with the borehole, the hand pump and the
community's circumstances as a single entity. Also innovative is the extent to which it
encourages a structured analysis of situations before deciding on a definitive course of action.
These comments are particularly true in cases where, up to now, community and local
government empowerment have been weak and/or water is to be lifted from deep boreholes
with low recovery rates. Other aspects covered comprehensively are abrasion and corrosion.

RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

In the course of the study it was established that the majority of technical challenges in relation
to requirements for the development of effective community water systems using deep and
shallow well hand pumps have been solved.

There are however still two outstanding queries with respect to the suitability of hand pumps
fitted with uPVC riser mains to handle pumping heads in excess of about 35 m .The test-rig built
and partially commissioned as part of this study would be ideally suited to finding an accurate
answer to one of these queries, namely: how effective riser main centralisers are in arresting
elastic deformations in such riser pipes, which cause a major reduction in discharge rates at
high heads. The second query is: how effective are such centralisers in overcoming the fatigue
failures experienced with such riser pipes at high heads? It can reasonably be inferred that if
such centralisers reduce the elastic deformations to the extent that they no longer affect the
discharge rate they will also overcome the problem of fatigue failures. Thus using the test rig for
such testing would provide answers to these questions.

The rig could also be gainfully used for speedily increasing our knowledge of the pumping rates
that can be achieved by users of different types and makes of hand pumps at different water
levels, and for checking and perfecting the performance characteristics of new pumps.
 Lastly uPVC riser pipes are difficult to manage during pump installation and, where necessary ,
abstraction because of the use of solvent cement site joints. Some research needs to be done
to perfect a viable alternative. SKAT of Switzerland, together with Preussag of Germany, and/or
Van Reekum Materials of the Netherlands, are ideally suited to carry out this work.

Other information gaps would be best met through the activities described below.

RECOMMENDATION FOR TRANSFER OF RESULTS

The report ends with recommendations on how to transfer the results of the study into best
practice in the field. This requires two basic activities:

the revision or writing of certain technical specifications, and

the implementation of demonstration projects, with the support of a national coordinating

organisation to ensure that these projects act as a catalyst for countrywide replication.

There are still information gaps. Most of these relate to the need to supplement qualitative
findings contained in this study with more detailed quantitative information. The proper
implementation of the proposed demonstration projects, together with the encouragement this
will give for accurate borehole installation monitoring throughout South Africa, would fill these
gaps and over time dramatically improve the effectiveness of community water supply systems
using hand pumps on deep and shallow wells.

nking water, sustainable development, service oriented learning,

TALISAY

Details

Parent Category: 3rd District

Written by administrator

Talisay is a third class municipality in the province of Batangas, Philippines. According

to the latest census, it has a population of 39,120 inhabitants in 6,246 households.
The Municipality of Talisay, Batangas is consisted of 21 barangays, eight of which are
located in Poblacion (Town Proper), covering a total land area of 2822.0 has. (28.22
sq.km.). It is bounded on the North by the City of Tagaytay, on the east by the City of
Tanauan, on the South by Taal Lake and Volcano Island and Southwest by the
Municipality of Laurel.
The main topographic feature of Batangas Province is the Taal Volcano, which is part of
the Western Luzon Volcanic Front that extends northward to Mariveles, Mt. Natib and
Mt. Pinatubo. The volcano, which is surrounded by a lake has a crater island in it.
Locally, the rugged and undulating terrain is common on all slopes form the Tagaytay
Ridge down to the lake of Talisay. Talisay is suited along the lakefront and its
topography is a longitudinal traversing of many minor ridges and drainage basins
(valleys).
Local lithology is the result of various eruptions of Taal Volcano. The oldest rock is a
Pliocene to recent solidified lava of basaltic to andesitic composition and pyroclastic
rocks that are composed of blocks or fragment of volcano rocks embedded in volcanic
ash or fine ejecta.
Pleistocene sedimentary rocks overlie the volcanic rock and are composed of tuff
( lithified volcanic ash ) and mixture of pumice and cinders.
The youngest rock formation is the recent alluvium which consist of unconsolidated
gravel, sand, silt and clay in varying proportion deposited in rivers and their tributaries
as well in the low-lying lakeshore.
HISTORY
How Talisay Got Its Name
Long ago, the Spanish administration in the Philippines when Tanauan was in the place
where its barrio Ambulong is now situated, Talisay was a very insignificant barrio of that
municipality. When Tanauan was moved to its present site, Talisay become a barrio of
Taal. Talisay as it is now called, had no definite name. Nobody cared during those times
because there were not many inhabitants in this place.
In the course of time people from Taal and Tanauan happened to reach this place and
enjoyed staying in this locality. They found the place and enjoyed staying in this locality.
They found the place adapted to the growth of sugarcane, rice and corn, the three most
important products during those days, this discovery until Talisay was so well populated
that it was necessary for the Spanish government to assign a priest to take care of the
peoples religion.
A temporary building was built by the people in the center of the barrio. When the big
church bell arrived, it becomes a problem for the priest to find a convenient place for it.
In the place where the temporary church was built, was a big Talisay tree. The priest
ordered the people to hang the bell on one of each branch.
When the big bell of the church was first rang, some people were panic-stiken. Some
brave men tried to look where the sound came from. Later, they found out that it came
from the big Talisay tree.
People from far and near were made to go to church on Sunday. On their way to
church, when some people asked where they were going, the people simply answered,
SA MAY TALISAY. Often time, they only answered, Sa Talisay. The place was closely
linked with the Talisay tree in the churchyard, that when the place was made into town,
it was named TALISAY.
It was year 1869 when Talisay was formally known as a Municipio or a municipality and
has since been celebrating its town fiesta every February 10 of each year and in
commemoration of the miraculous patron Saint San Guillermo (St. William).