Sunday+July+19+notes

July 19th & 20th site investigation July 19th Dave and Rich met with Christine, Larry, the pump operator and the valve operator around 9:30 AM. We set a plan to start the pump and measure how much a tank could be filled in 15 minutes. We also wanted to see if there was any discrepancy with how many GPM the pump was putting out and how much the tank was receiving. Richard went to the tanks Dave stayed at the pump. Las Delicias receives water from two sources. One is a constant stream from a spring box located we **estimated** to be from 5 to 7 kilometers from the tanks the pipe is a 2” galvanized pipe and is gravity fed. The other is source is from one 15 hp submersed pump that pumps to a holding tank a 60 HP pump is energized in sequence with the submerged pump. The pump operator will adjust the tank level by slightly closing a butterfly valve on the discharge of the submerged pump. There is a meter on the submerged pump measuring M3. We calculated that the pump was putting out about 150GPM. The pump will operate from 11AM to 6PM every day during their summer season (dry season) to 3 to 4 day a week in their winter (our summer). At 9000GPH the tanks receive 63,000 GPD from the pumps. I believe Richard has the time it takes to fill a tank with the pumps and how long it takes to fill the tanks with the spring box. The distance from the pump to the tanks is about 5 k and goes through a 6” feed that splits to a 2.5” main that goes to tank #3 and a 4” main that goes to Tank #1 Tank #2 is fed by the spring box only. The 60 HP pump has a display module on the starter and was reading the following amps & volts on each leg L1- 484 v 19.2 A, L-2 481v 20.3 A, L-3 484 v 20.3 A In the evening we met with the village committee at the volunteer home. The committee consists of several residences of Las Delicias. After formal introductions Richard explained the role of EWB and their procedures. Dave explained Project FIAT’s involvement and expatiations. Discussion revolved around the water problems and issues related to that. There are around 490 families paying $5.00 a month for water but not all are receiving equal shares. It also seems that the chlorination of the water may be ineffective. Some testing has been done after chlorination of the water and the results were negative down stream from the water towers. All in all the meeting went well and we made some decisions on what we needed to look at the next day July the 20th. We met with Christina and the valve operator. He explained to us his routine of opening and closing valves to try and distribute equal shares of water through out the village. We walked a good portion of the pipe line from bottom to top. In essence he would start with a full tank then go to the lowest point and start closing valves allowing water to be distributed to the higher elevations. What happens is every one keeps their faucets open to their piles when the water starts flowing, all valves are open and everyone fills as much as they can get before the water stops flowing. Therefore the people at the bottom fill as much as the can and the people at the top get what is left over I have summarized as best as I can recall. The original problems that we thought were existing have changed thus changing the scope of problem uncovered during this visit. Dave Haeussler
 * El Salvador** **Las Delicias clean water project**