Warm Heart at Work

It is really hot and dry in Phrao right now, especially at our land! Everything is covered with a fine red dust. But there is hope. The TCNJ Engineers Without Borders team arrives in just a couple of days to bring us water. Praise the Lord. We cannot wait.

The TCNJ team surveyed our land last summer and spent the academic year developing the plans for a site-wide water management system. Their plan calls for a deep well (more than 80 meters) with a solar pump, a huge underground storage tank, a water tower crowned by two shiny stainless steel tanks and then a web of 4″ pipes that run across the entire property.

Well head in foreground with tower pad and tank excavation in background

The ten member team will (somehow) be bringing the donated solar pump with them when they fly in on May 20th. In preparation for their arrival, Warm Heart’s contractor has been hard at work building the basics. The slab for the tower is in, the pipes for the tower itself have been delivered and the hole for the underground tank has been excavated.

The pick-up in the background is carrying the pipes to build the tower.

For the time being we are surviving on bottled drinking water and wash water pumped out of the fish pond, so we cannot wait for that solar pump to arrive! But every day with offer thanks to the TCNJ Engineers Without Borders team. Without them we have no idea what we would have done. After all, they not only designed the entire system - they have raised every penny the entire project will cost!

Warm Heart has only the warmest thanks for the TCNJ EWB team - our largest donors to date!

I recently looked at the blog published by Paul Kuehn at Global PACT. I really liked the fact that it combines posts about real people doing real things to solve real problems. It’s not just about how the dot.com billionaires have decided to find a cure for AIDS. It’s about how groups of college students have solved some small but significant problem in their university’s neighborhood using the knowledge they learned in class. I love to have evidence to point to when people say - as so many do - “but what can I do?”

The other thing I like about the Global PACT blog - http://blog.globalpact.org - is that it’s got lots of information about how to make change. After all, wanting to do something is seldom enough, knowing how to do it makes you a whole lot more likely to succeed!

Reading the Global PACT blog also made me think that it would be useful for us to offer links to other blogs that deal with our areas of interest: community development and activism, kids, sustainable development, microenterprise, microfinance, alternative energy and the environment, women and development, public health.

Do you have any favorites to suggest? Please let me know in a comment.

Although the water team is still missing Thailand all the way from New Jersey, they have started work to solve the water problems in the Mae Wan sub-district. This past Wednesday was the first Rutgers Engineers Without Borders general meeting. The team did a presentation on their six week assessment trip in Phrao. The presentation included a slideshow of documents and pictures obtained. This meeting brought clarity and interest in this project from other EWB group members. In the next few weeks, the team will be busy forming a solid committee of students and professionals, finalizing a presentation to give to companies, and assessing the water sample results.

The team is officially back in action!

The Rutgers University Engineers Without Borders are wrapping up their time in Phrao, and they are pleased to report the assessment portion of the Water project is nearly complete. Although there were minor delays and setbacks, the team has met almost every goal they set out to accomplish on this trip.
This week was a time to tie up all the loose ends. The team completed all the community surveys in Nong Bua and entered the final survey results into the database. Samples were taken of the 88 meter well that serves most of the village, as well as privately-owned shallow wells and household taps that have previously had water problems. All these samples were sent to a lab in Chiang Mai to be tested for biological parameters and other metals. At the Warm Heart office, the team conducted additional tests for phosphorus, dissolved oxygen, ferrous iron, turbidity, conductivity, and sulfide with a colorimeter.
Now the team is homeward bound where they will continue assessing the results of their water samples and surveys, and begin to design solutions for the water problem in Nong Bua. The team plans to return within the next year to begin implementing their solution.

Implementation mission just begun! Look for twice monthly blog updates from the Water team about their progress in New Jersey!

The Water Team is extremely excited to announce that the long-awaited water testing kit has arrived! It was an emotional moment as the deliveryman made his way into the Warm Heart Office with equipment in hand. There was much cause for celebration as the package was signed for, since it is now possible to begin running tests on the water to identify potential contaminants in the Phrao watershed. These tests will determine which treatment methods are necessary for each village.

In addition to the testing kit, the team has also accomplished several other goals this past week. David Pal, a Rutgers University Engineers without Borders member, created a database for the health surveys. Jessica Kretch, another RU Engineer without Borders, and a Warm Heart translator, Khem “P’ Da” Narim, are in the process of translating and collecting surveys. The finished surveys are being uploaded into the database to be analyzed. And an order has been placed for a number of standard solutions that are required for the testing.

On Tuesday, a few team members will begin testing the water supply of Nong Bua. The team will perform all of the standard tests in the water testing kit, as well as a biological test and a few chemical tests. The samples collected will be brought to a water-testing lab in Chiang Mai.

The team is also working on obtaining information about the health status of the people and the healthcare system of Phrao district. This information will be obtained from various public health offices within the district with the assistance of Areeluck “Rose” Parnsoothorn of the Public Health IT database team.

If you were thinking that everything was going smoothly and according to plan with the Water project, you would be just slightly incorrect. As with any major project in a developing country, there have been numerous setbacks. Still, the water project team has managed to make headway. In order to tackle the water problem, the team has split up in order to address the various issues more efficiently.

This week, some team members worked on getting the water-testing equipment, which truthfully has been a huge and highly annoying effort. They are now attempting to purchase a colorimeter and some chemicals with which to test the drinking water from a company based out of Bangkok. Their lovely translator (and Warm Heart’s newest addition), Sriploy “Ploy” Chaisri, has helped them navigate what has become a lengthy process. They then had to drive into town to send some faxes, figure out a way to make the payment without the use of credit cards, assemble a list of available products, and determine the best way to get the equipment to Phrao. Finally, this order has been completed and delivery is eagerly being awaited!

Since the company in Bangkok could not supply all the chemicals that were needed, Laith Qumei headed into Chiang Mai to locate another supplier. He successfully found a company that can get all the chemicals needed by next week (hopefully)!

Meanwhile, the final survey is being edited and will go out with the Thai staff to 30 or 40 households in the village of Nong Bua within the Mae Wen sub-district. The aim of this survey is to generate some data about the demand for clean water and the issues associated with the current conditions in Nong Bua.

The team has also gathered some information about water systems materials. Laith gathered this mainly from a warehouse in Chiang Mai that is used by most contractors in the region. For those interested in water systems engineering, this showroom was a veritable funhouse.

Finally, they also got some glass sample bottles to gather additional water samples that we can take to a lab in Chiang Mai for testing of the parameters that cannot done on-site.

The Water project team has proved that many hands gets things done!

The Water team’s first priority in assessing the water situation has been to visit all of the villages in the Mae Wen sub-district. Of the 11 villages, they were able to visit 10 in the last week. The 11^th village was not interested in receiving workers from an outside organization, and the group respected their wishes.

During each visit the team met with either the village headmen or the village water chief to discuss water resources and distribution. The systems in the villages ranged from central wells with filtration, aeration and distribution systems, to a complete lack of water distribution systems. In the villages with no water systems, each family has a private well dug by hand, and purchased pumps to bring the water into their homes. In these villages the wells are shallow, with the quality and quantity of the water supply varying greatly.

The Water team is now categorizing the villages by types of water problem and deciding which villages they can assist. Work and planning will be done with local officials to create solutions that are feasible for their respective villages. The long-term goal is the implementation of these projects, and an improvement in the quality and availability of water in the Mae Wen sub-district. Visiting the villages has provided the group with a very good overall perspective on the region and the local culture.

Shannon Pallone remembers one particular excursion to a hill tribe village in the local mountains. “We journeyed into the mountains to visit one of the hill tribe villages, and had the privilege of experiencing their culture.”

Warm Heart is currently developing the beginning stages of a water project, which seeks to improve the overall quality of life through improvements in village water systems. Staff members currently involved in the water project include Shannon Pallone, a second year graduate student at the University of California San Diego, and Ronn Friedlander, Laith Qumei, Jessica Kretch, and David Pal, members of Engineers Without Borders from Rutgers University.

The team’s most recent focus is on the village of Nong Bua, a community with 163 households. This past Monday, the staff members paid a visit to the village to conduct some background research. The region’s water source comes from two existing wells, one of which is inactive due to a build up of manganese in the pipes. The second well is currently in use, though several improvements are needed. The well is 88 meters deep, with water being pumped up and passed through an aeration system before being filtered through sand and gravel. The water is then distributed throughout the community. Despite these purification processes, manganese and iron appear to be precipitating out of the water, coating the pipes in a dark, rust-colored residue. This residue gradually accumulates, causing severe reductions in water flow and pressure. The government, therefore, is forced to clean the system every three to five months, a procedure that costs about 5,000 baht.

Because there is a possibility that the problems with the water supply extend beyond the existence of manganese and iron in the water, the water project team is planning to completely test the water for a more comprehensive report of actual contaminants.

“In the coming weeks we should have a much better idea of the problems facing the local communities,” says Shannon, “as well as a more thorough knowledge of local water technology so that a plan can be formed for improving water quality.”

Improving the water in Nong Bua is the group’s current priority, though further surveying of surrounding villages will be done to determine if possible solutions for Nong Bua can also be appropriately applied to other regions facing similar water problems.