Packing List #2

The Holidays are over - I have had short spells of time to spend with loved ones and family, save for Leah as our schedules have not overlapped. The Christmas Tree is down and all the decorations packed away. The house is pretty much cleaned up and all of my bills and paperwork is done. As nearly as I can tell all of my shopping is complete. Tonight is sort of the organizational phase. Tomorrow I will pack.

More indispensable items:

1.Venison jerky
2. Cliff Bars
3. Flat-packed toilet paper
4. Mosquito netting
5. Hammock and ropes
6. Folding camp stool
7. # 10 - 12 cc syringes for drawing up and dosing bleach
8. Flexible "magic" garden hose
9. 10' of plastic tubing for siphon
10. Copies of my medical license and registration (just in case I need to prove)
11. #3 Bolivar cigars (either Royal Coronas or Belicosas, not sure just yet) and lighter
12. Swim goggles (prescription)
13. Compas
14. GPS (this is a rather old and clunky unit but worth the carry, I think)
15. Deck of waterproof playing cards

My first aid kit is quite large and complete and is beyond the practical confines of this list. Suffice to say it is stocked with a small IV set, epi-pen, suture kit, bandages, a supply of oral medications that would make a small pharmacy jealous, and sundry other medical necessities.

It is unnerving to know that I will undoubtedly forget things that might come in handy, but all I can hope for is that I have enough of the right stuff on hand to make do. At the end of the day, that really is what it's all about.

The New Team

As I previously wrote, the preliminary team was Me (Assistant Construction Lead) and Chip Kilduff (Quality Assurance Lead) as mentors, with Mike Kubista as student project lead and 4 students to be added. The final lineup has been announced and here's how it looks:

Mariana Cintron - Translator
Elizabeth Kwon - PMEL Lead
Mike Kubista - Construction Lead
Tim Andrews - Assistant Construction Lead
Frank Sokolowski - Education Lead

January 4th is less than two months away. For me it means getting through the holidays and taking the extra on-call so I can be away for much of January. Much less packing as most of my stuff from last year was neatly stored away for easy use; all the first aid kit was restocked. For the students it means the last 6 weeks of the semester with finals and all of the stuff that comes with being a student.

On the plus side, I am going back a veteran and have a much clearer view of the things I would like to do. The scope of the project is smaller and should require a little less of the hands on that I gave last year. I want to take lots more photos and get them posted up to the blog really quickly this time - none of this after the fact stuff. I really want to spend more time with the people in the community and get to know them better and have a little fun with them. I would like to try to get them to understand the value of clean drinking water and improved hygiene but I don't have a clear plan for that as of yet. We should definitely challenge them to volleyball.

It is gently raining out now and the experimental tank is slowly filling - hopefully by the morning it will be full and I can dose it with bleach and mix. We'll see how good those paper calculations turn out!

The Hurley Rainwater Research Center

Last week it occurred to me that, while we have carefully done the calculations to determine the amount of bleach to be added to each 55 gallon drum to achieve a level of chlorine that will kill bacteria yet not leave an unpleasant taste (WHO  recommends 2.5 mg/liter, US EPA less than 4 mg/liter) it might be nice to see if our calculations are on the mark. Not only would it validate our calculations it would give us experience using the system and doing real-world chlorine residual tests. I ran it by the major honchos (Mike, Frank and Chip) and all thought it was a pretty good idea. Chip also added that different water sources pose different chlorine demands depending on level of bacterial contamination. I figured I was in a pretty good position to at least do a rainwater sample as my downgutters are equipped with diverters for rain barrels. Borrowing an empty 55 gallon drum from dialysis (and thoroughly rinsing it out) the Hurley Rainfall Research Center was born. Following the next sizable rain the protocol states to add 9.1 ml of regular strength (5.25%) commercial bleach to the barrel.

Now, to wait for the next rain event. Unfortunately, according to the National Weather Service we are looking clear for the next 5-7 days. I'm sure it will rain sometime between now and January.

Footwear, found.

I knew they had to exist somewhere. Of course, LL Bean. Bean Signature Maine 10" Hunting Boots. Standard "Duck Shoe" bottoms with a lightweight waxed canvas upper. I think they should be perfect.

I love that the upper can be completely folded down into the body of the shoe so it doesn't kill me for space in my duffel bag. They lace up nice and securely so that the mud won't pull them off and hopefully, my feet will stay dry. The basic design dates to 1912 so there's over 100 years of experience here.

Current Plans

So, as it stands, we have preliminary approval to return for implementation of  the addition of a pair of 55 gallon drums to the current pair of 600 gallon tanks. This allows the 55 gallon drums to be dosed with pre-measured amounts of chlorine (in the form of liquid bleach) to achieve the correct concentration to disinfect yet not leave an unpleasant taste in the water. (This cannot be done in the 600 gallon tanks as they are continuously being either filled by incoming rainwater or drained for utilization and there is no steady-state volume to dose). The physical scope of this project is smaller than last years but will be coupled with a more intensive community outreach and education component.

The  lineup of the returning team is not yet finalized; Mike is in the process of making those decision but will consist of two mentor engineers and five student engineers. I am one of the mentors; unfortunately Scott has scheduling conflicts (we are hopefully working on a well drilling project in Haiti later in the winter or early spring) and cannot go. For a few days it did not look as though any of the other mentors involved in the project were available and I am too junior to suffice on my own. Fortunately my long time mentor and professor, Chip Kilduff, was able to sign on. I am really looking forward to this! On the student side, Mike is definitely there and there are four students to be chosen. Very exciting!

We have spoken with Ambrosio and placed our order for the lumber necessary for the stands - realize that there is no milled lumber on the island - it is all hand cut by chainsaw by Ambrosio and other men in the community. Imagine working with 2 x 4 s all hand cut, yet amazingly true. We also have our shopping lists ready for the necessary hardware from Maderas Richards on Isla Colon. One of the hard lessons we learned last time was that the nispero wood on the island is so hard and dense that regular nails bend and screws shear their heads off even when pre-drilled; we will bring our own supply of heavy gauge timberlock screws with us. I also want to schedule a little tutorial time with Kyle before the trip to make sure I am good on my use of PVC, in particular, the flanges of the spigots where they seal to the sides of the drums. The fact that we were there once before doing construction is a huge advantage and I hope to avoid many of the small problems that dogged us last year. Which brings me to the topic of footwear.

Last January during the installation it rained. I mean it really, seriously rained. Every day. Which turned the work site to a morass (yes, I used the word morass in a sentence) of mud. And, let me just say here, this was no ordinary mud. It was mud on 'roids. The base soil is a dense clay which, when wetted, produces an extremely thick and sticky paste that will easily suck a conventional sneaker or work shoe off of ones foot. At one point last year Kyle became so frustrated that he elected to work shoeless but paid for it with a laceration on the bottom of his foot.Two schools of thought emerged as to what would work best: 1) conventional big old rubber wellingtons, or 2) perforated slip-ons like Crocs. Both of these have their merits and their drawbacks and I am still inclined to try to find other choices. I will develop this topic further as travel time approaches and I will need to make my decision. It will also be a good place to discuss other good gadgets for such and expedition. Stay tuned.
 

Heading Back to Isla Popa

So, after a nearly 10 months hiatus I am returning to the blogosphere. EWB-RPI and I are full speed ahead to return to Isla Popa in Panama to expand upon last January's project. Getting to this point has taken a tremendous amount of effort by a handful of dedicated people with a few ups and downs. I will provide a quick synopsis of the past 10 months and then 'splain where things stand right now, and then talk about footwear.

MIKE

After we got back from Panama in mid-January Scott (Underhill, my co-mentor) and I returned to our busy work schedules and our student companions resumed their classes. It appears Scott scored a serious coup by getting Kyle Geisler in to AECOM as an intern while he completes his co-op program for his combined Bachelors and Masters degrees. Mike Kubista took over as project lead to develop the next phase of the project. What did appear to be fairly apparent was that the folks on Isla Popa did not like the individual biosand filters and basically, had no intentions of using them. This factored largely in the development of what we thought would be the new project, but I get ahead of myself. 

In mid-March the gang came down to Kingston from Troy and we held a dinner fundraising program at the YMCA. It featured multiple slide presentations and a catered buffet dinner; it was very well attended and the students did a great job presenting and narrating the slides. Overall, it was a very successful evening, and aside from raising money, generated a good amount of "buzz" in the community.

Throughout the late winter and spring the group developed the next phase of the project which was to design and install a second rooftop rain collection system on the roof of the school kitchen ("comedor") building with an integrated slow sand filtration system connected to internal plumbing to essentially provide filtered clean "tap" water on demand.  Design of such as system was seriously constrained by the fact that the entire system had to be a gravity-flow system with the roof of the building between 8 and 9 feet above the ground level. The inherent difficulties with this lead us to look at a number of different design options, one of which was to eliminate sand filtration and return to the idea of chlorination. As events would later show, this proved to be a fortuitous development.

 The semester ended and most of the students headed out, either back to their homes, or to summer internships. Mike stayed behind to do research and he and I took over the weekly (or so) calls to Ambrosio to maintain contact and keep him up to date with the plans as they progressed. Ambrosio was very enthusiastic about the plans for the new project and we really began to develop a good rapport as we moved (so we thought) forward.

AMBROSIO

The students returned to campus in late August and by early September the preliminary plans for the new system were submitted to EWB national headquarter in the form of the "524" document. The 524 submission was followed by a conference call with the coordinating engineer from HQ who queried the current water situation. The decision came down in late September that the current system was adequate in terms of provision of water and that the group should refocus their effort on quality, not quantity. While I agree with the need to improve the quality of the current stored water, I also strongly believe that the community on Isla Popa still requires greater water acquisition and storage capacity than it currently enjoys. (I will discuss this in greater detail at a later writing). The saving grace in all of this is that when we made the move away from sand filtration to chlorination it became apparent that such as system would be a relatively straightforward retrofit onto the previously installed system. When HQ (aka National) KO'd the new system on the kitchen building the default plan became the addition of a pair of 55 gallon drums to the current pair of 600 gallon tanks to act as reservoirs for chlorination of water coupled with education and training in water disinfection practices. It is certainly a smaller scale project than originally planned, but it goes a long way in improving the quality and safety of the current drinking water. Still, it sent us several giant steps backward and Mike and the team had to scramble to revise the documentation in order to meet several tight deadlines. We currently have cleared most of these hurdles and have tentative approval to proceed.

And that's where I will leave it for now with a promise to write more later. And discuss footwear.