Pure and free drinking water is something that millions of people in industrialized nations all over the world enjoy on a daily basis and take for granted. On the other hand, one billion people in developing nations lack safe drinking water. Every day they risk their lives and health by drinking from contaminated sources. They are missing out on a basic human right and die from preventable diseases because they do not have local access to free and pure drinking water.
During Pangea Proxima’s month-long trip to Nicaragua three separate water filtration systems and two different distribution programs were discovered.
Two of the water filtration systems discovered were being built and distributed throughout the Southwestern Nicaraguan communities by Fundacion Tierra, Newton-San Juan Sister City Project and David St. John. Fundacion Tierra and Newton are organizations based in San Juan del Sur and serve the greater area. David St. John is a retired architect.
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| Concrete BioSand water filter |
The first water filtration system initiated by the organizations was invented by a Canadian working in Guatemala. His BioSand Filter is a cement box, like a large water-cooler, filled with layers of sand and gravel. Contaminated well water is poured in the top, but as it works its way down through the mass, 100% of the viruses and parasites and 96% of the diarrhea-causing E. Coli bacteria, are trapped and killed. Since 2007 the Newton Workshop has installed over 600 BioSand filters in 30 rural communities around San Juan. The residence report markedly lower levels of illness and the filtered water has a great taste.
In 2009 and 2010, Fundacion Tierra worked with their colleagues from Newton and NicaCans and established a maintainence program for the hundreds of filters that have been installed over the past 5 years. This program upgrades, repairs and educates the people to insure self sufficient use of the water filters.
The second water filtration system was discovered by Pangea Proxima, coincidentally, when Trevor Stine (lead consultant for Pangea Proxima) traveled to El Encanto (about 2km north of San Juan del Sur) to inspect land that had recently been granted to Pangea Proxima in order to build an experimental straw bale structure. On the same land where the experimental structure is to be built a small workshop exists. Within the workshop a pilot project to manufacture, install and test the efficacy of a new model of BioSand Filter made entirely of lightweight PVC was being inaugurated in the area by David St. John, an architect from the US, and Fundacion Tierra.
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| The plans for the newly designed 10-inch PVC BioSand water filter |
The new filter design was brought to the area by David and substitutes a 10-inch PVC pipe in place of the concrete. This design allows for a portable system that may be moved by its users. This is a very important change because the concrete version weighs about 350lbs. Within minutes of seeing and learning about the project, Trevor assisted in building the first dozen filters.
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| A local volunteer assisting David St. John |
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| Building the first twelve 10-inch PVC BioSand filters for the San Juan del Sur area |
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Trevor traveled to an organic coffee farm located in small community of Los Robles, located about 20 minutes away from the Northern city of Jinotega, Nicaragua. An organization called Nica Agua is distributing a filtration system utilizes a combination of clay and silver sulfate to filter bacteria and virus from water and is produced by Filtron. This unit is highly portable due to its size and light weight (about 10-15lbs.)
Proyecto Nica Agua (PNA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing a safe drinking water program into the homes and community of Los Robles, a village in the Jinotega Province of northern Nicaragua. Both community and individual health in this village suffers greatly from the lack of clean drinking water. The mission of PNA is to connect Los Robles residents with the tools, knowledge, and locally obtainable technology (eg. ceramic water filters that can be manufactured locally with local products) so they can provide themselves with clean drinking water on a daily basis, both immediately and in the long term.
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| User instructions are placed directly on the Filtron to ensure it is utilized correctly |
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| Children retrieving water from the larger version which was installed at their school (photo courtesy of Nica Agua) |
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| Community members being instructed on how to filter their well water correctly by Nica Agua staff (photo courtesy of Nica Agua) |
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| Community members receiving their home filter units (photo courtesy of Nica Agua) |
All three of the water filtration systems discussed within this blog are very useful in certain situations. Concrete is normally available everywhere, so this makes the concrete BioSand filter possible in most rural areas of the world. The second BioSand filter, which utilizes PVC piping in place of the concrete, is also very useful because of its portability, but finding 10-inch piping maybe problematic in many rural areas. The last filtration system, is by far the most portable of the three systems, but unless silver sulfate can be obtained locally and the ratio along with the knowledge of how the clay is mixed with the compound and developed into a filter is probably the most difficult of the three to produce from scratch.
To learn more about the concrete BioSand water filter, the Newton Project and Fundacion Tierra please visit http://www.biosandfilter.org/biosandfilter and www.newtonsanjuan.org.
To view the manual for the BioSand water filter please visit: http://www.cawst.org/en/resources/pubs/file/43-pi-for-bsf-manual-complete-english
To learn more about the Filtron (clay/silver sulfate) filter, and Nica Agua please visit http://www.proyectonica-agua.org.
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