Pure Water For All Forest Hills Rotary Club, Forest Hills, Pennsylvania

News and Updates on the Pure Water For All Project

Our Challenge:

A child dies every 15 seconds from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe water - one-sixth of the world's population

Deaths from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene represent approximately 15% of all child deaths under the age of five in developing countries



Update as of July 25, 2008

Friday, July 25, I joined Dick Wukich, Manny Hernandez of Northern Illinois University and Maximo Andreas at Slippery Rock University.

Maximo is up from his manufacturing plant in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It was great having him there and meeting him. He speaks very little English, but we were able to communicate through Manny.

The agenda for their visit is to build two new presses and molds, one for permanent use at the Braddock Carnegie Library ceramics lab and one for use (for a while) at SRU. The one at Braddock will be used for a demonstration unit and a training unit and will be used for making filters for distribution to various interested sponsor clubs and for disaster relief in the US. The one at SRU will be to involve high school age children in the District 7280 area on field trips to SRU. They also will make units that, along with some from Braddock, will be shipped to service men in Iraq and Afghanistan for “gifts” to local citizens needing to purify their water. The units will be shipped to the Army Post Office and transported overseas by military mail.

Coincidently, the US State Department was at SRU with some visitors from Iraq. They were there to see SRU’s co-generation plant. They visited the ceramics department and went away very excited about the filter’s potential.

We also visited the metal fabrication shop that will order the supplies for the press frame. There is somewhat a concern that the price of steel shapes has risen so much so quickly. This will mean that the frame may exceed our original budget.

Manny and Maximo are working on drawings for a frame that, instead of being welded, can be drilled and put together with bolts. This will make shipping to foreign users, where the original design would be bulky. The new design can be shipped in a much smaller package and will not require welding in the destination country.

The second item on the agenda is to perfect a “candle” filter, which has many advantages. It is essentially a PVC pipe with the filter embedded in one end. It will be much less expensive, easier to transport without fear of breakage of the ceramic filter, and easier to keep clean. The obvious disadvantage is much smaller water capacity, leading to a lower flow rate and need to fill the filter more often. This might be used in connection with a two bucket arrangement where water is drip feed to the filter and the output of the filter can be fed into a containment vessel (with a spigot).

There is work to be done, in both the overall design of the water flow capacity and making certain that the ceramic filter stays in the pipe without popping out after some period of use.

At the end of next week (August 1 or 2) John Jaeger of Shoulder to Shoulder in the US will visit SRU and thus we can have a face to face meeting with all of the principals that need to, or wish to, meet the others in the project.

Update as of May 11, 2008

The Shoulder to Shoulder spring brigade recently returned from San Jose. Zebulon Spector, a medical intern and a member of the brigade, went specifically to study the use and effectiveness of the ceramic filters in San Jose. His report is summarized in excerpts from the report, which is as follows:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

FM International Elective Project Report
April, 2008

Water Filtration Project

“The use of technologies to treat and safely store household water is best accomplished if it is accompanied by or supported with economic incentives and other cost recovery methods and with programs designed to support community participation, education and other efforts to achieve acceptance and sustainability. Where such additional socio-cultural, behavioral and economic components of household water treatment and storage technologies are absent or lacking, successful implementation and sustained use are unlikely to be achieved.”

- Mark Sobsey, WHO Report [1] I. Background

Diarrheal illness is a major problem worldwide, contributing a large portion of the morbidity and mortality in developing and poverty-stricken countries. The problem is especially prevalent in infants and children under five years old. In this group, more than 2,000,000 children die from diarrheal illness each year, and diarrhea accounts for over 20% of world deaths in children under five years of age [1-3]. Much of this burden is caused by contaminated water supplies/infectious disease. These statistics have made water quality a priority for the World Health Organization (WHO) and many community organizations such as Rotary International. The recent focus of these efforts has been point-of-use interventions, in which clean water is provided at the level of the family, in the form of water filtration devices.

Rotary Clubs, including those here in Pittsburgh, have been instrumental in setting-up the infrastructure for production and distribution of the filter in Honduras, having provided instruction and equipment for manufacturing the filter (currently in Tegucigalpa).

II. Methods

This assessment was carried out in the form of a survey delivered by Team C of the April 2008 Shoulder to Shoulder brigade. The goal was to survey at least twenty of the 30+ villagers who had purchased filters to date.

III. Results

It was determined that 100% of households that had purchased a filter were free of diarrheal illness in the children, while approximately 60% had problems with diarrhea prior to purchase of the filter. On average, families were cleaning their filters once every nine days, distinctly not often enough for the average family size of seven persons. In the initial review of data, it appeared that 20% of households surveyed reported chlorine in the water to be filtered. A second pass at the data showed a figure closer to 10%. 55% of families drink exclusively filtered water. Of those who drink unfiltered water, the most common reason was that filtered water became too warm. We also found that people were more likely to properly clean the filter if taught by someone. Also, there was an overall 85% satisfaction rate based on the price of the filter, which was on average 329 limpira, with a median of 350. Full results, broken down by question, can be found in Table 3.

Results were presented to the Health Committee, and they expressed several concerns of their own. First, they told us that the producers in Tegucigalpa had promised them a supply of silver and training so that they might recharge the filters once the silver degraded. They had not yet received materials and training. Second, while the initial plastic receptacles were strong, the newer receptacles were weaker and had a greater tendency to break. Third, they considered the proposition that in addition to the health committee, a local business might be allowed to sell filters in order to increase circulation. The Health Committee objected to this idea, expressing that they were already charging a high price for the filters while trying to keep them affordable, and if a business were to become involved, they might not be able to keep the price down any longer.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Pure Water for All committee is looking into the pails, training and support and in ways to subsidize the cost of the filters to make them more affordable.

Anyone who wishes to have the full report can email the request to info@purewaterforall.org.

Also, anyone wishing to visualize the filter can go to the following Youtube link, for a look at the distribution effort of Rescue Task Force using the filters made by Maximo in our beta site in Tegucigalpa. The first couple of minutes describes the remoteness of some of the villages that need the filters and the rest of the video shows the filters in use.(copy and paste into your browser).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3071I5QQ2Q



Update as of March 21, 2008:

Craig Esterly of the Greentree Rotary Club and Joe Schmitt of Pittsburgh recently traveled to Tegucigalpa, the capitol of Honduras, and reported of their visit to Maximo's filter manufacturing facility. HRToolbox of Atlanta, Georgia, has donated sufficient funds to make 100 filters available for distribution without charge to poorer families. The Tegucigalpa Kaputzihil Rotary Club and the Assistant District Governor for Rotary in Honduras have become enthusiastic about helping distribute filters. The Peace Corps, Salvation Army, and some NGOs are also excited. Some of these donated filters will be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the filter and serve as "marketing" to other villages and organizations.

Photos of Maximo Andreas's manufacturing facility will be published on this site soon.

Meanwhile, we have people interested in establishing filter manufacturing plants in Afganistan, Haiti, and Uganda. A filter plant in Tanzania is being built.

Moreover, there is a filter manufacturing lab being established by Steve Carpenter at Texas A&M University, which will serve as a uniform training site for operators to visit and become proficient in the process. This will save having to train in the field with our limited personnel in a variety of sites throughout Central America and the rest of the world.


___________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________
History of this project:

This is a cooperative project between the Monroeville Rotary Club (District 7300, PA, USA) and the RC Tegucigalpa-Sur Club (District 4250, Honduras). Technical assistance will be provided by experienced potters in this technology, namely Professor Richard Wukich (Slippery Rock University, PA, USA) and Professor Manny Hernandez (Northern Illinois University, USA). They have been at the grass root establishment of at least four ceramic water filter manufacturing sites throughout the world. They are acitive in setting up this facility in Tegucigalpa and have visited the prospective site and talked to the prospective operator in the past couple of months.

On the ground support will come from Shoulder to Shoulder, USA (Jeff Heck in North Carolina), plus Shoulder to Shoulder, Pittsburgh (Mark Meyer and William Markel), which operates a health clinic in San Jose del Negrito, approximately one hour from El Progresso. The legal entity in Honduras (which owns the newly constructed clinic) is Homro o Hombro. See the link to Shoulder to Shoulder, Pittsburgh. Their work is very worthy of your support.

San Jose is a small village of 300+ and 6500 inhabitants in the surrounding area (areas without any water treatment and without electricity and medical care, except for Shoulder to Shoulder’s clinic). Without a potable water supply, alternative water sources have elevated disease rate among the populace and especially the children who are more susceptible to water borne bacteria and viruses.

The filter manufacturing plant will be in the more cosmopolitan area of Tegucigalpa, and will initially serve San Jose del Negrito, but will also serve other villages all around Honduras and, through NGOs (more specifically FAO), will distribute filter “kits”. Filter kits include a colloidal treated ceramic filter (like a flower pot), a collection device (a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a spigot) and decals that instruct the users on its proper use (and other health instruction).

Filters will be produced by a micro business encouraging the operator to build volume and thus create a profit to pay for all operating expenses and grow the business. The identified owner is Maximo Andreus. Maximo is an experienced potter, having a small pottery business in Tegucigalpa. There is an essential element to this process, that of training the end user to fully take advantage of the purification process. On the ground continual testing is required to make sure that the filters are continuing to perform. This will be performed by Shoulder to Shoulder, Pittsburgh (through their operating clinic in San Jose) and by Shoulder to Shoulder, USA, NGOs in the area), all being monitored by the Rotary Club of Tegucigalpa-Sur.

The ceramic filter (colloidal silver coated) has been proven effective in various sites throughout the world (Cambodia, Nicaragua, Darfur, and Iraq) where there is a source of water, but it being very polluted (ground puddles, contaminated streams, or even contaminated wells). These sites were established, but lack of man-power inhibited a continuing presence by the those who established the facility.

Rotary can provide this continuing presence and monitor the performance of the site operator. This micro enterprise model should provide the sustainability that was not available through other groups involved with this filter.

The technology has been tested through various universities and found over 99 percent effective in providing ultra pure water. This household based filtration method uses local materials (except for the silver and containers), is very inexpensive ($12-$15 unit provides 1-1.5 liters of water per hour over a useful life of 18-24 months), eliminates many hours of drudgery of women hauling clean water to their homes, lessens the impact of disease of water borne agents, and provides for the establishment of a self sustaining micro business.

The goal of the Tegucigalpa site, in addition to providing filters for San Jose and other areas in Honduras, is to establish a model (blueprint and cook book) for the establishment of future sites, where any Rotary Club can take on a similar project in a third world area of their choice.

Tom Nunnally
tom.nunnally@comcast.net
telephone number 412-241-1822