La Banda/Montecillo de Nieto: The pilot cistern at the elementary school in La Banda is now
complete and the communities of La Banda and Montecillo de Nieto are ready to
split into three teams and complete 17 more family cisterns. Hierro Comercial
is delivering all the materials today and the other components, gravel, sand,
plywood, were delivered last week. It will take about six weeks to complete and
we hope to have a grand celebration in the first week or March which is also
when we will begin a 12 cistern project in Vivienda.
Alonso Yanez and Presa Allende: I continue to go bi-weekly to the communities of Alonso Yanez and
Presa Allende to collect water samples from their wells. CATIS and Rotary are
doing a simple study to determine how and if fluoride levels rise over the dry
season as the wells are drawn down by the extra water being extracted. We have
been doing this since the end of the rainy season and plan to continue until
the end of the dry season. Talks with the “pozoleros” (persons that take care
of community wells in the communities) have told us that the months of April
and May are when the extraction is at its greatest. Alonso Yanez is consistently
testing at close to 5 mg/liter for fluoride which is the highest we have seen
within our municipality (water levels above 1.5mg/litre may have long-term undesirable effects**read more about fluoride here).
We will be building about 46 cisterns in Alonso Yanez and the adjacent community, Lindero, in April 2015.
We will be building about 46 cisterns in Alonso Yanez and the adjacent community, Lindero, in April 2015.
Submitted by Lee Carter, Rotary San Miguel Midday
