A Day at CEDESA

May 19, 2016

Yesterday, after going to Nombre de Dios with Chela and Abel, we returned to CEDESA for additional planning of our new global grant (GG1524911) for 319 more water harvesting cisterns in San Miguel, Dolores Hidalgo, San Diego de la Union & San Luis de la Paz. 

Present were Chela, Abel, Meche, Benigno, and Ceci.

We reviewed first the progress on the new education program & the principal objectives of that program. Meche has been working hard with Wendy Coulson to develop the program & didactic materials to go with that. We all agreed that in a nutshell our goals are to have people fully understand

1.       the reason for cisterns is lack of an improved water source or having water that is terribly contaminated with fluoride and arsenic.

2.      the cistern water is free from those poisons & they should never drink water from wells.

3.        they can improve their water & health even more by integrating disinfection steps to improve the cistern water & avoid any potential biological contamination &

4.       have people learn how to self-construct their water harvesting system & maintain it to get maximum benefit from it.

Those are our primary objectives for this project &grant. However we also will be using this opportunity to continue to develop the communities' capacity to work together to analyze their problems & seek solutions (resources). 

We'd like to build on this opportunity so that they can take advantage of other opportunities such as backyard gardens, natural medicine, beekeeping, & other eco-technologies such as gray water filtering & the eco-cina stoves. We'd like the cistern projects to continue to be the first step in the long process of community empowerment.

The education program is ready now to “beta test” in the first communities. We are going to start in Boca de la Cañada (San Miguel) in two weeks & then in Las Claveles (Dolores) after that. 

We will present the didactic materials in the “final draft” format & then make adjustments before going to press & printing enough materials to carry us through the project.

Everyone in the communities are enthusiastic & champing at the bit to get started. They all want to work through the summer rainy season in order to be able to harvest at least a little rain before the dry weather returns in the fall. 

CEDESA is going to work up a draft schedule next week so we can plan out each mini-project. They are talking about doing as many as four different communities per month. Yikes, that is going to be a lot of work for all of us!

As we worked through potential pitfalls & bottlenecks in this ambitious program, we realized that we would need another technician in addition to Benigno & Abel to be able to do the site visits in each community during the construction process. 

A great solution was devised that will also allow us to continue to develop our youth program in the process. We will select a young person in each community where we are working to become an expert in construction & maintenance of the systems. This person will do the project monitoring throughout the construction process & will be report & consult with Abel &/or Benigno as the mini-project proceeds. Instead of having a once a week visit from the technician, we will have someone there overseeing the construction on a daily basis as each group builds cisterns at each home. 

Once the project is complete we will be leaving behind “a community expert” who can continue to monitor cisterns & even assist in repairs as needed. We already have a budget for an albanil for the pilot week. Since each group is now obligated to provide an albanil throughout the mini-project including the pilot cistern week, those funds can be used as a stipend for developing our new community expert. CEDESA will be responsible for handling the payment process.

We also reviewed the financial resources available in the grant so that we could come up with a simplified billing plan. When we combine our organization budget with our education teaching budget, we have 2,400 pesos for Pre-Pilot expenses. For the Pilot stage of the project we have $4,750 in funds available. And for post-project monitoring & evaluation we have 900 pesos available. 

We budgeted for 11 mini-projects as we were developing the project but as the number of cisterns grew the number of mini-projects is likely to be 15 to 18 … thank heavens for our contingency budget!

CEDESA is to be responsible for tracking certain costs/expenses each month & reporting them to Rotary for reimbursement. They need to record all KM driven in CEDESA vehicles in executing the projects to be reimbursed @ 3.5 pesos / KM. They also need to keep all tickets from using public transportation so that can be reimbursed as well up to a total of $9000 for the project. We will also be providing an $800 peso phone allowance per month to be split up between the various promotors & technicians.

Equipment: We need to get the new vehicle as soon as possible. Rotary has $5,000 dollars to contribute to that. CEDESA has 30,000 pesos set aside as well. We are going to purchase one “very good” vehicle that will last many years into the future for project monitoring. We are going to invest about 10,000 pesos of that money in upgrading an existing vehicle. Even with two new vehicles in play, transportation will still be a headache for CEDESA. 

The electrode in the fluoride testing laboratory has failed & we are looking into replacing that. Initial quotations that Meche got are expensive … about US$1,500. We had not counted on needing this within the time frame of this grant. We will probably reduce our “tools” budget to get this back on-line &I will try to see if we can find outside resources to help cover this unexpected expense.

We are working to be able to get the communities on the edges of San Diego de la Union & San Luis de la Paz involved in this grant. To do so, the two “subgroups” will have to work under UCCANG. 

UCCANG is responsible for carrying out several functions … community selection, receiving solicitudes & for providing monitoring and evaluation for six months after the construction phase. Integrating them into UCCANG does not seem to be a problem. The two subgroups are SECOPA (Servicios Comunitarios de Pozos Ademada – San Diego Union) and CUVA (Comunidades Unidas Para La Vida y Agua – San Jose Iturbide).

Recently a well in the San Jose Iturbide area, in the community of La Cantera, was discovered to have radioactivity in the water. There has been a high rate of documented child leukemia in that town as well. Dr. Ortega of UNAM is studying the problem to determine if this is an isolated instance of industrial contamination or if it is going to be as a result of the ever-challenging problems we are facing in the aquifer. There are 120 affected families & the government is, of course, denying that there is a problem.

Submitted by: Lee Carter

Tierra Blanca - cause of higher than average mortality rate discovered!!

In May 2010 the Cedesa/Rotary water project team visited Tierra Blanca at the invitation of the community, who were interested in becoming participants in the water project that was being carried out in various neighbouring communities.

At that meeting members of the community spoke & raised the topic of the higher than average mortality rate of their community & asked if we could help them resolve it. This was not something the Water Project team had encountered in the surrounding communities, & after hearing the heart rending stories of the young people who had died, & whole families who had been wiped out by this cancer, we agreed to work with them to find the cause.

The puzzle was it was only occuring in this community - despite the close proximity to other communities who shared the same water, socio economic situation, food, environment etc, so why was it only happening in Tierra Blanca, & why did it even happen to people from Tierra Blanca when they left the community.

There were many theories - one included a curse, on those who had found ancient graves & sold artefacts in the 50's.

We agreed as a team to take this on.
Many months elapsed with various steps involved:

• There were many visits to Tierra Blanca working with & informing the people of the community.
• Many water tests taken - all showing high levels of Fluoride but although Fluoride has many symptoms the symptoms described by the people, ie sore shoulders & arms, then pain in the lungs, & then death within approx 6 mths, were not symtoms of fluoride poisoning. 
• Cedesa & a team of students led by Jesus Gutierrez created an interview protocol & carried out a census.
• With the results of this census a meeting was made with the then Mayor Lucy Nunez & she granted access to Sanitaria Dos officials.
• These officials were not convinced that the death rate was not just a result of a genetic predisposition running in families. They were aware of the deaths but none had been investigated.
• We also reached out to Dr Ortega of UNAM.
• He subsequently met with us in the community, & spoke with the people to gather more information.
• Dr Ortega committed to working on this issue & returned to take water samples there & in surrounding communities, from various sources, wells, springs & the dried up water bed - where locals dig holes & retrieve water from the puddles.
• The test results showed high levels of fluoride & in some cases arsenic but were inconclusive as causes of the cancer killing members of this community.
• Air, & soil tests were also carried out.

I left the team in 2013 & to be honest many of us believed we many never get to the bottom of this.

Fast forward to 2014 & today a very good friend forwarded an article appearing in the local bi-lingual paper. To read this exciting article & discovery please go to the following link:

http://amsanmiguel.com/?p=871

In the spanish version of this article they credit UNAM with discovering the cause of the high mortality rate & the cause is Erionite. 

"Erionite is a naturally occurring fibrous mineral that belongs to a group of minerals called zeolites. It usually is found in volcanic ash that has been altered by weathering and ground water."

Carcinogenicity of Erionite

"Erionite is known to be a human carcinogen and is listed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a Group 1 Carcinogen.^[5]The prevalence of malignant pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma due to erionite exposure in the Central Anatolia Region is very high."

In our own Tierra Blanca, it has been reported, there is nothing for them to do but leave their homes - which of course many are unable to do. 

So on a high note, the moral of the story would be "don't give up, if something does not seem right it isn't & keep working until you find the cause"

On a low note, finding the cause does not necessarily solve the problem.

Love

Laura

8th Regional Event of the Communities requesting assistance with water

Where: UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) Juriquilla
When: 3.5.11
Who: Representatives of the Consejo Cata (CdP, President), Abraham & Estela (Tierra Blanca), Roberto (Presita de Santa Rosa/secretary), Saul, Chela, Jesus & Parents of Jesus – (Cedesa), Laura Rotary, Dr Marcos Adrian Ortega Guerrero, & Ramon Aguila – UNAM,

Purpose of the meeting: For Dr Ortega to inform the communities regarding the severity of wáter issues in the región, & to plan the study to attempt to determine the cause of high mortality rate in Tierra Blanca.

Saul, Cata, Abraham, Estela & Roberto met at Bodega Aurerra & travelled with Laura to Juriquilla, Jesus, Chela & Jesus’s parents travelled separately from Cedesa.

Dr Ortega began the discussion with a powerpoint & history of the work he & his colleagues have been carrying out in this región. In 1998 the began work in the área of ground wáter studies. Many organisations collaborated on this study. Once they began work they realised that the one aquifer serviced the 7 municipalities, previously it was thought each área had it’s own.

They bought together the municipalities to fund the study.

Historically there were other lakes in the área talked about by the indigenous peoples but they are not here now, there were also 1000’s of springs, these too have dried up.

There are 2500 wells in the área covered by this aquifer. 127 of them were tested for organic matter & 10 elements. There are many more elements that should be being tested for.

In SMA they are currently only testing for fluoride (not even arsenic, ironically Cedesa just did 2 tests for private individuals in the área beside the DH road, & in both locations the levels were higher than the safe recommended level).

The WHO safe max. Level for arsenic is 0.01 – the Mexican Govt. Safe max. Level is 2.5x higher at .025.

Fluoride is a nasty contaminant, it’s symptoms include, high depression, complications with diabetes, erectile disfunction, bone pain, brain disfunction, damaged teeth, accumulation in major organs, .

When the diabetes complications was mentioned, Cata said in the last 3 yrs 4 or 5 kids of 6-7 yrs old have died from diabetes in Cruz del Palmar. There could be a connection with the high fluoride levels there.

There is no information being publically provided currently about the fluoride situation in this región. We are doing our best to inform the communities with whom we’re working, as this is a drastic problema & they should avoid drinking the wáter. Chlorine does not remove fluoride

1.5mg/l is reported as the máximum safe level but it is in fact still toxic at this level.
There are different methods of testing the fluoride levels, the dipstick method (used by Ecosciences) is not the most precise method.

There are more than 70 elements, & we are just testing for fluoride.
Another toxic contaminant is silica – Silicosis is being investigated as a possible cause of the health issues in Tierra Blanca, as is Radon.

Dr Ortega then proposed 2 sets of studies to be done, 1 specifically in Tierra Blanca & the other in the región 500 metres around Tierra Blanca.

An “Encuentro por el Agua” is planned 20/8/11 10am-5pm as a follow up to the diplomado for agua done in 2008/09.

It will be held at the Biblioteca at CAC (Centro Academico Culturo). It will also be open likely to people from the Consejo who have not attended the diplomado but are interested in the topic of Water.

Report of 8th Event Re Tierra Blanca

Where: Tierra Blanca under the big tree by the Church & steps of new church.
When: March 30th 2011 11.40
Who: Holly, Saul, Chela, Jesus (Cedesa), Dr Marcos Adrian Ortega(UNAM), Laura (Rotary)+ 53 adults & 5 kids.

Purpose: To discuss the issue of unusually high early mortality rate in Tierra Blanca, findings of the census carried out by Jesus with Cedesa & the community, with an aim to beginning a full epidemiological study in this community to ultimately resolve the high death rate from cancer occurring here for more than 30 years. (According to the community).

Background
Cedesa & Rotary have been working in this community with an aim to providing water, during community assemblies the issue of high death rate by cancer in this community was raised.
Cedesa subsequently carried out a census with the assistance of the community, to gather more data to determine a pattern. The census found that there was a high concentration of deaths 81% around a specific area of the community, thus indicating a potential environmental cause (as opposed to the previously thought genetic aspect).

With this information we would now like to illicit the assistance of experts in this field to potentially pinpoint the cause & ultimately (ideally) a solution to this major ongoing issue in this community.

Water has been mostly ruled out in these early stages, as 3 communities share the same water source & yet Tierra Blanca is the only community reporting this issue.

Cedesa & Rotary have reached out to Dr Marcos Adrian Ortega of UNAM Juriquilla & the meeting has been arranged.


Meeting begins
Chela gave intro & explanation of water studies by UNAM, of the region’s water issues, including contaminants, she described briefly the 8mth diplomada of water studies that was held at Cedesa, given by Dr Ortega to approx. 120 campesinos from 80 communities.

Dr Ortega mentioned the following: the information was all about the subject of water in this area, the 7 municipalities that share this aquifer, the Rio Laja is the main source to aquifer, it is 7000 miles long, the management of the water use in the area, the fact that water being used is pre-historic, 10-25,000 year old water, it is not being recharged, the aquifer is too deep, the water does not reach there to recharge it.

Arsenic causes cancer, fluoride causes damage to the cellular makeup of bones & teeth, many kids in this area don’t have teeth, they have degraded. There are 10-15,000 cases of fluorosis in the San Luis de La Paz area (Palencia),
50 communities in this SMA region are affected by fluoride contamination.
Causes probs with bones, teeth, brain, major organs. Kids are not able to learn, it affects info processing ability.
“why haven’t the ranchos been told?” one man asked.
Because the authorities have not analysed the water for these chemicals before 2000. There is a big problem to report this to the communities as there has to be an alternative & they have not found one, hence the cisterns are the answer. They need to stop drilling the wells & provide cisterns.

The older water is warmer & so it absorbs the fluoride & arsenic from the rocks, high levels of silica too.

Cedesa is showing people how to build cisterns, this resolves the issue, but you need to start now, don’t drink the water from the pozos here!

Chela – this is info about the water & we’ve talked about this before but we are also here to discuss the problem of cancer that exists in this community.

An average of 6 deaths per year can be attributed to this since 2007 (& figures not avail before then).

Jesus spoke, he described the study he & the community had carried out & the findings, that 81% of the deaths seemed to be concentrated in one geographic location, so maybe something environmental. He invited Dr Ortega to work with us to try to determine the cause/cure.

There are cases where there is no certainty cause of death so these have not been recorded, hence diff. between our stats & official govt. stats.

Jesus described the meeting with Dra Mejia, Lucy, Irma, Jesus & I, on the subject of the need for investigation of this issue & that the govt. is collaborating on this effort. Govt. have offered free pap smears & mammograms, as some of the cancers are breast cancer…
He explained that last year we made a commitment to Tierra Blanca to begin work on this issue & have been working since then to get the meeting with govt & action.

Dr Ortega is here to help us begin investigations on causes, maybe testing the soil in the area of the higher death rate, it maybe that there is radiation in that area,

Some people began describing the symptoms of people they had lost
“pain front & then back, & had shivers, supposedly cancer of the lung, but maybe cancer of the breast”
“that person was in the states, they have been operated on but can not identify the cause, or diagnose properly”
“a mother had liquid on the lung, said couldn’t identify the cause, symptoms started in the arm, then shivers, none of the Drs know what the cause is, they weren’t sure it was cancer”
“Lots of people have left, some went to Tamaulipas because they thought Tierra Blanca was the problem, but they all died there – you can’t run away from cancer”
“1st symptoms coughing, coughing, & shoulder hurts, Dr mis-diagnoses it”
“Dr will not cure you, they just send you from one Dr to another & charge you more & more, but no results”
“People that come here (ie marry into this area), get sick too”

Dr Ortega said he would like to come back with teams to take samples of Water, Air & Dust/soil.
Water can be radioactive & this can deplete when it goes to the other communities.

Dr O. proposes to return in 1st wk of May with a team to take samples, also possibly measure radon (very difficult to measure as it is gaseous & hard to catch)

He will also look a the possibility of initiating contact directly with the Epidemiology dept to begin with specialists, re the institute of micas in Leon.

By June the results will be expected.

In this way we will be involving the municipality, State Dr & Unam in finding a solution.

Chela explained that we hadn’t abandoned Tierra Blanca (long time between visits) but that it takes a lot of time to pull all of this together.

“Gracias – we really need help, we are dying & we never know who’s going to be next – we’re really concerned for our kids”

“here when we cleaned our water pipes they were really red” Dr O said this is likely high iron.
He said we will do a complete study of the water & what is contained in it.
Don’t just expect the university to resolve this, it will take the whole team, Cedesa, Rotary, the community, the municipality & the University, all working together to find the answers.

Chela described a little about the Consejo & that these are the kinds of issues it can work on.

Jesus asked to be advised if any more people develop the symptoms, as we would like to give special treatment to these cases.

Chela – we would like to ask you to make a commitment to being healthy too, not to eat junk food but to please eat healthy food, because your body is already dealing with an overload of toxins in the dust, air & water, you shouldn’t introduce junk food into the mix too.


Q&A for the Dr
“are the analysis costs going to cost us?”
Unam is already doing similar costs at the same time, & so will absorb the cost.
If we find problems then Municipality will be asked to contribute with costs, for example when we did the full study on water, all the municipalities contributed to this study, although at that time the SMA municipality contributed the least.

Fluorosis is very severe, causes problems with fetal deaths, infertility, sexual disfunction, brain, teeth, bone & major organ damage. Actually more dangerous than Arsenic. Prevents ability to learn, slow blink relex is a possible cause as shows speed of brain process, no retention, no ability to process.

Next meetings
UNAM – Juriquilla – Water Project team 10am 3.5.11
2nd wk in May come to take samples at Tierra Blanca (with team)
2nd wk in June return with results of samples

We adjourned for lunch, then after lunch had the project planning meeting…
See separate report…