Where: The Presidencia at the Municipal Buildings at the Glorieta beside the road to Los Rodriguez
When: Thursday 19th November 2008 2pm-5.15pm
Who: Enrique Nunez Martinez + 1 other (Secretario Technico – director of directors as we understand it), Ernesto Lopez (engineer Sapasma), Don Patterson + 2 others (director & engineers Ecology Dept), Chela Martinez, Benigno, Holly Yasui (CEDESA), Jose Miguel (Delegada of Los Torres) + 2 others, 4 members of the Montecillo de Nieto Community (Los Torres neighbours). Judy Fisher (representative from another NGO Patronato Pro Ninos), Laura Stewart (Rotary SMA midday),
General Project Purpose - SMA Rotary tasked Bob & Laura with defining the “needs” & determining the best proposal, for a major water Project involving the writing of a competitive grant for approx. US$100K.
Rationale: As part of the process of defining the “need” we will meet with as many people as possible that are directly involved in the provision of, or are aware of the need for the provision of, safe drinking water solutions to marginal communities.
Specific Project determined: We are now working on the Los Torres project
to fund individual water collection systems for each household in Los Torres. We have verbal funding agreed of US$60K combined, from our North American Rotary Partner clubs.
Meeting Purpose:
Judy Fisher instigated this meeting. She had had an earlier meeting as she described as follows:
I DID MEET WITH SALUD PALACIOS AND ENRIQUE NUNEZ (THE PEOPLE FROM THE PRESIDENCIA WHO ORGANIZED THE MEETING THE 19TH.) AT THE FIRST MEETING, ENRIQUE STATED THAT THE GREY WATER TRUCK FOR THE BATHROOMS AT THE SCHOOL CAME FROM AN ORDER FROM ECOLOGIA AND THE WATER FOR THE TINACOS CAME FROM SAPASMA. FOR THESE ORDERS THE PRESSURE DID COME FROM THE PRESIDENCIA, OFICINA CIUDADANA.
During the earlier meeting Enrique had suggested calling a meeting of all parties involved with the provision (or potential provision) of water to Los Torres. So that information could be transferred & a plan of sorts achieved.
Summary of Visit
We all met at the Presidencia & introduced ourselves. The entire meeting was in Spanish. I am not fully fluent & asked for clarification from Judy & Holly on points I thought I had missed.
Ecology Dept
Don Patterson led the meeting & talked in general about what the Ecology Dept does, ie environmental conservation, tree planting programs, water conservation efforts, the installation of water collection system at a clinic in San Augustin, & the planned implementation of more water collection systems in 9 more communities at a school or clinic level.
Points to note
a study done by Ecosciences in 2006 tested over 100 pozos (wells). The tests involved measuring the levels of fluoride, magnesium, arsenic & colioforms.
Pg 2 of 3
The study report indicated approx 20 community wells (affecting over 6000 people), contained higher than safe levels of one or more of the contaminants.
Of these 20 communities, the Ecology Dept have plans to provide water from roof collection (on schools &/or clinics) in 11 at risk communities in total.
This will provide safe drinking water during the school day for the children in these communities. It will not provide safe drinking water for the entire community.
They have insufficient funding to provide these measures to all of the affected communities at this point & the inference has been that any outside help would be gratefully accepted.
Over 50% of the pozos tested, tested positive for coliform, although no measures were made of the safe (or unsafe) levels.
(NB A lot of this information we/Rotary already knew as we have had a lot of contact with the Ecology department regarding exactly this. We also worked with them on our earlier San Miguel Viejo project – which replicated the model that the Ecology dept had done in San Augustin).
Don Patterson advised the communities that there was funding available for them to plant trees in their communities (the minimum average wage + trees would be provided by Ecology, but the community would have to approach & organise), the issue of how to water the trees would still have to be solved!
Sapasma is the local municipal govt. organisation responsible for the provision of water to the SMA region.
Ernesto Lopez – chief engineer (Rotary have had several meetings with Ernesto in the early stages of the scoping of this project), discussed their plans for the installation of a well in the upper part of the Los Torres community. The community has paid for a study into the feasibility of the drilling of a well in LT. Water does exist there, at a level of 180metres deep.
They are currently drilling a well. It will provide water for Los Torres & their neighbours Montecillo de Nieto (approx 15 mins drive away).
Points to note
Sapasma did not divulge how much this will cost the people of LT or Montecillo
The water has not been tested (is almost 100% likely to be contaminated with fluoride like the water less than 500 mtres away in the family wells in the lower community) so will likely be only useful for household & not Drinking water
The level of the lower community wells have been decreasing at the rate of more than 1 metre per year, just from single household use. There has been no taking into account how quickly the aquifer will drop given that they plan to pipe it to the houses in 2 communities.
Water consumption increases dramatically when it is provided on tap & does not have to be carried!
Water consumption also increases when the consumption per family is hard to measure (ie when it is on tap with no water meter)
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CEDESA
Chela introduced herself & her organisation’s purpose, ie to help camposinos live a sustainable existence & stay on the land.
She had some interesting questions for Sapasma about the sustainability of their approach & the extreme cost to the communities (both financially & cost to the environment). It was agreed that a combination of water supply was necessary as it’s currently not cost effective to build a cistern big enough to supply water to the entire community for all water needs.
She described the technologies that CEDESA teaches & asked the community leaders if there was an interest in – for example – dry toilets, water collection, back yard gardens, bee-keeping. They said they were very interested.
Rotary I explained that Rotary was very interested in helping in the area of Water. That we were looking to make the biggest difference to the most people for the least amount of money & briefly described our plan/project (at this stage).
Enrique said that there is a new DVD available that contains info. about communities that need help with water. He said there are many communities that have no water. I pointed out that we have tried many times with many different departments to identify these & he said this DVD would do the trick.
I will email him for a copy of the DVD.
Enrique Nunez – the presidencia representative
Enrique was very receptive & pro-active (he called the meeting!). He is high level local govt. & is very keen for all of the govt departments & NGO’s to work alongside the community to resolve any issues.
He re-iterated that the door is always open – as did the other department directors.
Enrique called the next meeting for 28th January – 11am – Presidencia office.
