It has been a much too busy week and a half here in Oaxaca. We arrived on Sunday night the 13th for what we hoped to be a full day of meetings with the head of the state water commission (CEA) and then a follow-up meeting with Sr Cajiga (the Finance Minister). On the up-side ½ of the agenda happened. We were not surprised as this is the way schedules and meetings go down here. Typically, you have a meeting scheduled with someone or something perceived as more important comes up and the original meeting is canceled. This happens all the time and you cannot take it personally (except that it shows you are lower on the priority list).
We came to Oaxaca specifically to meet with the head of CEA (Ruben), Adriana (from the finance minister’s office) and the Finance Minister Sr Cajiga. Our goal and purpose is to finalize and sign several contracts to help the state government analyze the health of many of their wastewater treatment systems and develop a framework and process for the Finance Minister’s office to follow when evaluating potential public works projects. In the month prior to this trip we had been talking with Adriana who is the head of investment for the Finance Minister. She helped us re-scope our proposals and arranged our meetings with the water commission and the finance minister.
Our flights were good and uneventful. We left Seattle at about 7am on Sunday 13 May and arrived safe in Oaxaca by about 10:30pm. Firdaus Jhabvala (Dr. J) had arrived about an hour earlier and was already checked into our regular hotel when we got there. It was late but we stretched our legs with a walk to the Zocalo while strategizing about our next few days in Oaxaca. Our first meeting was with Adriana at the INSO offices to formally meet her and prepare for the afternoon meeting with the state water commission. Adriana informed us that we would NOT be meeting with Sr Cajiga because he was called out of town. Thus, we knew the entire process would take much longer then she had planned.
Our first meeting with Sr Ruben (the head of the state water commission - CEA), went as we expected. He was not receptive to our proposal, as it would take work away from him and potentially change the way he does business. Dr J was GREAT as he called Ruben’s bluff and then Adriana jumped in and told him he needed to play by the Finance Minister’s ideas. We left the meeting agreeing we would meet again on Wednesday to hopefully come to an agreement. Adriana then treated us to a great lunch and we got a chance to socialize and talk some business.
We then got back to work modifying our proposal and budget to reflect the potential lack of support from CEA. This included enlarging the scope of work and including time and budget to train and gather all the background data that CEA says does not exist! We then met Adriana for breakfast on Wednesday morning. We went to a great café that is a coffee co-op and helps coffee farmers improve their crop and value. Adriana was very interested in the other work we are doing in Bravo Ahuja (rain harvesting) and our potential work with The Hunger Project. After talking about these projects for awhile we got down to business. I must first say we were the benefit of being more important. :) Adriana initially said she had to leave by 9am to attend another meeting. To our surprise she canceled it to stay with us.:) We spoke about our new scope of work and the increased budget. She was happy to hear our plan, and was not put off by the increase in the budget. The rest of the day we cleaned up the proposals and we found a mistake in the budget spreadsheet we were working on close to midnight the night before!
We all gathered at 6pm at the CEA offices just outside of town to have our second meeting with Sr Ruben. This one went better than the first as we think he was told he has to go along with our plan as proposed by Sr Cajiga. Still the meeting went for several hours until Sr Ruben agreed to our proposals. We left with Adriana tasked with trying to find and secure a meeting with Sr Cajiga. We knew this would take 3-5 days, but as it turns out it will be longer.
To help Adriana better understand exactly what we will provide, we took the CEA proposal and went line by line detailing the differences in our proposal and the CEA proposal. The CEA proposal was basically a plan to raise and rebuild 99 treatment plants without understanding if they are repairable or the root cause of failure. We have come to learn that CEA does not feel any responsibility for the failed plants and they are incentivized to build new ones vs fixing or developing a new process to ensure plants continue to work after they are built. Adriana was very happy to receive these reports, as this will help her in talking with Sr Cajiga.
Dr J left to return to home to Houston on Thursday morning. Adriana’s original idea about staying through midweek to finish up was much too optimistic. Since our last meeting, we have been trying to put the proposals in their final form with the latest changes and in the format expected by CEA and the Finance offices. We’re putting together our best guesses with the information that we have. We are on hold with Adriana and Sr Cajiga waiting until he is available to meet with us. Right now, we hope to meet with him on Tuesday 29 May, after we return from Mexico City (D.F.) from our meetings with The Hunger Project.
Around town the city is at the beginning of the annual teachers’ strike which blocks most of the streets surrounding and including the Zocalo. Nelly tells is this can go on for 3- 15 weeks! First, it is TOTALLY PEACEFUL and it is sort of a huge street party. Because there are teachers from all over the state, there are a lot of different craft vendors selling their wares. Next, there is lots of GREAT street food on almost every corner. The bummer is that the already bad traffic is even worse!
Stay tuned for more exciting news ( as we have time to write about it) :)
Rick & Stan
(UABJO), CONAGUA (federal water commission), CEA (state water commission) and ADOSAPACO (municipal water department). We met with this group for two full days. The first day we discussed the state of water in the central valley and how rainwater harvesting could help. The second day focused on wastewater treatment and irrigation. From these meetings, we came up with a four part proposal to be completed over the next six months to advise the secretary on water and sanitation issues. Within six months (if approved), WFH, NSI and INSO will deliver to the secretary:
receive us, so we went to the old treatment system at the dumpsite to see if they were still trying to rehab it. Shortly after we arrived, the municipality head and his staff joined us. We think this was only because they had received a call from Mr. Cajiga's office. They were very open and listened to our potential plan. We stressed that we have many options available to us to build our pilot plant and one of the selection criteria will be how well the citizens and politics are that govern the site. As you may know, Etla and Santo Domingo Barrio Bajo Etla do not see eye to eye on many issues. We stated very clearly that we would be watching to see if this relationship improves, such that the needs of SDBBE are met by the municipality. We trust our counterparts in SDBBE to give us a truthful assessment to help us make any decisions about moving forward with a treatment plant in SDBBE. Next, we went to Tlacolula to visit their plant. As you may know, Tressie and a group from Engineers without Borders proposed a natural system addition to this plant three to four years ago, but dropped the project due to political issues. We had hoped to tour one more site, but we did not have enough time (as we got lost trying to find the entrance to the Tlacolula plant).
After talking to and emailing Dr.Jhabvala (with NSI) for over eighteen months, we finally met him in person. The summer of 2010, we hired him to travel to Oaxaca to visit INSO and the wastewater treatment system at Santa Domingo Barrio Bajo Etla (SDBBE). We have been working closely with him since then. He joined us for our first week in Oaxaca and attended the state government meetings with us. Dr. J (as we affectionately refer to him) lived in Oaxaca many years ago, soon after completing his Ph.D. in economics, and taught at a local university. Two of his former students participated in the meetings. He has been instrumental in the contract negotiations and will also be instrumental in fulfilling our six month proposed contract obligations.
We also attended INSO's 31st Water Forum on Friday, October 14th. Finance Minister Cajiga opened the Forum and launched INSO's plan: A Common Plan for the Common Good. Juan Jose Consejo, the Executive Director of INSO, gave the keynote address in which he explained the details of the plan. It looks at the technical, social and environmental components of all potential water and sanitation projects to determine which ones to pursue. This program is a yearlong effort in which the government has funded 20% of the program cost. The project will align with our proposed strategy and give us enhanced input to the plan. One of the presentations was by Inez Barroso 
on the Bravo Ahuja Rain Harvesting Project. Maria Soledad Diaz Gonzalez, the former head of Santo Domingo Barrio Bajo Etla, also attended. We spoke to her after the forum to get her opinion of what was going on with Villa de Etla with regards to the wastewater treatment plant. That will help us decide how well Etla is doing on the social (and political) front when we decide whether or not to put the initial constructed wetland (technology transfer demonstration project) there.
On Monday, October 17th, we attended the Antequera Rotary Club meeting to bring them up to date on the water filter project at the Valentin Gomez Farias Elementary School in SDBBE. The club was very excited about our work in Oaxaca in general and about the water filter project in particular. They said that we could bring receipts for work on the project to them and they would reimburse us. It is good to know that we can go over our $500 grant (from the Bremerton Rotary Club), if we need to, and still complete the project. They also offered to help find the right water testing company, if needed.
We visited the school on Thursday, the 20th. There, we met the school principal and the parental committee that is overseeing the school's transition to filtered municipal drinking water. At the school, we discovered that the lavatory water that will be filtered to drinking water quality includes surface water during the rainy season. The water goes from municipal water pipes to an underground cistern. From there it is pumped to a water tank on the roof of the lavatory and then to the lavatory faucets. During the rainy season, rainwater from the surface finds its way into the cistern, introducing unknown contaminants into the system. Because of this the installation will be more complex than originally planned. We will have to install a separate storage tank (200 liters) and booster pump to provide the needed water pressure. We are now pricing out a solution that filters piped water only to drinking water quality.
to visit the rainwater harvesting project that we are financially supporting. Mrs. Barroso is the community activist who initiated this project. Joining Nelly, Stan and Rick was Alejandra, who is heading up this project from INSO. These ladies have taken on this project so that their homes can have water year round. They have been trying to conserve and harvest rainwater using makeshift techniques and have managed to have water now when their neighbors do not. Working with INSO, they have big plans to build a 20,000 liter underground cistern (for each home) to provide them with lots of water between rainy seasons. They hope to have enough water to provide their neighbors with some water when they run out.
