Water 4.0

Water 4.0:  The Past, Present, and Future of the World’sMost Vital Resource is a new (2014) book by David Sedlak.   In it he details “(t)he little-known story of the systems that bring us our drinking water, how they were developed, the problems they are facing, and how they will be reinvented in the near future.”  Water 1.0 is what he calls the gravity-powered aqueducts engineered and built by the ancient Romans.  “…(T)he addition of filtration and chlorine disinfection on the front end of water distribution systems…” he refers to as Water 2.0.  “…(T)he installation of biological wastewater treatment on the sewer end…” is Water 3.0.  And, solutions to the challenges we now face will bring Water 3.x – Water 4.0 to our communities.  These solutions may be centralized, decentralized or some combination of both.  Sedlak does a good job of recounting the history and explaining the options we have as we move forward.  For anyone interested in an overview of the past, present and future of urban water, this book is well worth reading.

Seattle Rotary Clubs to visit Yuguelito Community in Mexico City

Rick and Stan met with representatives from the Rotary Club of the University District, Seattle and the Rotary Club of Ballard (Susan Sola, Marilee Fuller, Daniel Foe, Chistina Shimizu and Leslie Grace). They are leaving for Mexico City on August 19th to visit the Yuguelito community. This marginalized community in Mexico City is struggling to obtain adequate housing, water and sewage. The Seattle Rotarians will see, first hand, how the Yuguelito community and the Mexico City Rotarians furnished the community center (where children can safely study and play) that the Seattle clubs helped finance. They will also meet the community leaders and learn the details about their future plans. They want to leave with enough information to determine if they want to present proposals to their respective clubs about future projects for this community. Rick and Stan gave them their perspective of the community, its leaders and possibilities after their two visits to the community last month. This may be an excellent opportunity to introduce sustainable housing, rainwater harvesting and/or dry latrine projects to the community. The Rotary Club decisions may determine whether or not Water for Humans gets involved with this community.

Site visit to Tlahuac One of the poorest parts of Mexico City

Stan and I were up early again to meet Ulises, Lino Marquez (Centro Historico Rotary), and Ofelia A Hernandez from MexFam (like planned parenthood) to go to the community where they are working in collaboration with the Ballard and University (Seattle) Rotary Clubs. This part of the city is considered to be one of the poorest urban regions of Metro D.F.

This community is only about 12 miles from our hotel but seems like light years away in economic terms. MexFam has been working in the community for about 5 years now and a few years ago they realized they needed to take a more systems approach to improving the community.With the help of the the Ballard and University Rotary Clubs in Seattle and Rotary International, the Centro Historico Rotario is building a new community center (85 X 40 ft).

The community is very unique as there is a guard who controls access in and out of the community and there is NO drinking or drugs allowed.  Most of the houses are built in a connected row fashion. they are only about 6' high and only 15 x 15 ft in floor area!.  These houses are not "legal" in the sense that they do not have formal "rights" to the land.

However, with the newer housing (under construction) the owners have land rights.  There is no running water and all the water is delivered by water trucks into open top 55 gal plastic barrels. Each barrel is numbered with the family's house #.

We were invited specifically to look at the opportunities and challenges to provide rain water harvesting and dry latrine solutions.  In addition, they are interested in a community garden.

Like all opportunities this one presents its unique challenges and opportunities.  We look forward to collaborating with these Rotary Clubs to help provide innovative solutions.

The Thirsty planet PLU

Please join me Thursday evening and Friday for a conference at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma WA.

Maud Barlow is the Keynote speaker and will speak Thursday evening and the conference will go all day Friday. Rick Will speak about

“Oaxaca: Water and Sanitation: Challenges and Opportunities” at 9:15 Friday morning.

From Oaxaca - October 11th

We made it to Oaxaca Monday evening October 10th.  We left Seattle on Sunday, the 9th, and spent the night in Houston with Dr. Firdaus Jhabvala (Natural Systems International) and his wife, Josefina.  The next day, Monday, we all went to Mexico City, and ate a late lunch at the airport.  Firdaus (Dr. J) and Josefina left the airport and spent the night in Mexico City, so that they could renew Josefina’s visa on Tuesday.  Rick and Stan left the airport and continued on the final leg of their trip to Oaxaca.  Nelly met us at the airport and took us to the hotel.  This is a government provided hotel which is, by far, more luxurious then the accommodations we are used to.

From Bard College

Tuesday morning we ate at one of our usual breakfast locations, stopped to buy fruit from our usual fruit vendor (it was good to see her again) and proceeded to INSO.  There, we met the INSO staff as they arrived for work, along with a visiting professor and two students from Bard College in New York.  Nelly told us the night before that the plan was to visit Erik Torres (chemistry professor) at 10 AM at the university (UABJO-Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca) and then visit with government officials at 5:30 in the afternoon.  The government was sending a car to take us to the afternoon meeting.  By Tuesday morning, things had changed.  There was a disturbance at the university (strike) and the government meeting was changed to 1 o’clock.  So, Erik came to us and the car picked us up at noon.

Erik from UABJO

When Juan Jose came in we met with him to discuss the planned meetings, our respective roles in them and potential talking points to bring up.  After strategizing with him for about an hour, Erik showed up and we spent time with him.  Erik brought us up to date on his end. He showed us some new data from Santo Domingo Barrio Bajo Etla water samples collected and analyzed by his students.  He has a much closer working relationship with Carlos (at INSO) on the Water Forum.  The UABJO constructed wetland is in good working order and he is trying to reduce its gas emissions to minimize the future fire potential.  Work with Etla is as challenging as ever.  They asked him to recommend a plan to move forward and then refused to sign, cooperate or comment on his proposal.  He has also developed a comprehensive manual for a potential certified lab.  He has been very busy on several fronts.

Our first meeting with Secretary Cajiga

A van picked us up at INSO at noon and took us to the state office buildings about thirty km away.  Besides Mr. Cajiga, the Secretary of Finance, there were representatives from CONAQUA (federal water commission), CEA (state water commission), ADOSAPACO (municipal water department), INSO and WFH.  The discussion centered around rainwater harvesting.  Juan Jose gave a lengthy presentation, which was followed by a discussion of ways to implement rainwater harvesting pilot projects. There was a lot of interest at all levels for trying new ways of obtaining water and most seemed to have an open mind about doing something. However, no concrete plans were made to do anything.  Tomorrow the topic of discussion will be sanitation.

We returned to INSO, ate a late lunch and worked with Nelly to prepare a PowerPoint introduction to and handouts about Water for Humans for tomorrow.  We then ate dinner with Mara (professor from Bard College) and went back to the hotel.  There, we ran into Firdaus and Josephina in the lobby where we spent about ninety minutes bringing each other up to date on our experiences that day and planning for tomorrow.  We went to bed about 11PM to be ready for another long day in the morning.