Compone, Peru

Background

Compone, Peru 2008 Compone is a community of 1500 in the Andean Mountains of southern Peru, 16 miles west of the city of Cuzco. It is a traditional Peruvian highlands farming community with grain crops, livestock and dairy products as the main sources of livelihood.

In the spring of 2008, a development engineer working with the Association of Conservation of the Amazon Basin (ACCA) approached EWB-UMCP to propose a water sanitation project in Compone. The community had two water-related issues. First, annual spring output has declined in recent years, causing daily water shortages in the dry season. Secondly, the water is not treated and thus spreads gastro-intestinal illnesses from waterborne viruses, bacteria and cysts. It is believed that the contamination stems from animal waste, which is commonplace in an agricultural community such as Compone.

The Need

Compone's drinking water is currently supplied by numerous springs located in the adjacent mountains. Since 1997 a total of five gravity-fed systems have been built to supply water from these springs to the 1500 inhabitants of Compone. Each of the five independent systems currently provides water, but lacks adequate treatment to prevent the spread of waterborne illness.

Being a community of subsistence farmers, Compone is also heavily dependent on its water supply for irrigation purposes. In recent years, the community has experienced a decrease in the amount of water available to it for agricultural use. A collection of inefficiencies in their irrigation network is seen as a fixable contributor to their water losses.

EWB Response

Phase I:

A EWB assessment team comprised of two engineering students and two professional geologists traveled to Peru in August 2008 to assess the extent of the community’s water needs. With the help of in-country contacts, the team conducted interviews with local community members, assessed the current state of the five water systems, and took water samples in various locations to test for contaminates. The team also identified possible suppliers of materials in the nearby city of Cuzco.

During fall 2008 semester, the Peru project team has taken the data collected from the assessment trip and brainstormed possible solutions. Several designs were considered for treatment of the water. The project team researched sustainable designs including passive filtration systems such as slow and rapid sand filtration, UV treatment, solar pasteurization, clay pottery filtration, as well as passive and active chlorine dosing systems. The team considered effectiveness, reliability, ease of use, environmental and spatial footprint, cost, and maintenance for each option, as well as the preference of the community, and common practice in Peru.

After nearly a semester of research and analysis, the team has decided on chlorination as the most feasible treatment option for the five water systems of Compone. The spring 2009 semester will be spent on engineering design, securing in-country sources of materials, developing an educational program supporting water safety, and organizing logistics for travel in summer 2009. EWB-UMCP hopes to establish a lasting relationship with the community of Compone as we work together to improve the safety of their water supply.

Phase II:

Water Tank and Chlorine Dosing
During a design process over the fall 2008 and spring 2009 semesters, a project team reviewed a variety of water purification methods and selected a passive chlorination system as the most feasible treatment option.

Implementation of the treatment solution in June 2009 was focused on adding chlorine to the distribution systems and ensuring that enough time passed before the chlorinated water reached tap stands. Passive chlorine tablet feeders were installed near the spring boxes in each of the five water districts to provide a continuous supply of chlorine. To ensure adequate reaction time between the chlorine and water, baffles were installed in the reservoirs. In the case of one water district, a ferrocement tank was constructed to provide additional retention time. While the infrastructure for treatment systems has been installed in Compone, compatibility difficulties between locally available chlorine and the chlorine feeders have prevented the systems from becoming operational.

Building upon the infrastructure constructed the previous June, a January 2010 trip looked to further assess the feasibility of a tablet chlorination system. The team was able to successfully construct a tablet press in country with local materials, and pressed tablets from powder chlorine for in-country testing. These tablets, though, were not entirely compatible with the existing tablet doser, and so the team was required to develop alternative solutions to the problem.

In the summer of 2011, a small team traveled to the community to assess the availability of materials so that a proper alternative could be selected and designed over the fall 2011 semester. After the trip, the full team decided on the implementation of a prefabricated chlorine doser produced by a local manufacturer.

Irrigation Channel Improvements
An assessment of Compone's irrigation network in August 2010 found evidence of losses greater than 200,000 liters per day through the soils from which the irrigation channels were constructed. Additional losses occurred through the inefficient breakout system, which involved removing and replacing dirt to control the flow of water from the main channel. The project team designed a solution to better conserve the community's water by improving the efficiency of the irrigation network. The proposed solution involved a soil-cement channel lining and improved breakout gates.

In June 2011, an implementation team from UMCP traveled to Compone to help the community construct the designed improvements for a 30-meter portion of the 1.3km irrigation channel. The community is continuing construction on the remainder of the channel. It is hoped that the skills developed during the implementation trip will be used by the residents of Compone to increase the efficiency of all of their irrigation canals, and to demonstrate the methods to neighboring communities.

Moving Forward

The project team is in the process of finalizing its design for implementing a prefabricated chlorinator in Compone. The team plans to travel to Peru in the summer of 2012 to implement its solution.