The water chlorination project was selected as the first project as part of EWB-UMD and Compone’s partnership agreement. During the Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 semesters, the project team reviewed a variety of water purification methods and selected a passive chlorination system as the most feasible treatment option for the design conditions.
The implementation trip in June 2009 focused on adding chlorine to the eight distribution systems in Compone’s water network and ensuring appropriate chlorine-water contact time to eradicate pathogens before consumption. The team installed passive chlorine tablet feeders near the spring boxes in each of the five water districts to provide a continuous supply of chlorine. To ensure adequate contact time time between the chlorine and water, baffles were installed in the reservoirs. However, the Centro neighborhood distribution system required additional retention time, so the team proceeded to implement a large ferrocement tank.
In January 2010, EWB-UMD looked to further assess the feasibility of a tablet chlorination system for the Centro distribution system. The team was able to successfully construct a tablet press system with local materials and pressed tablets from powdered chlorine for in-country testing. These new tablets, however, were not entirely compatible with the existing dosage system, and required an alternative solution.
After a three-year hiatus to implement the irrigation system, the team redirected its focus back to the chlorination system. In January 2013, a team travelled for an assessment trip intended to provide a fresh outlook on the most feasible approach to Compone’s water disinfection problem. During this trip, students, faculty, and professionals worked to collect extensive water quality data, develop contacts within the community, and reexamine work that the chapter had previously done.
The team returned and began planning a redesigned chlorine disinfection unit for the community. A full-size prototype was built at UMD to give the team a better sense of the challenges that could be faced in-country and to become more familiar with the construction process. After a year of designing and testing, a team returned in January 2014 to implement the final design. During the three-week trip, the EWB-UMD team constructed a chlorine-drip system that would drip concentrated chlorine at a controlled rate into the community’s water supply to disinfect the water. This solved the issue of irregular chlorine dosage and ultimately Compone’s Centro neighborhood water problem. By the time the group left, the community was left with a functional water disinfection system and community members trained in operating the system and ensuring chlorine replacement.
The University of Maryland, College Park chapter of Public Health Without Borders (PHWB) sent a team to work alongside with EWB-UMD during this three-week trip. Concurrent with the system’s construction, the PHWB team educated the community on water-related health issues that would complement the chlorination system. They ran several workshops over the course of the trip, for children and adults alike, that covered topics such as properly washing hands and brushing teeth. The public health team also interviewed several community members to gain additional sanitation information.
Peru Winter Implementation Trip
