Water Tests Fine, Pump Now on Order - Ready to start Constructing Generator Building

It does not seem possible that it has been over a month since we drilled the borehole - but much has been happening behind the scenes.

After many anxious days of waiting for the government lab to eventually get around to writing the Water Analysis Report, we finally got it and were relieved to learn that all tests on tghe water are within accepatble World Health Organization guidelines.  So then we felt comfortable proceeding with arranging to acquire the pump and generator that will be needed to bring the water to the surface.

The pump test results showed that 18,000 liters/hour could be pumped on a continual basis without the level of the water dropping significantly.  As well, within 2 hours of stopping pumping, the water level in the borehole returned to its original level.  The government regulations stipulate that we can only extract water at 70% of the demonstrated sustainable pump volume during the pump test.  So we will be able to extract 14,000 liters of water from the borehole.

We submitted the water analysis report and the driller's report (which showed that we had drilled to a depth of 90 meters) to our supplier of the well equipment so that they could provide us with an updated quotation for the pump, generator and installation work.

The good news is that we will be able to get a larger pump that is able to pump at the full 14,000 liters/hour and still be within budget!  The reason for this is because our original expectation had been that the pump would be much lower in the ground (150m) and from that depth we would only have been able to pump about 5,000 liters/hour with a pump of similar cost. 

So, with the funds that everyone has contributed we will be able to install a pumping system that really does have the capacity to provide water for a much larger community of people.  The three tanks that we have installed have a capacity of 48,000 liters so if they were all empty, we would be able to completely fill them within 3 hours.  What that means in practice is that we will be able to run the generator and pump much less than we originally had expected.  So that will be good for wear and tear on the equipment as well as using less diesel fuel.  All good news.

The order has now been placed for the Grundfos SP14A-18 submersible pump and the Lister Petter TR3 generator.  Our project manager Duncan has been out at Ndandini for the past week working on constructing the building which the generator will be installed within.  We are expecting the building to be complete around the end of July so that early in August we will be able to get the pump installed and operational.

Meanwhile, the members of the Ndandini Water Committee have been determined for the next year (as required every year about the end of June by the Committee Constitution ).  We are pleased to say that with the assistance of the sub-area Chief (who we met while we were in Ndandini) we have some additional members who bring administrative experience, respect within the community and relationships with the government.  You will remember that the community of Kyiathani (4 km from the well) expressed a desire to access water from the welll as soon as we hit water during the drilling.  Well, we now have the principal of the Secondary School in Kyiathani on the committee.  We also have the headmaster and a teacher from the Ndandini Primary School as well as the sub-area Chief on the committee.  These people will make the committee much more respected both in the communities of the area as well by the Kenya government authorities.

So we are working hard to get the system up and running in time for the well dedication day on September 5th.

So far, we have a group of 8 people from here in Sechelt going to the dedication in Ndandini.  We also have one Rotarian from our Saint John New Brunswick partner club that is planning on attending and then staying on at the village to do some work for the project.  We expect several Rotarians from the Nairobi Industrial Area club to also make the trip out to the village for the dedication.  Great to see the interest!  We are expecting that there will be a very large turnout from the villagers of the area.  If anyone else would like to be there, let Terry know.  Arranging transportation and accommodation requires his involvment due to the difficulty in communicating in that area.

We have more good news but that will have to wait for the next blog post.

Terry (& Jan)