This week took me to the Bonbonaro District, in particular
two villages near Maliana. As always,
the drive was long relative to the distance travelled (120 kms in 3.5
hours). I considered the drive along the
western coast ride as more picturesque than the road east from Dili, I even
made a mental note to head in this direction for my diving forays at a later
date. I promise to film the underwater
when the time comes as I have an underwater camera.
(the route taken to get
there, the little blue triangle is Maliana and the yellow pins are where we
surveyed)
<Warning – Technical engineering concepts ahead>
We did not head directly to Maliana directly, rather we
diverted to a small village about 10 kms away called Haluatin, which is to have
a water supply system build once a reliable groundwater source is found. The Maliana area is one of the more
agriculturally productive areas of TL where significant irrigation already
exists and is being upgraded in partnership with the Japanese Government. You would think that this water could be used
to supply the village – but consider that people bathe and wash their clothes
in the channels which makes surface water an unattractive option. It is likely that people already do given
this is the only reliable source in the area.
One of the features of new rural water supply systems is to
minimise the need to build a water treatment plant to address the water quality
associated with surface water sources, such as those mentioned above. Unfortunately there are insufficient funds to
build the water network AND a treatment plant for TL to achieve its Millennium
Development Goal of delivering reliable water supplies to over 78% of the
population by 2015, 66% of the population has improved access so far.
The smarter, read low technology, solution is to source the
water from underground. This has three
main benefits; 1) the groundwater is likely to have less contamination as the
nearby surface water source, 2) most bores can be located near the demand
versus a reservoir where the ground conditions need to be considered and 3) the
ground itself can perform the water treatment (but catchment management needs
to be improved in the long term).
In Haluatin’s case, a reliable groundwater source has not
been found yet due to underlying ground conditions. The water is there but it’s insufficient to
supply a town, so what did I bring to this conundrum on this day? I happened to mention that I can divine water! Everybody scrambled to find me some wire to
perform this pseudo-scientific approach; you could ask why an engineer is applying
such pseudo-science? Bore drilling is a
hit and miss affair at the best of times, especially when there are no reliable
records previous drills of the existing ground conditions and the amount of
water found. So there is nothing lost by
using less conventional methods.
Did I find anything? I
walked around a number of sites and had no luck in the beginning – this was
verified by the bore driller too, he has had no luck in this particular area
either. Then we moved onto to another site
nearer to the village, this was where I had better luck - I walked in different
directions and found several spots where they may be water of sufficient of
quantity. There was one site that seemed
to feel stronger (it is hard to describe this feeling) that was out of the
flood plain. The drilling commenced the
following day as a result of this “find”.
You could have called me the Pied Piper as I had lots of children
following as I walked around looking for suitable sites. I even provided on the job training to some.
(second divining run –finding where the water is,
working out how deep the water is and training in the fine art, photos by Rogelio Ocampo)
The results of the drilling showed I was correct in that
water was there although not a sufficient quantity to supply more than one
house, which I estimated was about 7 metres below ground. The area was noted for the blue clay
underground, which in this case was about 6-7 metres from the surface. The blue clay layer acts as a water barrier,
trapping any water that percolates through the ground; the water cannot flow up
through this layer either. The blue clay
in this area is known to be several hundred metres deep with no chance of being
rewarded on the other side with any more water for the effort made.
It was quite funny to be talking to the chief bore driller and
I noted that when he spoke in English it was with an Australia, namely Northern
Territorian lilt where he has worked for several years.
(discussions about how
to get the drilling rig to site, typical irrigation channel and “normal”channel use)
After lunch we headed to a community planning workshop for a
village that escapes me. It was
interesting to watch the process, if only for the last of day two. The workshop is over five days and everything
is discussed, negotiated and agreed to, for example, where the bore will be
located, the tanks and the tap stands. Special
emphasis has been placed on the tap stand locations as there were several
community members who have special needs.
I have not seen many special needs people in my travels so far and it
would appear that they are hidden in a lot of cases or their mobility is
severely limited. But even if you
consider the elderly, they will still need to carry water back to their place,
but it is likely they would have a grandchild doing the work.
There were four women participating in the workshop and
about 16 men. Women are the real
beneficiaries of a water supply project as they are the principle users of the
water. It would seem that there is still
some work to go in this area. As I
mentioned in previous post(s), most water supply systems fail within a year as
they are not maintained (why fix something that is not broken yet?). The women (and children) are the ones that
are most affected by the failures but are largely powerless to address this in
a speedy manner. This is question that
is being addressed through many avenues by different Non-Government
Organisations in partnership with the TL Government, a problem that cannot be
fixed in a day.
So it was a very big Tuesday!
The saying mad dogs and English go out in the midday sun was
an appropriate saying to us surveying in the village Purugoa, I can
confidentially say that we were mad dogs!
We spent Wednesday and Thursday surveying the ground levels using the
new Differential GPS equipment that I have been learning to use. The Wednesday day was a day of learning
through our mistakes - we managed to walk about 5 kms but only get seven points
of data, including the tank location. Two
important lessons: never change something that is working well mid-way through
a job and not ignore the error messages and possibly maybe read the manual.
(bore log – each yellow
line represents 3 metres, drilling machine, nearby Malibaca River)
So we headed back to where we were staying in Maliana after
the surveying to recover from being cooked in the sun – the car’s thermometer
showed the temperature being 37 degrees for most of the time we had been
surveying. Needless to say I was looking
forward to a shower which turned out to be a garden house in the room I was
staying at Hotel Risky (trust me, that is its name). I have to say that it still was an amazing
shower irrespective of the missing shower head.
(some surveying hazards
encountered – tree covered with bee hives and traffic although it is a quiet
road)
So learning from my mistake(s) (it was no one elses), we
surveyed again on the Thursday morning.
This is so when can plan for where all of tap stands, tank and other
features such as hills and valleys that impact on the hydraulics pipe network. After finishing the surveying, I was asked to
divine more water on the drive back from Purugoa to Maliana, somewhere near
Samelau. I found more water but it was
in a rice field about 1-2 metres below the surface – this is not good as it
would be irrigation water that flowed past the root zone of the rice/corn crops
in the field during the last irrigation season.
So it was not promising for a high yielding, reliable water supply for a
village.
The sun was setting when we turned our minds and bodies to
the drive back to Dili; we did not get back until 9:00 pm.
No shower for me when I got home Thursday night however it
was not until Saturday morning that the shower and I got re-acquainted. Although we were hesitant with other, I asked
where it has it been for the past few weeks itself? The shower challenged me saying that I have been
with other showers during the week, so the shower was getting back at me for feeling
used. I confessed to the shower that I
needed it very much right now but the shower gave me the cold shoulder.
Anyway it is only three weeks before I move onto my new digs
whose shower has a radio in it! Maybe
that is why my shower is so temperamental, it is jealous!