Campo Verde is a small community of about ~200 households located in the Divina Providencia of Honduras. Inspired by clean water in the neighboring town of Cuatro Comunidades, the community of Campo Verde took matters into their own hands and became the first community to construct an AguaClara plant entirely on their own!
The idea for the Campo Verde water treatment plant came from a local business named Briseño that builds affordable housing for marginalized communities. They noticed that the nearby community of Cuatro Comunidates had safe, clean drinking water coming from an AguaClara plant constructed in 2008. Since both communities are served by the same water source, they realized that Campo Verde could also have access to clean water on tap via their own AguaClara drinking water plant.
Briseño went on to finance the plant, and build it with the help of community members from Cuatro Comunidades, one of whom was a mason who had worked on the plant in Cuatro Comunidades.
Outside of the Campo Verde plant.
Although Briseño and the community did the best they could to build an exact clone, it wasn’t possible to create a perfect drop-in replacement for Campo Verde without a revised hydraulic design. As a result, the completed plant did not initially treat water to the same standard as Cuatro Comunidades. The water board then began to consult with Antonio Elvir, an experienced AguaClara plant technician who has been involved in the construction and operation of dozens of AguaClara plants across Honduras. Antonio also provided basic training to the new plant operators to ensure they are equipped to sustainably operate the plant for the future.
“There were various improvements that needed to be made. The chemical dosing system needed new valves, the sedimentation tanks did not have proper entrance manifolds, and the plate settlers were sitting on the bottoms of the sedimentation tanks. We worked on the chemical dosing system first, and then the sedimentation tanks. After a week’s worth of work, the plant began functioning significantly better.”
Encouraged by the high quality drinking water the plant is now producing, the Campo Verde water board (and broader community!) are now hoping to add even further enhancements to the plant such as enclosed stacked rapid sand filters.
Campo Verde flocculator
The open source nature of AguaClara technology allows communities to make this happen on their own – although it’s clear that experienced technical support is a critical component for communities to fully realize their clean water investment. Communities like Campo Verde who are eager to develop clean drinking water solutions are what inspire the entire AguaClara Reach community to continue building better hydraulic designs, capacity building materials, and technical support programs. It’s when all of these components come together, that communities can position themselves to provide clean drinking water for many years to come.
Blog Post Authors: Anna Doyle and Skyler Erickson