On the Road With AguaClara Reach: Majhi Ukhura, India

Hydrodoser Installation, February 2020

After completing the Hydrodoser installation in Patimul, the next Hydrodoser installation was slated for the community of Majhi Ukhura. In order for the system to operate without electricity, through the gravity-power of water alone, it is required to be mounted on a stand. Community members constructed this concrete stand prior to the team’s arrival so that they were able to begin construction of the Hydrodoser when they arrived on January 31, 2020.

Having just completed the Patimul Hydrodoser, the Gram Vikas (GV) and AguaClara Reach (ACR) team was able to efficiently construct and install the new disinfection system in Majhi Ukhura. Their first step was to install the chemical delivery plumbing. Following this, the Hydrodoser was connected to the existing drinking water system for the community. The tie-in involved digging trenches and installing pipe to feed raw, untreated water to the Hydrodoser, and feed disinfected water from the Hydrodoser to the existing water storage tank.

Installation team members connecting the Hydrodoser system to the existing water distribution network.

Construction was completed on February 4th. During start-up and testing, minor system modifications were made to ensure correct chlorine dosing. The Majhi Ukhura Hydrodoser is designed to provide a chlorine dose of 0.2 mg/L to 2.0 mg/L in the raw water. This design addresses two driving factors - delivering a maximum chlorine residual of 2.0 mg/L, capped so that chlorination does not adversely affect the taste of the water, and to maintain a minimum chlorine residual of at least 0.2 mg/L at the farthest tap in the system. Chlorine residual tests were conducted at multiple system taps with results showing the Hydrodoser was delivering the accurate dose of chlorine to successfully disinfect the drinking water!

Hydrodoser chlorine residual testing results (at tap closest to Hydrodoser), showing safe dosage of chlorine for disinfection.

The installation in Majhi Ukhura is another success in the GV and ACR partnership. Follow us next time as we wrap up our field work in India on the road with ACR!

One of Fletcher’s favorite aspects of his job is getting to know members of the communities he works with.

A community member gathering fresh coconut water for the Hydrodoser installation team.

Our work in India is made possible by our incredible partners at Gram Vikas and the Tata Cornell Institute. Thank you so much for your support. 

A Message from our Board President: COVID-19

Dear Supporters of AguaClara Reach,

As we all navigate the current challenges related to COVID-19, AguaClara Reach wants to let you know that we are actively thinking about the safety of our employees, volunteers, partners, and the communities we work with.

In that vein, we want to share how AguaClara Reach is navigating this rapidly-changing landscape. The health and safety of all people, organizations, and communities we partner with is our top priority. Our entire organization is continuing to work remotely and our employee who had been working internationally has returned home. Additionally, we postponed our March 21st Worldwide Walk for Water which was scheduled to take place in New York City’s Central Park. We will maintain the high level of collaboration and quality of support our partners have grown to expect from us and we will do everything we can to slow the spread of the coronavirus in our individual lives. We will keep you apprised through our website as we continue to assess the impacts we anticipate COVID-19 will have on AguaClara Reach’s work.

Times like this provide an opportunity to recognize the value and pressing nature of our work. Now, more than ever, AguaClara Reach will continue to work towards safe water on tap for all, a critical part of global health. We will continue to be agile, creative, and determined as we navigate this new and challenging environment.

Thank you and stay well.

Sincerely,
Alissa Diminich
AguaClara Reach Board President

On the Road with AguaClara Reach: Patimul, India

Hydrodoser Installation, January 2020

AguaClara Reach (ACR) India Program Project Manager Fletcher Chapin arrived in Bhubaneswar, India on January 10th to continue our work with Gram Vikas (GV) to deliver safe drinking water in the Indian communities of Patimul and Majhi Ukhura.

ACR and GV partnered in 2017 to design, construct, and install Hydrodosers in several locations throughout the Indian state of Odisha. The Hydrodoser is AguaClara’s gravity-powered chlorine doser which automatically and accurately provides flow-paced disinfection of low-turbidity water. Ground or spring water enters a building which houses the Hydrodoser, where it is disinfected before heading to the storage tank used for distribution.

Fletcher joined GV manager Joseph Kalassery, GV technician Apriya Maharana, and the rest of the team at their offices in Bhubaneswar. They then traveled to the village of Lahanda to replace a broken design tube in a Hydrodoser system that GV installed in 2018. After working with the operator to replace the tube, the team continued to the next Hydrodoser site in the rural community of Patimul. The Lahanda system operator has since reported that the Hydrodoser is working well following the tube replacement.

On January 17th, Fletcher, Joseph, and Apriya met GV engineer Debashish Mohapatra in Patimul. Upon arrival, excitement grew among community members in Patimul as the ACR water project designed to bring safe water to Patimul was becoming a reality. Community members helped the team unload supplies, and haul tools, pipes, and water system fittings uphill to the building where the Hydrodoser would be installed.

As a nonprofit technical support organization, ACR seeks to promote and facilitate the implementation of AguaClara water treatment technologies around the world. We fulfill this mission by transferring technical expertise to local partners, and with the hard work of GV and ACR team members, work in India has progressed exceedingly well. While in Patimul, Fletcher trained Debashish on the Hydrodoser’s design and operation. GV’s team and Patimul’s community members skillfully constructed and installed the Hydrodoser within three days of the team’s arrival in Patimul. The system was calibrated a week later and began disinfecting the town’s drinking water one week after that, with the system fully functional by January 28th.

Following the Hydrodoser startup, the team prepared to operate the raw water pump, which pumps source water from the well and up to a tank, where it combines with gravity-fed spring water, and is then treated by the Hydrodoser prior to flowing out to the community. The pump operated as intended, water flowed through the pipes and was treated by the Hydrodoser! Plumbing was successful, the team was overjoyed, and everyone celebrated! This Hydrodoser is the first of its kind in Gajapati District, and its completion marks an exciting step for the community of Patimul, GV, and ACR in our joint endeavors to secure safe water on tap.

GV and ACR members with the Hydrodoser installed in Patimul. From left to right: Sudanshu (GV Supervisor), Fletcher, Debashish, Apriya, and John (GV Driver).

Throughout the entire experience of installing the Hydrodoser in Patimul, Fletcher was grateful to experience the generosity of the community. Every day, the team was treated to fresh cups of chai and delicious chicken curry to savor during breaks in the day. Schoolchildren, upon discovering that Fletcher was from the US, were eager to practice their English and converse with him. In the evenings, the team would join families around a fire as they shared stories in Oriya, the native language of Odisha. These evenings became a time for cultural exchange, as Fletcher would share pictures from the US as the community members shared stories of their own.

The next Hydrodoser installation is in Majhi Ukhura, where Fletcher arrived on January 25, 2020. We’ll catch up with Fletcher in our next blog post and provide updates on our work in Majhi Ukhura, India, as we travel on the road with ACR!

Our work in India is made possible by our incredible partners at Gram Vikas and the Tata Cornell Institute. Thank you so much for your support. 

AguaClara: Empowering Communities Through Safe Water

NYWEA Clear Waters Summer 2019 Issue

Click here to read our publication for NYWEA!

Clean Water

This story was published on https://as.cornell.edu/news/clean-water and is reproduced below.

By: Prabhu Pingali, director, Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition; professor of applied economics and policy and nutritional science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, A&S Communications
May 6, 2019

This is an episode from the “What Makes Us Human?” podcast’s fourth season, “What Does Water Mean for Us Humans?” from Cornell University’s College of Arts & Sciences, showcasing the newest thinking from across the disciplines about the relationship between humans and love. Featuring audio essays written and recorded by Cornell faculty, the series releases a new episode each Tuesday through the spring semester.

Image Credit: Shiuli Vanaja (Gufu Village, site of first AguaClara plant in India)

Those of us living in developed countries can usually take access to good quality drinking water for granted. But for much of the world, access to clean water at home is a dream. In India, only about 40 percent of the population have homes with water piped in.

This means that someone — usually women and girls — must travel (sometimes great distances) to fetch water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and washing dishes and clothes. Imagine how much water you use a day, and then imagine having to carry every ounce of that to your home. Those transporting the water often have to make several trips a day over long distances. The time spent carrying water is time not spent on other important activities, like farming, generating income, attending school or caring for children and the elderly.

An average woman living in a typical Indian village is over-burdened. She faces the hard work of sowing, transplanting and weeding crops by hand. In her home, which she cleans, she plans the meals and does all the cooking — from scratch, often over open flames. She finds and carries firewood and water, she feeds the livestock, she goes to market and does the shopping. She scrubs the dishes and she washes all the clothes by hand. She tends to the children, her mother-in-law and her husband. Perhaps she attends meetings as a member of a self-help group so that she may have access to credit, or learn new skills for herself. Plus, she is held responsible for upholding social, cultural and religious obligations in her community. If her time burdens were eased — even a little — she might have time to rest or even enjoy a bit of leisure.

The Tata-Cornell Institute has been working to promote and study the effects of water, sanitation and hygiene projects. For example, we’re improving the access and availability of in-home clean water on tap for villages in India, and we’ve also been constructing and encouraging the use of toilet facilities. We’ve been partnering with AguaClara, which has been building water treatment centers in villages around the world.

In a research study, we found that in the villages with AguaClara water treatment centers, households on average spend 60 percent less time in water collection per day compared to the households in the non-AguaClara villages. Imagine 40 minutes per day compared to 100 minutes. This is a big difference in the lives of women and girls!

When water is brought into the home from a safe, screened source there are health benefits as well: the incidence of water-borne illnesses, like diarrhea, are significantly reduced. Diarrhea is a leading cause of death for children across the developing world.

With clean water on tap — as well as the successful adoption of toilets — women spend less time sick and less time caring for others who are sick. They don’t have to exert effort and time walking far out to the fields to relieve themselves. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene — or WASH — interventions are game changers for women.

When women don’t have to haul water, our studies show they use their free time for entrepreneurial activities to improve their income, more focus on their children and, not least, the freedom to enjoy leisure. Leisure time is a rarity in many developing countries, but its importance is often overlooked.

And when young girls don’t have to help gather water, they can use their time for education: we find that attendance in school improves with access to clean water. Since studies show that education is the single most important factor in improving the lives of girls and women in developing countries, bringing clean water to villages should be a top priority for us all.

AguaClara Hydrodoser Brings Clean Water to 206 people in Odisha

Keonjhar, Odisha, India

July 15, 2018

Today, the community of Lahanda in Keonjhar, Odisha in India commissioned a water system delivering safe drinking water on tap to 206 residents. The community is treating the water using an invention called the Hydrodoser, developed by New York State nonprofit AguaClara Reach. The Hydrodoser is a gravity-based, sensor-and-pump-free technology that delivers an accurate amount of chlorine to disinfect water, making it safe for human consumption. The simple yet sophisticated technology is making it a viable drinking water treatment option for remote communities that cannot afford conventional, electric-powered water treatment.

The Hydrodoser automatically turns on and off with the water supply, and is made from inexpensive materials including PVC pipes and sheets, flexible tubes, and HDPE drums. “The use of off-the-shelf materials is critical,” says AguaClara Reach Executive Director, Maysoon Sharif. “It ensures that the community can inexpensively and easily replace parts on their own in the future.” For a monthly cost of $1 per household, each community member will receive 70 liters of water per day. This is sufficient to provide safe drinking water for all household needs, including cooking, brushing teeth, and bathing.

AguaClara Reach provides safe drinking water technology and training, working with local partners in the field to implement solutions. In India they worked with local NGO Gram Vikas to fabricate the Hydrodoser. In Lahanda, each household also built a bathroom, including a toilet with running water, and tap stand for other household purposes. Many households have also opted to construct a shower room. These additional facilities help ensure that the entire village will be able to tend to all of their hygienic needs.

The inspiration for the Hydrodoser came from over two years of experience implementing AguaClara technologies in the state of Jharkhand. In 2013, AguaClara Reach — then AguaClara LLC, a social enterprise spun out of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and winner of Best for the World Overall in 2015 and 2017 — spearheaded the deployment of its Enclosed Stacked Rapid Sand (EStaRS) Filters in two villages in the state. The EStarS Filters were meant to be simple enough for local operators to run, while wasting 80% less water and requiring 80% less area to build than the conventional rapid sand filter. An early version of the Hydrodoser was installed alongside the EStarS Filters and also as a stand-alone unit in two other villages where filtration of the water was not required.

“While we were very excited about the potential for the EStaRS, we recognized that in several cases, only disinfection of the water was required,” says Sharif. While working in Jharkhand, she recognized the benefit the disinfection component held on its own. “We noticed that with a few simple tweaks, we could make the chemical disinfection portion easier to install and operate, giving rise to the Hydrodoser you see installed in Lahanda.”

The Hydrodoser pilot was supported by the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Department of Odisha, Tata Sponge Iron Limited, and the Tata Cornell Institute. However, work is not yet done for AguaClara Reach and Gram Vikas. Following the success of the Hydrodoser installation in Lahanda, the two organizations are working to secure funding to deploy at least sixty of these units in the communities in Odisha that need them most.

The Role of Women in Water Projects in India

When we first landed in India in early 2013, we encountered a world that was an ocean apart from where AguaClara’s field experience was first rooted: in Honduras, in the year 2005. Given the success that AguaClara technologies had in this Central American country, the Tata Cornell Institute approached us and urged us to develop a water treatment solution for rural villages in India, starting in the state of Jharkhand. Here, we were asked to develop a treatment system that would be built alongside a water supply network. This would be the first time we planned to work in a community where people were walking long distances to collect water for their homes. While we always recognized the importance of having participation of women in our projects, it was in this new environment, where women bore the burden of collecting water, that the full depth of the role that women play in community water systems was revealed to us.

Women enjoy significant benefits from having drinking water supply in the home, making them critical stakeholders in buy-in stage of the project. Globally, 263 million people spend at least a 30 minute round trip collecting water that in the majority of cases is not safe to drink. In 8 out of 10 households where water collection takes half an hour or more, women and girls are responsible for carrying out this chore. (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygeine 2017) This has huge economic and social impacts that disproportionately affect females. For instance, water collection detracts from women’s ability to contribute to income generating work, and it results in girls having lower attendance in schools. Therefore, women quickly see the advantages of investing in water treatment infrastructure and often play a key role in convincing the broader community to undertake construction and long-term management.

Women in Gufu Village, Jharkhand participating in construction of the water tank.

Women also play a key role while the project is being built. In India, we are working with partners who conduct masonry training with community members, including women, so they can be involved in the execution and management of construction. Community involvement not only has direct benefits in terms of the longevity of the system — specifically, the community understands their water supply system inside and out and is empowered to manage future repairs — but it has indirect economic benefits in terms of skill development for supplemental paid work. Furthermore, participation of women is critical to successful long-term governance of the system. As in any community resource that is democratically managed, having representation among the different castes, hamlets, tribes, genders, and classes on the Village Water and Sanitation Committee is critical to ensuring high standards of performance, reliability, and equity for all of the water users.

Women in Lahanda Village, Odisha taking matters into their own hands and digging up land to lay the main pipeline.

Involving women in major community projects is a common model for interventions in India due to its ability to build confidence and overall community resilience. Many nonprofit and non-governmental organizations work to form all-female Self Help Groups (SHGs) in villages. SHGs are teams of women who pool their financial resources to create a fund that can then be used to distribute loans to members or the larger community. The loans can be invested into endeavors that individuals self-identify as solving a problem they face. By borrowing money for a new project, such as obtaining resources to commence marigold production for sale in the market, the women take control of their own success and, with their improved morale, they become more enterprising. They engage in new self- and community-improvement projects, which grow the revolving loan fund through payback including a small interest rate when the borrower can afford it. This same confidence-building and increased independence is seen in communities that participate in the construction and management of new water treatment systems.

The benefits of having safe drinking water on tap go far beyond improved health. Communities have fewer days of lost work or school attendance due to waterborne illness. Girls who save time in collecting water are freed up to pursue education more consistently, including on days where they would forgo the classroom due to menstruation — for lack of a toilet with running water to address their hygienic needs. Women use their time saved to participate in other village committees or to take on leadership roles, giving them greater representation in the democratic process. The benefits of having safe drinking water on tap strengthen the potential of women and communities as a whole, giving them the strength to take charge of their own futures and the development of their villages collectively.

Spotlight on women operators in Lahanda Village, Odisha

As the group who most benefit from having tap water service, it is not uncommon to find that women take the lead in ensuring not only timely construction, but also reliable, well-managed water supply in the long term.

Kasturi Nayak (left) and Binodini Patra (right) are the two women operators in Lahanda Village. Here they are taking turbidity measurements of the water.

Binodini Patra filling in the operator logbook with the turbidity information and other critical data.

Binodini Patra mixing the disinfectant for the stock solutions.

206 people. 54 households. 1 AguaClara Hydrodoser.

By Subhani Katugampala

Following a 7 hour train journey from Bhubaneswar to Bileipada, you get on the always crowded bus heading towards Joda. You manage to grab the last window seat, making it possible to take in all of the sights on the short stretch of road to the village. After passing the Tata Sponge Iron Ltd factory gates and the truck inspection sites, you begin to see the array of yellow-and-blue toilet and bathing room structures typical of a Gram Vikas village. “Lahanda! Lahanda! Lahanda!” The conductor’s yell is your cue to get off; you have arrived at the village — Lahanda. You walk on the dirt path past one of the six hand pumps that have been the villagers’ primary source of water. You finally reach the place you have traveled long and far for — the Lahanda water tank, home to the AguaClara Hydrodoser.

Circa December 2017: An unpainted Lahanda Water Tank against a cotton candy painted sky.

The Hydrodoser is a simple-to-use nonelectric chlorinator. The Lahanda Hydrodoser is the first of its kind in Odisha, as a project collaboration between Gram Vikas and AguaClara Reach. The Hydrodoser was jointly fabricated in the summer of 2017 in Gram Vikas’ head office in Bhubaneswar. By early August 2017, the system was dispatched to its current home in Lahanda, patiently awaiting four more months for installation. Just like fabrication, installation had its fair share of unexpected problems. However, adaptive innovations in the village ensured the system would still perform as designed. With the system finally installed, the time had come to prepare the operators for operation.

Installation Ready: All of the necessary materials and tools to attach the Hydrodoser to the room.

Purposeful Furniture Additions: A table has also been added to the room. The operators can use it as their workspace to fill out the system logbook, measure bleaching powder for solution preparation, and keep safety gear.

Installation Complete: The AguaClara Hydrodoser fully installed in the room atop the Lahanda water tank. A ladder has been added to increase operator accessibility of the system.

Ventilation and More: Not just good for allowing air flow into the Hydrodoser room, the windows offer scenic views of the neighboring landscape.

Training of the operators has been an ongoing task. Since operator selection in July 2017, there have been 6 training sessions with the operators, with an emphasis on daily operation tasks and responsibilities. The operators have been introduced to the design concepts governing the Hydrodoser system, including but not limited to how chlorine flows through the system, how the system automatically turns on and off, and how to adjust the chlorine dose based on water quality parameters. Even though the operators have been able to display both a theoretical and practical understanding of the Hydrodoser, the real test of system competence remains once the system is finally operational.

Focused Operators: The operators pay careful attention to Gram Vikas Field Engineer Soubhagya Behera who is identifying the Hydrodoser drain plumbing.

Open Training Session: An interested village member attended operator training along with one of the four operators to learn how the Hydrodoser works.

Practice Makes Perfect: Practical training was the main means of instruction after Hydrodoser installation, and Ms. Kasturi Nayak was the first of the operators to volunteer for chlorine solution preparation.

All that remains now is completion of the distribution network and individual household connections. This will finally open the door to start system operation. Although it has taken a long time to get to this stage and there is a long road ahead, this pilot Hydrodoser project is in good hands. Once the operators start running the system, they will begin the new age of water supply in Lahanda. No longer will the people of Lahanda have to spend time carrying buckets of contaminated water to their homes to use for drinking, cooking, and bathing. They will soon be able to access safe water on tap in the comfort of their own homes.

My First Month in Odisha

By Subhani Katugampala

It has now been a month since I arrived in Odisha, India to work with Gram Vikas on a new AguaClara project. By the end of August, the village of Lahanda will be home to a pilot Chemical Dose Controller system. Our first step was to visit the district of Keonjhar to see the progress of Lahanda’s water tank.

From the capital city of Bhubaneswar, we went on a 7 hour train ride to the village. While it was quite long, the train offered stunning landscapes from every viewing point. The area was lush green for the most part, with many crops and animals scattered throughout. At one point, we even came across beautiful mountains that painted the skyline.

The mountainous terrain captured on the train ride to and from Lahanda.

When we finally arrived in Keonjhar, we headed straight to the village to see construction progress of the water tank. Once completed, the water tank will also house the AguaClara Chemical Dose Controller (CDC) system. The project manager, civil engineer, and other Gram Vikas staff and village members walked us through the site, pointing out the eventual location of the CDC system and the constructed wells that will serve as the water source. Lahanda’s water tank is expected to be completed by the end of July.

Lahanda’s future water tank that will house the Chemical Dose Controller.

Gram Vikas’s civil engineer, Sobhagya, in Keonjhar walking up the bamboo steps to show the progress on water tank construction.

The next day, we met with Gram Vikas staff to give them a brief overview of the CDC system. This way, they can start familiarizing themselves with the disinfection technology and facilitate conversations with the village about the operator selection process and community education programs.

Once the presentation was complete, everyone seemed to become excited by how easy the CDC system was to operate, which was amazing to hear! Hopefully, they can spur the same level of excitement in the community so when the time comes that the village is ready to install the CDC system, everyone will be working together to get the system up and running.

Showing the schematics and the prototype of the CDC system.

The full team that will be collaborating on the CDC project in Lahanda.

After unpacking from a hectic two day visit, I realized that I had left my water bottle back in the village. Hopefully, the last time that I leave Lahanda, I won’t leave behind a water bottle; hopefully, I will leave a village that is one step closer to having safe water on tap.

Progress and Adventures in Odisha, India

AguaClara Engineer Carol Serna is kicking off fabrication of the chemical dose controller in Odisha with Gram Vikas. In no time, villages will be getting clean drinking water on tap with the help of AguaClara technologies!

Follow her story here: http://indiaac2017.blogspot.in/2017/05/visits-to-villages.html

AguaClara Systems Provide Climate Change Resiliency and Enable Energy Conservation

AguaClara technologies were developed in response to a global need for drinking water supply on tap in underdeveloped communities. Our philosophy of keeping the systems simple, cost-effective, and nonelectric make them applicable in a wide-variety of contexts around the world, especially where municipal-scale treatment was previously shown to be unfeasible. However, the fact that the systems utilize the infinitely-available power of gravity and are climate change resilient make them an ideal technology for the imminent challenges of the developed world.

The EPA’s list of top 10 needs for water technology includes solutions that can reliably provide safe drinking water to the 750 million people around the world that do not currently have access to it. However, there are four other major categories in the list focusing on the needs of the United States that are addressed by AguaClara technologies:

1. Conserving and Recovering Energy

Older water systems in the US are inefficient and need energy-saving and cost-saving upgrades to increase sustainability. Because AguaClara systems utilize many of the same treatment processes as conventional systems — specifically coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection — we can easily retrofit components of existing systems to be cheaper to operate without sacrificing quality. The energy required to run municipal-scale water treatment plants usually constitute 1/3 of the overall operation costs of the systems. AguaClara plants require 1.5 m of head (2 psi) to run the entire treatment system from beginning to end.

2. Improving and Greening of the Water Infrastructure

AguaClara systems are built using long-lasting materials such as cement, brick, sand, and PVC pipe, minimizing ongoing material replacement over time. Moreover, AguaClara systems use the cleanest power available: gravity.

3. Improving Performance of Small Drinking Water Systems

More than 94% of the public water supply systems in the United States serve populations of less than 10,000 people. The smallest of these systems, serving 500 people or less, struggle to meet drinking water standards for quality. AguaClara is currently developing the PF300, a prefabricated water treatment plant that is capable of treating high levels of turbidity in water and is cost-effective for communities as small as 300 people.

4. Improving Resiliency of Water Infrastructure to the Impacts of Climate Change

AguaClara systems are more resilient to extreme conditions than conventional water treatment plants. Our systems can handle extended periods of high turbidity waters resulting from severe storm events, up to 1,000 NTU. Additionally, our unique filtration systems require 1/6 as much water to backwash as the typical rapid sand filtration system, making them less burdensome during times of water shortage. They can also continue to run despite power outages, so people do not need to stock up on water during prolonged blackouts.

While AguaClara systems were designed to benefit underserved communities, usually populations less than 30,000 people, our systems address many of the problems that are now increasing in priority in the United States. We can easily scale our systems up to serve larger populations, providing viable solutions for energy and water conservation and climate change resiliency throughout the country. AguaClara continues to conduct research on the most pressing water quality problems around the world, with a focus on those who cannot benefit from existing solutions on the market. However, as we tackle a growing list of water quality and sustainability challenges for both larger and smaller populations, we will be able to lift the disempowered into a position of autonomy and give developed regions the innovative technologies required to lead the way in addressing emerging issues.

References:

Water Technology Innovation: 10 Market Opportunities

AguaClara to Pilot Sustainable Water Treatment Technology for Communities in Odisha

Last year, AguaClara completed four small scale water treatment plants in the state of Jharkhand in India. These plants now provide clean drinking water to over 2000 people. The experience in Jharkhand led us to a deeper understanding of the factors that enable our technologies to have a positive, lasting impact on communities. With these lessons in mind, we spent the earlier part of 2016 seeking out our next opportunity in India. Over the course of our search, we got in touch with Gram Vikas, an NGO based in Odisha, one of the poorest states in the country.

Gram Vikas has decades of experience bringing water and sanitation facilities to small villages. Many of the communities they have worked in receive water supplied by shallow sanitary wells, and the safest, most cost-effective way to treat this water is through chlorine disinfection. Gram Vikas expressed the need for a sustainable chlorination alternative since the solutions on the market today typically cannot be maintained by communities for longer than a year. After hearing their experiences, we decided that AguaClara’s Chemical Dose Controller (CDC) was a simple, elegant chlorination solution that had the potential to overcome the barriers to long term implementation that existing solutions faced. The CDC runs without any electrical input, delivers an accurate dose of chemical even as system flow rates fluctuate, is built using locally available materials, and has minimal operation and maintenance requirements. Thus, we anticipate that villages can run these technologies independently for decades on end.

With insight from Gram Vikas, we customized the CDC to suit the needs of communities in Odisha and chose to pilot this improved chlorination technology in the villages of Lahanda and Kaliabeda. Gram Vikas initiated the project by working with the communities to install latrines with adjacent rooms for bathing in each household. This component of the intervention is critical; the experience of constructing the bathrooms prepares the community to manage the larger water supply project, and the introduction of a sanitation program alongside a drinking water supply scheme maximizes the health benefits for the village.

A newly-constructed bathroom in the Lahanda Village.

In November 2016, we trained seven engineers and one architect in Gram Vikas in the CDC system. These individuals will be responsible for training the community operators and Village Water and Sanitation Committees in the operation, maintenance, and administration of the system, empowering them to sustain the technology in the long run. Gram Vikas is now assisting the communities with the construction of the water supply system, which will continue into early 2017. The NGO has taught local volunteers basic plumbing and masonry work so the community members can contribute their labor to build the water supply infrastructure. We expect to be back on the ground in February to assist with fabrication, installation, operator training, and monitoring.

Gram Vikas has extensive community mobilization and construction management experience, carrying out WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) projects in approximately 100 villages in Odisha per year. Thousands of communities lack access to safe drinking water in this region, and this partnership presents a unique opportunity for AguaClara to make a significant difference where it is most needed.

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