Cause
The village of Nong Bua has no potable water. The people there have made numerous attempts to drill wells to provide cheap, clean water, but to no avail. This has forced the already poverty-stricken people of this farming community to purchase costly bottled water.
Game Plan
| First Assessment – 2008 | EWB-USA Rutgers members tested the water purification system for chemical and biological pollutants. The results of these tests showed high levels of iron and manganese as well as a fecal coliform contamination. |
| Second Assessment – 2009 | EWB-USA Rutgers team installed backwashing capabilities and a maintenance schedule for the water system that effectively reduced the iron and manganese concentration to a clean level. The team implemented various changes to combat the remaining fecal coliform contamination. The entire system was shock- chlorinated, and a hypo-chlorinator was installed to deliver a constant chlorine injection to the water system. |
| Follow up | The EWB-USA Rutgers members plan to keep in close contact with the community through our communication with Warm Heart. The water committee has obtained coliform testing kits and an operations and maintenance manual for future upkeep of the system. The team will contact Warm Heart on a monthly basis and monitor the coliform contamination to treat future implications. |
| Moving Forward | Due to the immense undertakings by EWB-USA Rutgers in Guatemala and Kenya, currently there are no plans for future projects in Thailand. However, the EWB-USA Rutgers team is confident about the future of Nong Bua after the final implementation trip during which educational programs were conducted and multiple meetings were held with the communities and local government to ensure that the project will be sustainable. The community used to invest a large sum on their incomes in obtaining clean water, and now they will be rid of this burden. |
Project Leads
Elizabeth Silagi, Jessica Kretch
Professional Mentors
Theresa Hart, P.E.