EWB-USA Philadelphia | Philippines Project

EWB-USA Philadelphia | Philippines Project
Engineers Without Borders USA - Philadelphia Professional Chapter | Travel Blog

Monday, November 12, 2012

Return to Apatut: Community and Well Assessment, Oct 27-Nov 5



The EWB-MAP team scheduled a trip to Apatut for additional assessments and investigations October 27-November 16; the trip was broken down in two phases, with four members arriving in Apatut October 29 (Walt Walker, Bob DiFilippo, Steve Kim, Anne-Marie Biser) and two additional persons arriving on November 5.  We arrived during the week of an important Filipino holiday (All Saints), which is something to take into account for future travel plans (encountering difficulty in meeting with certain persons or entities due to holiday closures)

Upon arrival to Apatut, we walked the community to get a visual feel of the area and some items which were previously GPS’d  earlier in the year by the team of Shelley/Ed. Upon general visual observation, It was also noted that most of the shallow wells in the community were sealed (hand pump), with the exception of those used for irrigation.

We viewed the proposed deep well site, observed some water in the well, which we eventually measured to be approximately 75 feet of water column.  Bob contacted a drilling contractor in Taguig City to visit and inspect the well as a viability of a community water source, or whether additional drilling would result in further attainment of water.

It was observed that the Irrigation wells (open holes, but pumped using generator) delivered a full consistent flow, estimated to be 30gpm; on other side of a street dividing the field a well/hole was hand drilled to a depth of approximately 40 feet, from which a similar flow of was noted.  One of the irrigation wells was on land donated to the chapter/community, although the distance from the main road and likelihood of nitrate and pesticide contamination raised some concerns. 

To further investigate the probably of using the shallow public wells a source, we sampled six (wells): one each from Robert Osoteo and a two neighboring houses (as a baseline) and three wells used for irrigation.  The samples were dropped off at the Department Of Science and Technology (DOST) in San Fernando on the morning we sampled (November 5). DOST is limited to testing of fecal coliform and was unable to test for other important parameters such as pesticides, turbidity, and TDS among others.   We are working to find the proper authorities to test for those items.

After walking through the community, we believed there are many more wells than what was shown on the Google Earth map. We concluded that an inventory/survey of the total number of houses and wells may be needed to get a better grasp on feasibility of alternative water distribution design options.  To use time efficiently in reaching out to all seven sectors of the community, the four of us separated into two teams (Walt/Steve, Bob/Anne) bringing along an interpreter for each team. The community survey focused on the source(s) of water for each household, and disposal locations of waste and grey water (important for examining potential groundwater contamination).


The second team of Stephanie Cook and Tiffini Smith arrived in Apatut on November 5, in hopes of addressing other issues such: tapping into the Province’s water main along the highway (household costs is a concern); status of the Water Cooperative (formed in 2010, is it still active?); investigation of the spring (in our survey, many households in Sector 4 admitted use for non-potable applications); additional well sampling for specific water quality parameters; and evaluation of a separate system for the elementary school.



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