Water Installation
Lagonave, Haiti
Water In January 2007 on a visit to the island of Lagonave, one of the Lemon Aid team was taken to visit a 600 strong primary school in a town of Troullijene. This town is about 18km from the main island town of Anse a Gallet. Troullijene is one of the most desperate places on the island of Lagonave. Within the town itself there is NO access to clean drinking water AT ALL. The nearest drinking water source is from a cave or a mountain stream and neither is clean and safe to drink. It became a priority for the Lemon Aid team to focus on brining clean drinking water to the people of Troullijene. No one could have known in January 2007 just how hard this task would be. To get the drilling rig to Troullijene extensive road works needed to be carried out. Unfortunately as the rig was on the way to Troullijene in August 2008 the weather turned and made the road impassable. The hurricane season of 2008 was one of the worst on record brining unprecedented flooding across Haiti. Much of the new road work was extensively damaged or washed away and getting the rig to Troullijene became impossible. The money spent on road work was not wasted however as the drilling rig managed to get half way to Troullijene in September 2008, to a town called Etroits. The rig, managed by GUTS church, drilled 9 fresh water wells in this community and surrounding areas. The town of Etroits now gets all its clean water from these wells. Troullijene was simply not achievable in 2008. The location of Troullijene and Gros Mangles at sea level and by the coast means that its extremely likely drilled wells in the school will have salty water. To prepare for this, Compassion international funded a pilot “solar powered reverse osmosis system” in a Compassion school in the main island town of Anse a Gallet. This system harnesses the power of the sun to remove salt and impurities from water and then force water through a UV filter to kill bacteria. This system is now operating fully and children in the school have access to unlimited clean drinking water each day. At a cost of $32,000USD per system it is not cheap but to see the smiles on the kid’s faces as they tasted pure drinking water for the first time was worth every penny. In September 2008 a second attempt will be made to get a drilling rig to Troullijene and Gros Mangles to drill the wells. We are praying for an unbelievable miracle, where the rig hits drinking water within the schools but working with Compassion International to be prepared for a salty well. If the wells are salty Lemon Aid remain confident that we can have the solar powered reverse osmosis systems up and running in these schools by December 2009. With a cost of $65,000USD for the two systems we continue to look for assistance in funding the ongoing water drilling works on Lagonave. Lemon Aid have also contracted with Geo Scientists to carry out a geo survey in the areas surrounding Troullijene. The results of the survey will allow us to determine just how far from Troullijene the rig would need to drill to find clean drinking water. It is the intention of Lemon Aid to drill at least one community well as close to Troullijene as possible where drinking water can be sourced.
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