Pure Water For All Forest Hills Rotary Club, Forest Hills, Pennsylvania

News and Updates on the Pure Water For All Project

Our Challenge:

A child dies every 15 seconds from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe water - one-sixth of the world's population

Deaths from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene represent approximately 15% of all child deaths under the age of five in developing countries



Update as of February 7, 2010

My reason for this letter is to determine the level of interest on your part and try to organize a meeting for those who want to continue to work to help in the Haiti relief effort. Maybe better stated is that we were in discussions about the Braddock filter project and the relationship to World Environment Day with the idea to resume our planning after the holidays. Before, during and after my travel to Haiti, we have engaged in conversations about possibilities of direct aid to Haiti centered around the silver impregnated ceramic water filter. I have given my preliminary assessment of the feasibility to increase the filter production in the DR and/or to build a production facility in Port AU Prince. We hit a public relations home run when our filter was featured on CNN with WINE TO WATER hero Doc Hendly who gave Lisa of Filterpure $24,000 for the project. We spent a couple days with Doc and he is willing to come to Pittsburgh to put on a Wine to Water fund raiser. Additionally we will have a water filter receptacle exhibition at Penn during the annual NCECA conference in Philadelphia at the end of March. My intention is to return to Haiti next month and help with the water filter effort. We have the possibility to use the Braddock facility to prepare volunteers to work at the DR filter factory and especially get hands on, first hand experience in the field. As stated at our meeting last December that we (PURE WATER FOR ALL) have an ambition to create a world training center for water filter technicians in Braddock. The opportunity to get some wheels under that idea came sooner than expected and I'm too old to procrastinate! Let me know what you think and pleases circulate to your distribution list. Dick Wukich

Update as of January 26, 2010

A group of associates that surround Rotary’s Pure Water for All project (Dick Wukich of Slippery Rock University and Lisa Ballantine of Filter Pure) have started a colloidal silver embedded ceramic water filter manufacturing plant in the Dominican Republic. This filter removes more than 99% of the bacteria from even the most polluted water and reduces disease dramatically.

Dick and Jeff Schwarz of the Braddock Carnegie Library Ceramics Studio plus others are presently in the Dominican Republic to complete Lisa’s water filter plant and increase its production to immediately provide filters into Haiti.

Dick reports the progress in his e-mail of January 26:

Dear friends, We have been working in the Filter Pure shop for the last couple days. The workers are very efficient and they can put out a lot of filters. Currently our production facility is running full bore and we are shipping 250 filters by cargo plane. We can produce two loads per week and are moving to increase production as I type this.

This afternoon we helped load a semi with filters and a couple thousand water bottles for Haiti. The trip takes 9 hours for 120 miles they have a couple drivers and 2 armed guards. We were supposed to fly to Haiti today, but the plane from Haiti lost the landing gear on the runway and is out of commission. We will try again tomorrow. In the few days I have been here, I am convinced that Lisa’s system to fire the silver into the clay is most effective. This production facility is capable over a thousand a week. The potter who runs the factory and I worked on a new filter design today. He will assemble another press machine this week and allow us to increase production even more.

Until then, the people of Haiti may have to make do with bottled water brought in by the relief effort. But eventually the bottled water has to be replaced by more sustainable sources and these filters may be the answer, depending upon the availability of untreated (even very polluted water) in a certain area.

Update as of January 8, 2010

We have two sites in the works for expansion of a filter manufacturing site, one in Laos and one in the Phillipines. We have three clubs in District 7300 interested in banding together. If you are another club that wishes to join this effort (total cost to be about $20,000 each site, to include a consultant to go to these areas and assist them in setting up the facility and for training), please have them contact me at 412-241-1822 (Tom Nunnally) and I will send them a business plan.

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FM International Elective Project Report
br> Water Filtration Project

“The use of technologies to treat and safely store household water is best accomplished if it is accompanied by or supported with economic incentives and other cost recovery methods and with programs designed to support community participation, education and other efforts to achieve acceptance and sustainability. Where such additional socio-cultural, behavioral and economic components of household water treatment and storage technologies are absent or lacking, successful implementation and sustained use are unlikely to be achieved.”

- Mark Sobsey, WHO Report [1] I. Background

Diarrheal illness is a major problem worldwide, contributing a large portion of the morbidity and mortality in developing and poverty-stricken countries. The problem is especially prevalent in infants and children under five years old. In this group, more than 2,000,000 children die from diarrheal illness each year, and diarrhea accounts for over 20% of world deaths in children under five years of age [1-3]. Much of this burden is caused by contaminated water supplies/infectious disease. These statistics have made water quality a priority for the World Health Organization (WHO) and many community organizations such as Rotary International. The recent focus of these efforts has been point-of-use interventions, in which clean water is provided at the level of the family, in the form of water filtration devices.

Rotary Clubs, including those here in Pittsburgh, have been instrumental in setting-up the infrastructure for production and distribution of the filter in Honduras, having provided instruction and equipment for manufacturing the filter (currently in Tegucigalpa).

II. Methods

This assessment was carried out in the form of a survey delivered by Team C of the April 2008 Shoulder to Shoulder brigade. The goal was to survey at least twenty of the 30+ villagers who had purchased filters to date.

III. Results

It was determined that 100% of households that had purchased a filter were free of diarrheal illness in the children, while approximately 60% had problems with diarrhea prior to purchase of the filter. On average, families were cleaning their filters once every nine days, distinctly not often enough for the average family size of seven persons. In the initial review of data, it appeared that 20% of households surveyed reported chlorine in the water to be filtered. A second pass at the data showed a figure closer to 10%. 55% of families drink exclusively filtered water. Of those who drink unfiltered water, the most common reason was that filtered water became too warm. We also found that people were more likely to properly clean the filter if taught by someone. Also, there was an overall 85% satisfaction rate based on the price of the filter, which was on average 329 limpira, with a median of 350. Full results, broken down by question, can be found in Table 3.

Results were presented to the Health Committee, and they expressed several concerns of their own. First, they told us that the producers in Tegucigalpa had promised them a supply of silver and training so that they might recharge the filters once the silver degraded. They had not yet received materials and training. Second, while the initial plastic receptacles were strong, the newer receptacles were weaker and had a greater tendency to break. Third, they considered the proposition that in addition to the health committee, a local business might be allowed to sell filters in order to increase circulation. The Health Committee objected to this idea, expressing that they were already charging a high price for the filters while trying to keep them affordable, and if a business were to become involved, they might not be able to keep the price down any longer.

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The Pure Water for All committee is looking into the pails, training and support and in ways to subsidize the cost of the filters to make them more affordable.

Anyone who wishes to have the full report can email the request to info@purewaterforall.org.

Also, anyone wishing to visualize the filter can go to the following Youtube link, for a look at the distribution effort of Rescue Task Force using the filters made by Maximo in our beta site in Tegucigalpa. The first couple of minutes describes the remoteness of some of the villages that need the filters and the rest of the video shows the filters in use.(copy and paste into your browser).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3071I5QQ2Q



Update as of March 21, 2008:

Craig Esterly of the Greentree Rotary Club and Joe Schmitt of Pittsburgh recently traveled to Tegucigalpa, the capitol of Honduras, and reported of their visit to Maximo's filter manufacturing facility. HRToolbox of Atlanta, Georgia, has donated sufficient funds to make 100 filters available for distribution without charge to poorer families. The Tegucigalpa Kaputzihil Rotary Club and the Assistant District Governor for Rotary in Honduras have become enthusiastic about helping distribute filters. The Peace Corps, Salvation Army, and some NGOs are also excited. Some of these donated filters will be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the filter and serve as "marketing" to other villages and organizations.

Photos of Maximo Andreas's manufacturing facility will be published on this site soon.

Meanwhile, we have people interested in establishing filter manufacturing plants in Afganistan, Haiti, and Uganda. A filter plant in Tanzania is being built.

Moreover, there is a filter manufacturing lab being established by Steve Carpenter at Texas A&M University, which will serve as a uniform training site for operators to visit and become proficient in the process. This will save having to train in the field with our limited personnel in a variety of sites throughout Central America and the rest of the world.


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History of this project:

This is a cooperative project between the Monroeville Rotary Club (District 7300, PA, USA) and the RC Tegucigalpa-Sur Club (District 4250, Honduras). Technical assistance will be provided by experienced potters in this technology, namely Professor Richard Wukich (Slippery Rock University, PA, USA) and Professor Manny Hernandez (Northern Illinois University, USA). They have been at the grass root establishment of at least four ceramic water filter manufacturing sites throughout the world. They are acitive in setting up this facility in Tegucigalpa and have visited the prospective site and talked to the prospective operator in the past couple of months.

On the ground support will come from Shoulder to Shoulder, USA (Jeff Heck in North Carolina), plus Shoulder to Shoulder, Pittsburgh (Mark Meyer and William Markel), which operates a health clinic in San Jose del Negrito, approximately one hour from El Progresso. The legal entity in Honduras (which owns the newly constructed clinic) is Homro o Hombro. See the link to Shoulder to Shoulder, Pittsburgh. Their work is very worthy of your support.

San Jose is a small village of 300+ and 6500 inhabitants in the surrounding area (areas without any water treatment and without electricity and medical care, except for Shoulder to Shoulder’s clinic). Without a potable water supply, alternative water sources have elevated disease rate among the populace and especially the children who are more susceptible to water borne bacteria and viruses.

The filter manufacturing plant will be in the more cosmopolitan area of Tegucigalpa, and will initially serve San Jose del Negrito, but will also serve other villages all around Honduras and, through NGOs (more specifically FAO), will distribute filter “kits”. Filter kits include a colloidal treated ceramic filter (like a flower pot), a collection device (a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a spigot) and decals that instruct the users on its proper use (and other health instruction).

Filters will be produced by a micro business encouraging the operator to build volume and thus create a profit to pay for all operating expenses and grow the business. The identified owner is Maximo Andreus. Maximo is an experienced potter, having a small pottery business in Tegucigalpa. There is an essential element to this process, that of training the end user to fully take advantage of the purification process. On the ground continual testing is required to make sure that the filters are continuing to perform. This will be performed by Shoulder to Shoulder, Pittsburgh (through their operating clinic in San Jose) and by Shoulder to Shoulder, USA, NGOs in the area), all being monitored by the Rotary Club of Tegucigalpa-Sur.

The ceramic filter (colloidal silver coated) has been proven effective in various sites throughout the world (Cambodia, Nicaragua, Darfur, and Iraq) where there is a source of water, but it being very polluted (ground puddles, contaminated streams, or even contaminated wells). These sites were established, but lack of man-power inhibited a continuing presence by the those who established the facility.

Rotary can provide this continuing presence and monitor the performance of the site operator. This micro enterprise model should provide the sustainability that was not available through other groups involved with this filter.

The technology has been tested through various universities and found over 99 percent effective in providing ultra pure water. This household based filtration method uses local materials (except for the silver and containers), is very inexpensive ($12-$15 unit provides 1-1.5 liters of water per hour over a useful life of 18-24 months), eliminates many hours of drudgery of women hauling clean water to their homes, lessens the impact of disease of water borne agents, and provides for the establishment of a self sustaining micro business.

The goal of the Tegucigalpa site, in addition to providing filters for San Jose and other areas in Honduras, is to establish a model (blueprint and cook book) for the establishment of future sites, where any Rotary Club can take on a similar project in a third world area of their choice.

Tom Nunnally
tom.nunnally@comcast.net
telephone number 412-241-1822