Request 2 - 2009 - Mafi-Zongo Water Project: Financial help for Bulldozer work on the dam - for details open the three attached files.

Letter from the Project Manager:
I would like to follow up on our request for assistance for the Zongo dam, that I submitted to you on September 23rd. The details are very much the same. The fuel cost is down, and the bulldozer cost may be up slightly. But the amount needed is the same. We are trying to scrape together enough money to do this work before the heavy rains start. If rains are too much, the dam could be in danger.

The money for the valves was sent to the UK and all the details are ready. The money will be transferred to the company maybe today or tomorrow, and the valves will be shipped to Ghana by air. The total cost of the valves including shipping is £4,167.

Hope it works out, we really appreciate your help twice for the health education program in Burkina Faso, and hope that you will also find our project worthy of help for a second time.

Thanks for everything.

All the best
daneshananda

Request 1 - 2009: This is a request for $2,000 USD to purchase special valves for a filtration system that serves more than 9,000 people in the Zongo river area in Ghana, Africa. See the information supplied by the project manager below.
Updated: The Foundation has wired $1,000 to AMURT Ghana to purchase the valves for the filtration system. The rest of the money was provided by AMURT USA.
Here’s the summary of the needs for the new sand filter, and some details about the valves that we are trying to buy. The project currently benefits more than 9,000 people through 45 standpipes in 26 communities

ZONGO WATER PROJECT - Construction of new Roughing Filter

The Zongo Water Project’s water source is surface water harvested by building a dike on a seasonal river.
The water is then treated through slow sand filtration, before it is pumped to a reservoir on a hill. From this hill, the water flows by gravity to the communities.

For the slow sand filtration to work effectively, the water needs to be of low turbidity, less than 10 NTU. During the rainy season, the quality of the raw water deteriorates more than the original design anticipated. Our pre-treatment filter, (also called roughing filter) turns out to be too small to adequately treat the raw water and reduce the turbidity during the rainy season. This causes reduced water quality and clogging of the sand filter as silt enters the sand filters.

AMURT contacted EWB in 2005, and on their second visit in 2006, they identified the problem and started working on a new design that would solve the filtration problems of the project.

After delays caused by difficulties in raising funds and changes in the design, the construction of the new roughing filter started in January this year. The construction is now in full swing, and we hope to complete the construction in March and make the new filters operational by April, before the heavy rains start in May.

The new filter is eight times the size than the old filters. The design is horizontal, while the old ones are vertical or up-flow filters.

Currently two engineers from Engineers Without Borders are on site overseeing the construction. Another team will come in Mid-March to oversee the final installations.

The total cost of the project is about 50,000 USD. Forty thousand has been raised by the EWB and Rotary Chapter in Tucson, Arizona. The rest is funded by AMURT with help from Lanesra Foundation and other donors.

The design calls for a special type of valves – 12 inch Knife Gate Valves, or sliding gate valves. Each of the six chambers in the filter, will have one valve that is used for hydraulic flushing of the filter media. The filter employs graded pebbles, which trap the silt and larger dirt particles, and in this way reduces the water turbidity for the slow sand filtration.

It is AMURT’s responsibility to buy the knife gate valves. They are not available in Ghana and West Africa. We have only found the right model available in the US. The original supplier we had found did not work out, and the only supplier we have now has made the valves much more expensive.

The cost is USD 987.50 per valve, making altogether USD 5,925. In addition comes the shipping of the valves to Africa. We are trying to ship by air.
The ocean freight is 1,100. we still have not finalized the air shipping. It will be a bit more than ocean freight. The EWB has accelerated the construction schedule, so we need to look into air-freight.

We currently have about USD 5,550 available in the AMURT account in Washington DC for the purchase and shipping of the valves. We need maybe as much USD 2,000 more. So, if you can contribute for this, it would be a great help.

In April, we would like to do bulldozer work for the dam, I think I sent you the information about this last year in October or November.

Thanks for your kind consideration
Daneshananda