Where are they now?

Hola amigos! Sorry for the very delayed post- the post-Peru trip work has been hectic both in Sydney and Lima. On our end we've been continuing experiments in the fog room, writing up the thesis report, making a (prize-winning!) poster and presenting our work to the sponsors.

But the real fun's been continuing in Flor de Amancaes! Below are a few snapshots of the fog collection project and how it's progressed since July 2012!

Above: Shots of the hill in September 2012 after plenty of fog - so green! Luis was still taking measurements and sending us data every week or so. The water quality was actually pretty good once the dirt had been settled out!

In October, the PEBAL + the locals put up their very own large fog collector! It measures 3m x 10m and in its first week captured 450 L of fresh water. This water was used for washing clothes and watering plants :-) 

We'd never actually met these two guys, but they helped put up the large fog collector (and look a bit chuffed about it!) and how green are those hills now!!

If you remember way back to the start of the blog, the whole point of setting up our little baby pilot fog collectors was to see if it was worth putting up a big one, and if it was actually feasible to do so, with the aim of actually implementing a large scale project in the next few years. Only 3 months later however, PEBAL and the community thought they were working so well they put up their own large one!! What a fantastic outcome!

It was left up for a few months but was taken down in January to avoid heat/sun/ dirt damage. They put up this sign to keep everyone in the loop about it:

The hills are back to being dry and dirty, and looks like our pilot screens are doing a good job of collecting the dust!

"Fog collecting system panels under maintenance" - 23 January 2013

So there you go! Thanks for joining us on this crazy adventure :-)

Ultimo Dias! (Final Day!)

Martes 24 Julio (Tuesday 24 July)

It is our last day in Peru and there was still a little more work to be done. A time was set to meet Raul, Luis and a local builder at the base of the Hill of Pain at 7am. This meant a bright (meaning hazey in Lima) and early 5:30am wake up. But this wasn’t such a fuss because we have to get up at 4am tomorrow morning to catch the flight home! So we’re thinking of it as good preparation to our oncoming battle with jet lag.

We arrived on time but Raul was nowhere to be seen. Cath stayed at the base of the hill in order to try and get into contact with him whilst I went up to set up the Kestral (provided by Prospectors) and tripod (provided by Fotogenic) to take atmospheric conditions readings. I then proceeded to continue where we left of yesterday.

The aim was to complete trenching from the site near the top of the hill all the way to the base of the hill in order to finish installing two hoses, 300 m in length each, and subsequently refilling to cover them. The intention is to allow the water to be fed down closer to where the locals reside so that they can measure and use any water that is collected by the systems. 

                     

About two thirds of the trench had already been dug up with two 200m hoses installed and portions of it filled so I continued to fill progressively from the top. However, this proved to be a challenge as this required large amounts of soil, dirt and sand to fill the mostly rocky terrain. There were sandy areas around so I proceeded to shovel and fill buckets with the soil and carry them back and forth down and up the hill to fill the trenches. It was a strenuous task especially given that the ground was very irregular and steep.

Fortunately, Raul, Cath and Luis emerged which sped things up a lot. We all worked together, two of us shovelling, one transporting the buckets and one filling the trenches. At the top, we noticed that one of the hoses wouldn’t reach the SFC (Standard Fog Collector) so we had to switch the trough around.

Luis mentioned that he had spoken to the locals who had told him that they would be happy to help complete the rest of the trenching on the weekend so we decided to finish filling the top two thirds of the job (involving 50 or so buckets of sand) and leaving the bottom portion in their hands. On the way back down the hill, we spoke to the lady, named Vidalina, who lived closest to where our collection containers will be situated. She said she’d be happy to take measurements and send us the results after we leave and use the water for irrigation.

                                   

Their support symbolizes all the help and generosity we have received on the trip and solidifies one of the project’s objectives; to get the community involved and inform them on how to construct the systems for themselves using locally available materials. The project team has thus become Cath, Louis (from PEBAL), Louis’ brother Raul, myself, Victor (from Solidaridad en Marcha), and the community itself (in particular Freddy). Their involvement reveals their care, belief and desire that the systems be an ultimate success.

 It is time for celebration, Pisco Sours y Cervezas on the house!

Hose it going?

lunes 23 julio

The little ute that could!

We kicked off our second last day with our final visit to Pista Nueva, the street that has all the hardware ‘shops’. We bought six 100m rolls of common garden hose to connect our fog collectors to the existing collection tanks so the yield could be measured easily and continuously once we leave. Victor went out into the street and found us a man with a ute who could drive us all up the hill 50 soles.

The two hoses sitting in their freshly dug trench

The original plan for the hose- across to PEBAL's fog collectors

Once there we found Raul, and Freddy, plus some other dudes from the community (Armand and Fermin) who came along to help. We’ve noticed that the days we have to build/ carry heavy stuff up the hill it’s always a clear blue sky with a blazing hot sun! Special thanks to Katherine (a friend from my volunteering days in 2010) and her mate Israel who (by some miracle) found their way to our project site and helped to lay the pipeline!

You can see all the way to the sea!!

 With the first stretch of trench picked out by Andy, Armand, Freddy and Raul, we popped the hose in and buried as much as we could before 2pm as we had to leave to prepare for a presentation to PEBAL at 4pm.

After hurriedly getting home, showering, scoffing lunch and fixing up our semi-finished presentation, we made our way to PEBAL headquarters to meet the director and several engineers, scientists and support staff of PEBAL. We were to present the process undertaken in our project and the results of our investigation. In Spanish… which was ok till they started asking technical questions...thanks for the translations Kat!

Presentation to PEBAL

 I think PEBAL’s staff were impressed with our results (we’ve collected more water per square metre in the last two weeks than their project) and were interested in the benefits of using our location and design in their next project instead. They said they’d continue to monitor our results and if they’re looking good after the next few months potentially even start work on more fog collectors there! The director Ofelia was also very keen to get a Kestrel 4500 for PEBAL to better assess new locations for fog collection projects according to wind direction, speed and altitude.

And remember how one of their fog collectors had broken? Well, at the end of the presentation Luis asked us to give them advice on changes they should make when they rebuild it. Based on our investigation (and all the research we’d done at home first), we recommended that having the base of the mesh higher above the ground was beneficial as the fog is denser higher up (and the wind is faster), and also to use a wider piece of piping for the collection gutter to catch fly-away droplets in high wind (and accordingly donated the other half of our 6” diameter PVC pipe). It was awesome to feel like consulting engineers!!

Happy Birthday Luis!

After the presentation and discussion we were treated to ham and cheese sandwiches, Inca Kola and cake for Luis’ birthday!! Feliz Cumpleaños Luis

Angela (PEBAL's environmental engineer) telling me about their 'Humedal' project

Luis telling Kat and Israel about their fog collecting project

 So tomorrow we’re getting up super early to finish up the trench digging and hose burying and talk with the community a bit more about what’s happening next- just generally wrapping things up before we leave on Wednesday. Bueno. Hasta luego chicos.

I can see clearly now...jokes...pretty foggy here!

Miércoles 18 Julio

Sunny Lima...

With all the fog we've been having lately the hills have started to turn green with moss and little plants! According to Raul, usually in winter the slopes are so wet and covered in plants that it's quite dangerous to try and climb up!

Box yield (just over a litre)

Yesterday I was joined by Luis and Raul for what I thought was going to be the last day of construction. We measured the yield from the previous 2 days (2.1L in the SFC and 1.4 L in the Box collector- lower than expected but pretty good nonetheless) and Luis took samples of each to be analysed, which is pretty exciting! Luis was impressed with the quality of the water we were collecting which was much less turbid and gross than what theirs collected (mostly due to how clean our meshes were), but there was still quite a few particulates that would have to be sedimented out.

Claribel's daughter and I

After taking heaps of photos we set about connecting the hoses and buckets to our collection troughs.With some super strong PVC cement we were able to do this fairly quickly and easily, and  connected the lot to buckets on the ground. We had to cut the hose to size to allow the water to reach the bucket easily without getting caught in extra loops of hosing.

The SFC with about 2 L of water collected

The last thing to do was add the 'Faldas de Luis' (Luis' skirts)- the plastic sheeting that covers the base of the support posts. They're designed to protect the posts from moisture on the windward side, while being open on the leeward side to let any moisture escape/ evaporate. Pretty simple, but without them the wood is prone to rotting and breaking under wind loads- ruining the whole structure. (This is what happened to one of PEBAL's fog collectors).

Luis, Raul and I bumped into Freddy on our way up the steps!

We packed up the site and brought down all the spare materials, tools and equipment and divided them up into things we could leave to the community - a bucket and half a bag of cement, things we needed for the upkeep of the project (extra mesh, hosing etc) and things we would leave with SEM like tools and silicone.

Lidia's daughter outside their house

Luis and Raul joining all the piping connections

Everything's connected!

Luis preparing the plastic skirt

Luis and Raul with the completed plastic protection skirts

So, the next big step is to connect hoses from our collectors down to the little shack (a couple of hundred metres away) that contains PEBAL's water tanks. This way, once we go home, Claribel (a lady who lives really close to the project) can measure our yields and use the water, and we can keep track of how the collectors are performing over the months. This involves measuring the distance, marking out a track (with flour), digging a trench and laying the pipe. The plan is to get this done next Monday, so hopefullly that goes well!

Getting so much better all the time

Lunes Julio 16

Raul helping measure the weekend's yield-
 note the full bucket!!

Having treated ourselves to a day out off yesterday (Sunday), we were keen to get back to the atrapanieblas to make sure our buckets hadn't broken..Lima has been especially cloudy and drizzly for the last few days, so we were expecting a big yield today...and we weren't disappointed!!!

With Andy on bed rest from his case of Peru-tummy I ventured into the shanty town with Francisco, (Victor's twin brother) where I met Raul (Luis' little brother) who came with me up the hill and helped attach the piping and solved our 'broken' silicon gun machine...(which didn't work..because it wasn't open...rookie...)

Anyway- here's what we found!
SFC: 8.1 L
Box: 18 L

Excellent results!

For tonight, the silicon cemented pipe pieces have been left to dry under our plastic sheet (aka the body bag) and will be attached tomorrow..by then I hope to have found some gloves or a way of getting silicon cement off my hands...

Another foggy day on the hill of pain/plenty

The canaleta- joining pieces and hoses...and the el cheapo knives we bought to do the job!

Hoses silicon-ed through holes in the bucket lids

Without anyone to escort me home again (even though I know where to go, a white girl with red hair on her own in the poorest part of Peru is not a good idea...) I decided to join in with a bunch of American volunteers from Colorado who had been put to work building stairs up a slope in Pamplona Alta. They gave me some of their snacks for lunch (all sorts of peanut butter flavoured biscuits and muesli bars!!) and I stood in line passing buckets of concrete up and down the slope to the locals at the top who poured it into the timber formwork. It was pretty hard work, but the Americanos love a sing- along so we karaoke-d our way through the entire Disney repertoire, Queen, Bon Jovi and of course, One Direction! Good fun, great group of kids!

The stairs are an excellent project for volunteers for 2 reasons:
1. They allow better access to houses and dramatically reduce the number of injuries for little kids
2. For Pamplona Alta to be considered a 'suburb' of Lima by the government (and hence benefit from govt. services) they need to have stairs and a safe way to access all the houses.

So building the steps is helping Pamplona Alta a lot! Every week there is a different group of volunteers helping build these steps, especially from America, England, Germany, Italy, and all co-ordinated by Victor and SEM.

Success!!

It works!!


Nothing makes trekking up the hill of pain more worthwhile than finding a bucket half full of water at the top!


While we were preparing and building our 'atrapanieblas' (fog collectors) Lima was experiencing a very unusual winter- it was was warm and even sunny some days, hardly any fog at all. All the locals were saying it's because of climate change or el niño, and that usually at this time of year you can't see more than 6 metres ahead of you! However, once our construction was complete and collection buckets in place, it seems the real winter has well and truly kicked back in!

On Saturday morning Andy and I scaled the hill of pain and found our SFC (standard fog collector) had collected 2.4 L and the 3-D Box collector 3 L - nothing to be sneezed at! The water was full of particles that could be removed by sedimentation and filtration.  When we first arrived on site we could see to the bottom of the hill, but as we waited for the Kestrel to collect wind speed measurements the fog thickened and soon we couldn't see more than 10m in front of us! It was colder and windier than it had been all week, and you could hear the constant and rapid dripping of the fog collectors over the chaos of the shanty town below :-) The wind speeds the Kestrel was picking up were between 2.5 and 3.7 m/s - which is perfect for fog collection! (Any lower and the fog droplets aren't pushed onto the mesh, and any higher the mesh starts to act like a solid wall and the wind just goes around it rather than through it (taking the water droplets with it!). Now we just have to fix up the piping situation which Luis will help us with next week, and visit everyday to check the buckets and take wind speed measurements.

Colegio San Pedro

On Friday 13th we visited Colegio San Pedro, (the school in La Molina that initially inspired the project) and met with Esteban Navarra, the man who co-ordinated the construction of their fog collectors.

The project began in 2002 as a way of augmenting the water supply to the school as it was expanding and water was very expensive. There are 28 mesh screens, each measuring 6 m x 10 m and all in one row along the top of the hill, connected to one pipe that runs all the way along. It took 4 months to build the lot!

Check out the greenery in the school grounds- it's normal for us in Australia right? But we hadn't seen grass like this since arriving over a week ago! It's especially striking against the rocky dirt hills that the school is built into.

The screens are usually rolled up to protect them from the sun and dirt during summer, then unrolled in May to collect fog. However, Esteban said they hadn't been unrolled in 4 years due to El Niño and the lack of sufficiently dense fog- and the meshes had been taken down and used in the chicken coops instead! But when the atrapanieblas are in use they collect about 40 m^3 per week (all together) and the water is used to water the 50 000 m^2 of lawns and gardens at the school!