A day in the field: Trip to Sayán and Végueta

Friday, September 16th, 2011, Itxel and I headed to visit two other districts in the Huaura province, Sáyan and Végueta. They both receive water treatment services from EMAPA Huacho. Sayán is roughly a 45-minute drive inland and into the mountains, while Végueta is right on the coast, about 20 minutes north of Huacho. We spent the day visiting the two sites with an engineer from EMAPA Huacho, Juan Candia. He wanted to show us the potential locations for new waste water treatment plants in both of these locations.

From everything that I have learned so far in Huacho, this is how their water system works:
1) Pump water from the ground.
2) Inject water with chlorine gas to help clean it.
3) Pump water up to a water tower on a hill/elevated area, to insure water pressure throughout the town.
4) Water drains down into subscriber's homes/businesses using the flow of gravity (only Sayán has continuous service 24 hours/day).
5) Waste water drains by means of gravity to a central location.
6) Untreated waste water gets dumped into river (in the case of Sayán) or ocean (in the case of Végueta and Huacho).

Waste water from Sayán going straight into the River Huaura

This day was incredibly informative because it allowed us to see different water utility strategies based on different geographic locations (one in the mountains, the other along the coast). We also thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Juan Candia because he is very punctual and highly educated, so he goes into great depth when explaining things and is always open to answer our questions. A great educational experience and a great introduction to my field placement here in Huacho.

Hopefully over the next 8 months I will be working more in depth with Juan. They are currently in the process of going through various assessments (environmental, ecological, economical, social, financial, etc.) to determine the feasibility of the construction of 3 waste water treatment facilities. Preliminary studies have been done, but they have roughly 150 studies left to complete (and unfortunately a great lack of manpower and resources to complete them). He is quite open to the idea of giving me projects to complete on my own, so I hope I can be of some help.

Tuesday we will travel to the sites in Huacho where the waste water is directly dumped into the ocean and where they are planning to build their water treatment plant.

Looking forward to another adventure in the field soon!
Sheila