St Paul Partners: Ipalamwa Site Visit

Engineer Byemerwa met me at 7:30 again to visit the well site at Ipalamwa. We first visited the Kilolo Star well drilling operation in Kilolo which Engineer Byemerwa had not visited before. Then we stopped at the Kilolo District water engineer's office where I found out that the government engineers are surveying all the water source points in Tanzania starting in Iringa Region. The Kilolo District Water Engineer, Abdi Andalu, showed me an Excel spreadsheet where they are recording gps and functioning status for each well. They are also taking photos of each source. These reports will be valuable to us to determine the status of the wells we have had drilled. I took his email address so I can send him the GOWGOL well logs to add information to their database. The driver stopped at one point to get out and Engineer Byemerwa remarked that he was "Inspecting a Bore Hole". That is Water Engineer version of "Checking the Tires". We went through Kising'a, which is my church's partner village and delivered medical supplies purchased by Lutheran Church of Peace for the Kising'a dispensary. We continued on to Ipalamwa on a beautiful day with dry roads. This was my first time visiting Ipalamwa and Lutheran Church has sponsored many Kising'a students at the Ipalamwa school.

I first met with the Headmaster, Rev. Ombeni Sawike, and she explained the water situation at Ipalamwa. They have 300 students and are collecting water from a river source about 1 km away. Water gets added to a 1000 liter storage tank and many students have been ill from the water.

We then went to the well site and found it capped with a tree stump. We used a weighted water bottle on a cable to collect a sample of water and measure the depth and water level of the well. We found water at 26 meters and the bottom of the well was at 59 meters. The 33 meter column of water sounds good but what really matters is the recharge rate. It was reported to be 1000 liters/hour by the drilling contractor but it appears that the well has not been developed and had a proper pumping test yet. There was sediment on the bottle when it was pulled up from the bottom.

We next checked out the generator and water storage capability. All they have for storage is a 1000 liter tank that is set up to collect rain water but right now is used to receive the buckets of river water brought up by the students. A rule of thumb for water usage at a school with pit toilets is 25 liters per student day so 300 students should need 7500 liters of water per day. They need at least two 5000 liter storage tanks mounted on raised supports for water pressure. Engineer Byemerwa says that a 5000 liter tank costs 600,000 while a 10,000 liter tank is 2,000,000 so two tanks is the best deal and allows water to be pumped to two locations. If the 1000 liters per hour rate is accurate for the well, they will need to run the generator longer than the current 4 hours or we will need a solar power to pump all day.

The generator they have is a 7.5 KW generator driven by a diesel engine. This engine is also used to drive a maize miller for making ugali flour. The headmaster said their fuel consumption is only 3 liters per 4 hours of operation which is much less (1/10) than at Image. Perhaps because they have shorter distances and are just using it to light a few buildings. We measured the distance from the generator to the bore hole to be 100 meters. As we left, we saw several students who were ill resting in the shade looking very uncomfortable. We took four of the students with us to drop them off at their home dispensaries in Kising'a and Lulanzi.