St Paul Partners: Ipalamwa

The crew did not leave for Ipalamwa until about 1 PM after arranging a 4WD pickup truck to haul a 5000 liter Polytank. Fortunately, the roads are good right now with only a few bad spots. We had Engineer Byemerwa, Fredy the Hydrotech well man, a plumber, electrician, and driver using the government car. Once in Ipalamwa, the students started digging a trench from the well site to a raised location for the Polytank and we started connecting 100 meters of wire from the generator to the well site with the students putting in poles to suspend the wire. The polytank and pipe got there after an hour or so and we started setting up the pump. The well is 100 meters deep (we must have had our test bottle wedge when we measured it less deep at the site visit) and from the drill report we set the pump at 70 meters in a layer of fractured granite.

It was getting dark by the time we were ready to power the pump. The students, in their haste to do things, had filled in the trench with the pipe before we made connections and of course we were about 6 inches short on pipe and had to splice in a section. The generator was producing a wide range of voltages from 180 to 340 but the pump is supposed to operate over a wide range so we connected it up and after some stops for under voltage started pumping water to the polytank. The students started collecting some water from the outlet and were screaming with excitement to see clean water that they did not have to carry from a couple kilometers away. Then the flow started surging and we went through a process of checking connections and eventually had to leave because it was 10:30 PM. We hadn't eaten since breakfast and as we were getting ready to leave we were brought in to a room lit by the generator for dinner of chicken and boiled plantains. We left about 11 and the crew dropped me off at the next village of Kising'a for the night so I could visit my partner village. The crew headed into town to pick up a better main switch for the generator house, a switch for the control panel, and wire for tensioning the utility poles.

The crew must have gotten to Iringa around 1 AM and were back to pick me up a little after noon. We went out to Ipalamwa and added the switches, finished the utility poles, and started pumping again with good flow at first, then surging with flow followed by 2 to 12 second breaks with no flow. Eventually we got a No Contact error indicating the control box was not communicating with the pump and flow stopped. It was 8 PM and we were pretty discouraged not knowing if something was wrong with the pump or what the problem was. We had pumped 1000 liters the first night and this had met the schools needs for the morning and pumped about 800 liters this night. We went in for dinner again of rice, chicken, and bananas. I anticipated a second dinner in Kising'a and ate lightly. The crew dropped me off in Kising'a for the night again and I took the bus back to Iringa in the morning, leaving Kising'a at 5 AM.

The next day Byemerwa called and said we had to go back. The control box has so many error events that if the pump was burned out we should have seen other errors. Since Byemerwa had to leave Saturday for meetings up north, I called Dennis and arranged a vehicle to go back and double check the pump installation. Leo came with the car and Fredy and I went back to Ipalamwa. We pulled the pump and inspected the entire length of wire, taping a couple nicks, and redoing the splices. We started the pump up again and after a couple No Contact readings, it started up. Fredy brought a "Deeper" which is a lightweight tape with meter markings and a heavy probe on the end that beeps when it is in water. We used this to watch the top of the water column while we adjusted the flow from the pump by changing pump speed and turning a check valve. The water column stabilized at 47 meters from 26 meters leaving quite a bit of water above the pump. Flow rate was about 1000 liters per hour and the water was crystal clear. We felt good until the No Contact message came back again. The second master had pointed out to me that the pulley on the motor had a lot of play and it seems that the generator is not able to sustain driving the pump. We left feeling confident that the pump is installed correctly and is working but the generator needs to be overhauled or replaced. This was verified when we got back to the Lutheran Centre and I spoke to Brian from Lake Park who had big generator driven irrigation pumps on his farm and he told me he sees similar problems including No Contact errors when the generators are not stable. The electronics in the control panels expect stable voltage and will shut down to protect the system.

Loading up the 5000 liter Polytank

Football game next to the well with a Barack wannabe.

Putting up the utility poles

View from Ipalamwa School

Control Panel with switch and lightning arrestor

Fredy with Primary Student audience

Polytank connected in position

Water pumping into Polytank

Kising'a Bus

Flow testing with Deeper and stop watch.

Clear as can be ready to drink

Well Head

Water tap outlet below sim tank by dorms and kitchen

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.