Sarah Brownell
Imagine a town surrounded by water’the ocean reaching out to touch its black sand beaches on the west, its rocky shore on the north, and its white sand beaches in the east, and a river winding down past the houses becoming a delta as it meets the sea. Imagine a town that often floods in the rainy season, a town that can get its water from public spigots, natural springs, or ground water wells. This is Borgne, a place imbued with water. But, none of it is fit to drink.
Obtaining clean drinking water is a problem the world over, not only in less developed areas like Borgne. This past July, Ontario, Canada issued boil-water orders for 48 communities following the contamination of their water supplies by strains of E. coli bacteria, which caused at least 7 deaths and thousands of illnesses. The presence of Giardia and Cryptosporidium parasites, which can cause severe diarrhea and gastrointestinal problems, was also detected in some water supplies. Water can carry a variety of other pathogens, including Entamoeba histolytica (amoebic dysentery), cholera, Salmonella Typhi, Hepatitis A, Polio type 1, and balantidium coli. It may also be contaminated by chemicals, industrial wastes, and heavy metals.
In Borgne, there have historically been few options for obtaining clean water. People can travel to the nearest city, Cap Haitian, to buy Culligan water, or they can use their precious charcoal to boil the water they obtain from the public supply or the spring. Unfortunately, both of these methods are expensive, and for many who have meager incomes to begin with, the cost precludes their use. Most people in Borgne do not treat their water before drinking it. Tests this past summer revealed that many of the wells and the local water supply are contaminated by human wastes. Often, wells are located in close proximity to latrines, and broken pipes plague the public supply. It is likely that this is a cause of the countless cases of diarrhea and intestinal problems seen at the H.O.P.E. Health Clinic. The clinic’s lab technician reports that, of the stool samples he tests, 85% contain Entameoba histolytica and 3% contain balantidium coli. Tests are not available to diagnose some of the other water borne illnesses.
As part of its commitment to working with the people of Borgne to improve health, H.O.P.E. has begun to take small steps toward addressing the water problem. Since the clinic opened four years ago, its Haitian health care workers have been committed to starting the day with an educational class on pertinent public health issues. One of the common topics is ‘clean’ water. Local science teachers have incorporated hygiene and health issues into their classes. But these efforts had not yet addressed the problem of the financial hardship of buying or boiling water. This summer marked the beginning of the first effort to provide FREE, clean, drinking water. The problem was addressed from both a community and an individual perspective.
The Community Solution: Ultraviolet (UV) Water Disinfection
The H.O.P.E. Health Clinic is the perfect location for a community water disinfection system. It is full of valuable resources, including a trained staff knowledgeable in the need for clean water, a regular health education program, a technician, Francour Morrisette, ready to take on the responsibility of maintaining a system, a set of photovoltaic solar panels providing electricity, and a generally good reputation with the townspeople.
Professor Bill Larsen in the Rochester Institute of Technology Civil Engineering Department first led me to the idea of using UV light to disinfect water in Haiti. UV light of a certain wavelength has the ability to penetrate microorganisms and viruses and alter their ability to reproduce, thus making them incapable of causing disease. Together Prof. Larsen and I developed a UV system suitable to the clinic’s needs. The system is simple: Water is poured through a filter bag into a raised reservoir, it descends by gravity to the UV unit’a 40 Watt UV bulb similar to a florescent light bulb enclosed in a protective case’enters it from the bottom, rises to the top, and exits, disinfected, from a hose. The unit we chose can produce 5 gallons of disinfected water each minute. We assembled and tested the unit in Rochester before I carried it to Borgne and installed it in the suture room of the clinic. Once it was installed, I announced in the daily health education classes at the clinic and on the local radio station that Francour and I would be available to demonstrate the system. People began coming for water, and news of the system spread by word of mouth until we were quite busy. When water is available from the town water supply, it is directed to the reservoir through a hose. If no public water is available, people carry water from other sources (wells, the spring, the river, etc.) to the clinic in gallon or 5 gallon containers. The water containers are cleaned with a strong Clorox and water solution before they are filled with disinfected water. H.O.P.E. is currently working out the details to hire Francour to spend a few hours giving out disinfected water each day. Depending on the popularity of the system, there may be a need for more and larger UV units located at other points in the town.
The Personal Solution: Solar Cook Kits
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of each person to provide clean water for themselves and their families. Water, therefore is a very personal issue. People need a way to be able to know they are drinking clean water even if public systems fall into disrepair or are unavailable at certain times. In Haiti, the sun is something that people can count on more than they can count on governments or development organizations. The sun shines nearly every day.
Simple Solar Cookers can be easily built from cardboard, aluminum foil, white school glue, a clear plastic bag, some sticks, and a glass or plastic container painted black. They use no fuel except for sunshine. The sun can easily heat the water to temperatures above 71oC, enough to kill off any disease causing organisms. A WAPI, a small, reusable thermometer made from soy fat enclosed in a plastic tube, can be used to indicate when water has reached pasteurization temperature. WAPIs are available from Solar Cookers International (SCI) for $4 each. For my cookers, I followed the basic panel cooker design of SCI. When I arrived in Borgne, I carried with me enough supplies and WAPIs to make 30 cookers. I brought the supplies from the United States, because I wanted to provide free solar cooking classes with standard materials. However, with some creativity, it is possible to build a solar cooker from materials available in Borgne for a small initial investment. No future investment is required to keep the cooker operating as would be with other forms of water treatment like boiling or adding Clorox. As an added bonus, the cookers can be used to prepare dinner! Solar Cooking also reduces the use of charcoal, thus helping to curb the rapid deforestation of rural areas and reducing the indoor air pollution associated with charcoal fires that causes many respiratory ailments.
My classes drew more people than I had expected. Everyone was very excited about the idea of pasteurizing water and cooking with the sun. It seemed almost magical. All thirty cookers were assembled and taken home in days, and I have a list of over 30 more people who are awaiting supplies because they cannot afford to purchase them.
It is difficult to know if the solar cookers will be used. They have no fuel costs, but are slow to produce clean water. And, although, the panel cookers can easily boil vegetables and cook meats, they do not have the ability to make many of the common fried dishes. Whether the cookers are used or not, it was important to me that I bring the idea of solar cooking to Borgne so that they might experiment with it and mold it to their needs. SCI has had promising results with panel cookers in Gonaives. There are more complex parabolic solar cooker designs that have the ability to fry foods. Perhaps the creative people of Borgne can develop their own cooker design, appropriate to their needs. I hope to continue to promote the idea of solar cooking in future trips, and I am awaiting news of how the thirty cookers are being used. I am trying to save up enough money to buy and ship the materials to make 30 more cookers for those who came to my class after all the materials had been distributed.
We begin these simple projects in hope that one day all the people in Borgne and its surrounding areas will have access to free, safe drinking water. Simple technology, simple ideas – just a 40W UV Watt light bulb, just cardboard and aluminum foil, just some communication and creativity – can go a long way toward making this dream a reality.
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