Richard Pine opens a valve and the sound of flowing water surrounds a small group of people gathered in a 100-square foot concrete block structure that houses a small water filtration system. In 20 minutes, the 75 residents of the village of El Jute, Honduras will have 250 gallons of fresh water to use as they wish.
It wasn’t that way 16 months ago. Until November 2006 villagers got their water as they had for generations: by trekking over rocky, rutted paths to a stream that feeds the nearby Guarizama River, scooping what water they needed into jugs and lugging it back home.
Now the task takes just a few minutes because the inexpensive system is conveniently located in the village. All they have to do is turn on a spigot.
Installed at a cost of $1,200 by members of St. Basil the Great Parish, the filtration system is sized to provide one gallon of water per person per day. It may not seem like a lot, but having clean water for cooking and bathing is a blessing, villagers say.
Pine has found the systems help reduce illnesses, such as dysentery, caused by water borne bacteria.
Villagers pay 10 lemperas (50 cents) per household per month for the water. The fee is collected by a committee which uses the money to maintain the system. It costs about $10 a month to operate the system. With no electricity in the village, a gasoline powered engine runs the pump that draws water from a nearby stream. St. Basil provides replacement filters.
It’s a pretty simple system,” explained Pine, an emergency room doctor at Lutheran Medical Center who has spurred the parish’s efforts to provide clean water in isolated villages.
The filtration system consists of a series of filters ranging from 25 microns to a half micron. At each step, more impurities are filtered out. Chlorine is added along the way and a carbon filter at the end of the line removes the chlorine taste.
The parish has installed two such systems, the other being in Los Ranchos, a village several miles south of San Francisco de la Paz.
A third system is planned for El Rodeo, a village not far from El Jute but higher in the mountains, in July, when members of the Brecksville parish will visit again.