Aqua Terra Tech

Boaco is a large city in Nicaragua (at least in comparison to other Nicaraguan cities). In the recent past, population density has become a concern in Boaco. Boaco's solution to this was to develop small satellite communities nearby for people to move to and thus combat the population density in the city. As with many solutions, the unintended consequences were considerable, which brings us to San Nicolas. San Nicolas is one such small settlement on the outskirts of Boaco that currently does not have any utilities provided to them by the city of Boaco. The 600 or so people of San Nicolas get all of their water from two hand pumped wells. This forces them to spend a significant amount of time gathering water for their daily activities. A few years ago Aqua Terra Tech was approached by the communities of Boaco and San Nicolas to find out if it would be possible for us to design a water distribution system  for the community. After an investigative and data gathering trip, design work began. The ultimate goal that was established for the project was to deliver potable water to each of the 80 homes in the community with enough water to provide each person with 20 gallons per day. With an operating budget of $12,000 much of the recent work has been in researching possible sustainable methods for pumping the water from the current wells. Two alternatives that were considered were a wind powered system and a solar powered system. Ultimately, the solar powered system was deemed necessary to provide the required water pressure head. Having chosen a pumping method, the system was designed using EPANET 2.0. This was also used to model system performance. As of now, the system has been completely designed and most of the work is being done attempting to re-estimate costs of material in Nicaragua, prepare a proposal presentation for the community and also to formulate a way to successfully manage the political pressures the implementation of the system might create. If anybody has any inquiries, please contact us by email at nbnathan at mtu.edu