Nerdy engineering stuff

I'm happy to share with everyone that I am actually getting my hands on some engineering projects here in Jamaica. I wasn't sure that I'd have things to right away as a new volunteer because sometimes it takes awhile to get to know your community and organizations that you that you work with, however people hear that I'm an engineer and suddenly have engineering stuff for me to do!

Both of the projects that I've started working on involve water engineering. The first involves helping a rural community fix the problems they are facing with their current water distribution system. Many years ago an organization came in and designed a system for the town but now the system is failing, most houses receive no water at all even though the infrastructure is all in place. I went out to the town and had the care taker of the system show me around the town and take down to the water source, a rather large river located several kilometers from the town. The town pumps water just a short ways from the head of the river which springs from underneath a mountain. (See pic below.) The care taker and I chatted for a long time and he told me all about the problems he sees with the distribution system and a bit of history behind the project. So the first step of this project was for me to understand the system and the community's problems. The next step, well I'm working on that this week, more to come soon...

The next project I started involves a local food factory. Currently the factory pumps water from the town's treated source to irrigate its crops; however as costs run higher for water they are looking to switch the source of water. They want to collect and store rain water that drains from the factory to supply the water demand for the crops. A pump system will need to be installed to pump water from a newly created holding pond up a ridge to where several 1,000 gallon storage tanks are located that feed the drip irrigation system. They also want to pump water to yet another pond that they will soon create to supply another piece of the property. I'm so excited to work on this project because the factory is a huge source of income generation for the community and anything I can do to help cut down on costs and help conserve water would be wonderful.

Guess that's all I got for this week. I'll keep yall posted on the projects as time passes.