Asokamalagama will smile bright again...
Sri Lanka Daily News - July 12, 2011
Excerpt:
Overdose of fluoride
A survey of the 37 wells of this village with a population of about 1,500 people revealed that 34 of the wells had a fluoride level of more than 3.0 mg per litre (l), while the safe levels of fluoride stands at less than 1.0 mg/l. It was found that 56.8 percent of the wells had a conductivity of more than 1,000 micro-semen per centimetre (cm) showing high dissolved mineral content in the water. Only four wells available in the village, met the required water quality standard with a fluoride content of less than 1.0 mg/l.
According to them, the earlier community-based water supply scheme had been distributing water to the village with a fluoride content of 5.5 mg/l since 2005. As a result of the total hardness content of 180 mg/l, measured through Calcium Carbonate (CaCo3) being low, the taste of the water remained normal, thus encouraging the villagers to drink it without suspicion or concern. Yet, the risks faced by them of having dental/skeletal fluorosis, was very high with such a high a fluoride concentration of 5.5 mg/l in the drinking water.
In April 2010, the duo undertook the challenge of solving this problem for the people of Asokamalagama. Electro Coagulation technology was deemed to be the best option and a bench scale model was tried in a five litre capacity vessel by dipping four Aluminum electrodes in it. The preliminary trials conducted in the laboratory showed a reduction of fluoride by 80 - 90 percent and the hardness by 40 - 50 percent. This success led to their designing an electro coagulation unit with 10 tube reactors and a pilot plant was fabricated to process 100 litres of water/per hour capable of operating for 10 hours a day. With a further modification of its efficiency by using plate electrodes instead of tube electrodes, in December that year, they were able to increase processing capacity to 500 litres /per hour. Cost of fabrication, they said was minimal for all the mechanical and electrical units used were those already available in Sri Lanka.
Self-reliant
According to Wimoo and Padmasiri “women in the village were trained in operation and cleaning the pilot plant thus empowering the village women. While the plant was a gift to the villagers, the processed water from the EC unit is sold at Rs. 2.00 per litre by the Community Based Organization (CBO).
“Money collected is used to pay the women operators and for the plant’s maintenance, ensuring its sustainability.
Already this unit is in operation for over ten months, meeting the average demand of 5,000 litres of processed drinking water per month, of the village of Asokamalagama”. Some of the villagers living around the four better quality wells are still able to use the water from them for drinking. The processed water was also subjected to regular water quality tests such as pH, Conductivity, Total Hardness, Total Alkalinity, Fluoride and residual Aluminum. The values obtained conformed to the SLS 614: 1983 of drinking water standards in Sri Lanka and is today serving to make the next generation of the villagers be able to smile bright again without any inhabitance and be safe from diseases affecting the kidney, preventing them from drinking water with high concentrations of fluoride.
The message Wimoo has for all of us, is not to be taken-in by the frills of the fancy consumer goods that adorn living rooms of our homes, but to make an effort to focus more on the basics of living such as the quality of the drinking water, the nutritional quality of the food we eat to ensure that the children as well as adults of this nation will stay healthy and strong, to face the challenges of the future.
SOURCE:
http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/07/13/fea03.asp