Banjiram Last Visit During This Trip

Crowd at school taps before we added the 3" pipes.

 These are the before pictures. The borehole and tank are at a government secondary school. This is what it was like at the 10 water taps at the school everyday at 3PM when the water was turned on. There are 16 remote taps closer to the home. The flow at the remote taps is very little and does not last long. Most people walk the extra 200 meters to get in line. In a previous blog I discussed my redesign of the distribution system to try to get more water into the system each day and get it out to the village at the remote taps. Those who have followed my since 2009 have heard my three water priorities.

Crowd waiting at the ten taps at the school.

1. Have enough water to live.
2. Have the water close to home so you do not spend as much time fetching.
3. Have good quality of water.

On Thurday and Friday May 3 and 4 we went back to Banjiram to bring them the pipes and parts to improve the performance of the distribution system. The modeling for the re-design of the system starts to work with adding 270 meters of 2-½ inch pipe. It works better with 3 inch. Due to supply and demand currently the 3 inch pipe is cheaper than the 2-½ . I had been told that the buried pipes going out to the remote tap stands were 1-½ inch pipes. We only purchased fittings that would connect the 3 inch to the 1-½ inch. It took most of the morning to get the right pipes and the right lengths onto a truck to transport it out to Banjiram. The 6 meter long pipes that shop was selling were actually 4.92 meters long. We had to measure the pipes and recalculate how much we needed. We now needed 78 of the 4.92 meter pipe and they were still cheaper than the 2-½ inch pipe .

They did not have 1-½ inch tees so they sent out some boys to their other shop to get them. They finally, came back and tossed them in the bag of parts. I should have looked at them. They were 2 inch tees. It really did not matter because the pipe in the ground was actually 1-¼ inch. It also took a long time to get the 78 pipes from his other warehouse and loaded onto a truck. We made sure the driver knew where to go and we headed out at a little after 11. Our trucks had been parked facing each other. He went one way and we headed in the opposite. We had to get fuel and make a stop in Numan to deliver some paperwork to the Health Board Director. We did not know that the truck driver was headed to his house to get a second rack for his truck. He did not like the way the pipes were hanging on back of his truck with only one rack. The pipes showed up about two hours after we got to Banjiram. While we were waiting for him we had the people start digging a wider trench for the pipes and explained to the plumber what we were going to do. He was unconvinced that it would work, The pump in the borehole was only a 1-¼ inch pipe so he reasoned that it was too small to push water through a 3 inch pipe. I tried to explain to him. He just shook his head. He was being paid he will make the connections.

We off loaded the pipes by the tower and when the plumber was ready the men, women and kids all grabbed pipes and took them to the trench. On Thursday we connected assembled and buried all the 3 inch pieces and decided on what parts we needed to finish the work on Friday. We also looked at the existing leaks in the system and made a list of repair parts. We rushed back to Yola and started searching for the parts just before sundown. The shops were trying to close and get home before dark. Most of what we needed were found at the third shop we tried.

Friday morning, Yakubu could not come with us so I was the driver. Adams and I located the final parts and were on the road to Banjiram by 9. We arrived and called the plumber to drive down from Guyuk about 15 kilometers further up the road. Everything went smoothly until we started trying to repair the 20 year old valves and coupling that were leaking. I have to give the plumber credit. He was able to hammer and force these old rusted fittings loose. The leaks were because of the misalignment of the pipes as much as the age of the parts. Some of the old buried pipes had to be moved a few inches. We had hoped to be finished by noon so we could pump some water during peak solar power. We were finally able to get the leaks down to a few minor drips at just after 2 pm. 

Everyone stepped back to let me get a picture of the water.

Five hours of pumping had been missed for the day. The sun was past it peak and there was no water in the tank. Usually the tank is half full when the system is opened. At 2:30 we turned on the water to the distribution system. It now had to fill 260 meters of 3 inch pipes. The North Pipe stand that used to have only 2 of the 8 taps working had good flow at all 8 taps after taking 30 minutes to fill the lines. The South tap stand that usually had 5 taps flowing only had two. We had the women at the North Tap Stand singing and dancing and the women at the South Tap Stand looking for a rope to hang me with. Finally, Adams checked a valve that the operator had told us was wide open and found it was closed. A few minutes after he opened it the South Tap Stand had 4 of the 8 working. It was not late in the day and past the peak solar time. Adams explained to the women that the pump had been off all day as we worked on the system and there was not water in the tank. He told them it will be better tomorrow. (When we would be safely back in Yola.)

The next day as I sat in the LCCN Cathedral in Yola at a wedding ceremony for 5 couples a lady came and sat down next to me. She said "I am from Banjiram. You are a brother of Banjiram." She must live near the North Tap Stand.

Line for water at the artesian flow while we worked.

Night Flow Tank: Before the sun get high enough in the sky to start the pump and after it gets to low for the pump to operate the water in the borehole flows out of a 2 inch pipe welded to the casing. This artesian flow it collected by women from early in the morning until the pump starts and after the pump stops they are fetching late into the night. The operator asked me if there was any way to pipe this flow into the distribution system. I tried to explain to him that the forces underground that is forcing the water up to the surface is barely enough to get it to the surface and since the borehole is at the lowest place in Banjiram the force is not enough to move the water up to the taps. He would come back and ask again and again. I told him that since water only flows by gravity down-hill the water would have to flow into a tank and then be pumped out. We did not time the water flow but estimated it to be 10 liters per minute. For the 16 hours of  no solar power the artesian flow will be around 9600 liters. I have asked some of my geologist and engineer friends to calculate what he flow would be if we could lower the outlet by 4 feet. The first estimate is that it could add as much as 50%. The second response was that it would not be significant. Both from geologist. The civil engineers and mechanical engineers who specialize in fluid flow have not responded yet. I think it is somewhere between. I will have to wait to get to my fluid mechanics books at home. My gut feeling is that it is closer to the Neal’s estimate of 50%. If we can achieve 15 liters per minute we could build a 15, 000 liter underground tank. Purchase a small pump than will lift the water up into the elevated tank every morning and we would have nearly twice as much water to feed the distribution system. Currently, the system is opened only once per day at 3PM until the tank is empty and the pump stops pumping. With the addition of the overnight water the system might be able to be opened twice a day. The other option is to have a hand pump on the overnight tank and people could pump the water anytime they want to.

Concept of the Night Flow Tank

Night Flow with lowered inlet.