Water Project ~ MGR Nagar, India

MGR Nagar had suffered a recent water shortage due to drought and the well and pressure capsule became ridden with clay, stopped working and needed cleaning with a large volume of compressed air down to a depth of 150Ft.

It has plenty of water now that it has begun to rain and the cleaning will ensure that the hand pump will work again . We reinstalled the handpump and it works fine for the moment. But nothing is eternal except eternity.

MGR Irula village, the one with the single cement street and where we had contemplated installing an RO system but which I decided to defer has now gotten a deep handpump borewell. Its only other working water source was at the entrance to the village and depended on an electrically powered submersible pump and plastic cistern. We decided to go with a hand pump here rather than an RO system knowing about the frequent routine electrical power interruptions in these villages (no water at all ) and after disasters (all too common these days) such as the long-term power-interrupting multiple cyclones the area has been getting in the last five years. This hand pump will always work as a backup(and we keep the mechanicals maintained and these can be repaired quite easily). This pump is also in and producing potable water and will soon also get a masonry apron and new model waste water sump.

MGR previously had ANOTHER water well in the back of the village with an electrically powered submersible pump and cistern and street side water distribution system. This I discovered was not operative for some years. No water produced at all. And the cistern was a total loss. It was also quite old. I decided this was worth a small investment and had the submersible pump hauled out and maintained with cleaning and new gaskets and seals. It works. The well itself was maybe 15-20 years old and had never been cleaned as far as I or anyone else knew. Ground water has small clay and other sediments in it which accumulate at the bottom of the well over time and when they reach the intake cause a total stoppage. I had the well company doing the drilling also clean the well with compressed air and low and behold its back on line. Three water sources now operative. Disaster ready.

Hand pumps are I think a critically necessary source in these rural areas and elsewhere with the ultimate unreliability of centrally produced electrical power. When Houston was recently devastated by cyclonic floods the electrical power and water both to this city when down. If they had some working (and not flooded ) hand operated pumps it would have solved a lot of their water source problems. Ditto for poor Puerto Rico.

MGR Nagar - a deep hand pump bore well was installed in 2017 (the only other working water source was at the entrance to the village and depended on an electrically powered submersible pump and plastic cistern). We decided to go with a hand pump here rather than an RO system knowing about the frequent routine electrical power interruptions in these villages (no water at all ) and after disasters (all too common these days) such as the long-term power-interrupting multiple cyclones the area has been getting in the last five years. This hand pump will always work as a backup(and we keep the mechanicals maintained and these can be repaired quite easily). In 2018 MGR Nagar suffered a recent water shortage due to drought and the well and pressure capsule became ridden with clay, stopped working and needed cleaning with a large volume of compressed air down to a depth of 150Ft.

Anna Nagar, located about 15 miles west of Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu, consists of mostly huts with packed dirt floors and palm frond roofs. There are several new concrete homes built by Curt Degler and his organization Save Int'l. as well as a concrete floor, metal roof structure with open walls that serves a school/tuition center for resident children and youth. The residents in Anna Nagar, around 60 in number, all belong to the Irula scheduled tribal people. These people, who have long experienced discrimination, live isolated lives on the edge of communities of the scheduled castes and for the most part, they are desperately poor. The men make their living as occasional agricultural laborers, for example cutting down the thorn trees which are a blight on the land, or working on the casuarina trees that provide commercial wood used for wooden posts, the construction of huts, wood pulp, and so on.

The Irula people are for the most part semi-nomadic, but their presence in Anna Nagar goes back about fifty years due to an Irula man who agreed to work as a bonded labourer for a local landowner in exchange for permission to live on half an acre of land. In the course of time he and his descendants managed to purchase this land, something that is not at all easy to achieve for these tribal people.

The infrastructure in Anna Nagar is minimal and up until several years ago the residents depended for water from a municipal water source some distance away that provided, when all was functioning properly, water for half an hour a day. When that water failed, as often happened, they relied on a local community with whom, however, there has been a degree of antagonism and therefore there was uncertainty regarding water supplies. Among their greatest needs was an independent water source.

In 2016, thanks to funding provided by staff of the JosephJoseph company in collaboration with WaterBridge Outreach, SAVE Int’l installed a bore well and a hand pump in this hamlet. (Click here to learn about this project).

In the Fall of 2018, Save Int'l, with funding from WaterBridge Outreach, oversaw the overhaul of an old government installed bore well with non-functioning hand pump that was installed in Anna Nagar and has not worked for many years. The well required a deep cleaning to be reactivated and working with Save Int'l we hope to convert the well into a electric powered submersible pump with water holding tank. Curt Degler reports that "after cleaning it looks to be a good candidate with lots of clean water and there is functioning electric metered stanchion nearby with plenty of tested voltage to power the pump."