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Overview of Inaugural Project
Located at the intersection of Department Route 72 and Cadette road is DloCo's initial project site. The system will filter water at a rate of ~4 gallons per minute; 1,920 gallons during the 8 hours the kiosk is open each day.
PVDF filter manufacturers assert that a filter should operate for 5+ years with (1) proper maintenance and (2) minimizing the turbidity of the incoming water supply as much as possible. We suspect there will be 15 to 30 days per year where the turbidity of the source water, even after flowing through the turbidity reduction mechanisms, will not be adequately reduced to result in a filter lasting for 5 years. These ultra-high turbidity incidents do not ruin the filters but merely reduce their overall useful lifespan. The higher the turbidity of the source water, the faster the filters become impacted with sediment and thus will need to be cleaned out more often during the rainy seasons (May and October). The actual long-term performance of these PVDF filter units used in this application will only become known in practice. There are two things that make DloCo unique: (1) The use of medium scale PVDF UF filter technology, and (2) The implementation of a long-term management plan where local people are trained to operate the facility; It is DloCo's long-term management plan ("LTMP") that differentiates it from almost all other water non-profits in Haiti. DloCo has studied other Haitian water infrastructure projects and organizations and we have crafted a plan that avoids those projects' pitfalls while incorporating their successes. NOTE: the video to the left is of the original system design. Due to the complexity in maintaining a slow sand filter, DloCo pivoted to a more simple system design for it's inaugural project. i.e. PVDF fiber filters. |
The DloCo Water System
DloCo
The "Dlo" credit
It is not logistically feasible to conduct individual transactions for less than 10 gourde. Many people will buy 4 gallons of water per day. At 3 Gourd per gallon, this totals 12 gourd per day. But because the smallest paper gourde denomination is 10, this creates a daily transactional issue.
To resolve this issue, DloCo will issue "Dlo" credits denominated in gallons. 1 Dlo = 1 gallon of filtered water. Dlo are physical notes like money. For example, if a person has a 50 gourde note, they can purchase 17 Dlo at the DloCo kiosk. i.e. 50 gourde divided by 3 gourde per gallon equals 16.6--which DloCo will round up to 17. The person in this example can now buy water by the gallon and have no transactional friction due to the purchase being less than the smallest denomination of commonly traded paper money. |
Long-Term Management
Most water projects in Haiti fail to have long-term results because they lack long-term maintenance and management plans.
When something breaks, none of the people using the system know how to fix it. And if they do know how to fix it, they lack the money to buy the replacement parts or materials. In order for DloCo to employ two full time workers and pay each worker 500 Gourde per day (about $3.00) requires selling 500 gallons per day at 3 Gourde per gallon. The "extra" 500 gourd per day will be placed in savings for material maintenance and upkeep. |
Clean Drinking Water
Why and how would people will pay for filtered water in Chambellan?
DloCo's target market consists of people who currently purchase charcoal to boil water for drinking and hygiene purposes. |