On our last day of the Sustainable Engineering internship with Global Brigades, my colleague Max Hartmann and I made a visit to the town of Palo Verde, a small town in rural Honduras. Our job: follow-up on the community’s water system and water council.
Some time ago, Global Brigades began to work with the Palo Verde community due to their need for accessible water, medical care and other projects offered by Global Brigades. People living there did not have a water system running to their homes, and thus, would walk as far as three hours to fetch water for drinking and washing clothes.
Global Brigades wanted to change this. But before they jumped into designing and building the project, they had completed the community’s needs assessment and surveyed families for profiling. The results clearly showed that the community could use a water system, i.e., running water in every household. Why? Water would benefit their health, hygiene and overall quality of life. The community agreed to work with Global Brigades and offered their labor as payment for the water project, i.e., materials needed to build the water system.
It took about one year and several Water Brigades to complete the water system in Palo Verde, the average amount of time it takes to complete a GB water project. The community was overjoyed and proud of their new development. However, the inauguration of the water system was just the beginning.
Palo Verde’s president of the water council shows Global Brigades water engineering staff (left: Armando Osorto, middle: Marco Landa Ruiz) the conditions of their new dam and water system. Photo by Aiste Manfredini
Global Brigades brought other disciplines into the community, like Public Health, Medical, Architecture and Water Brigades. So with time, Palo Verde was functioning as a holistic community and the quality of life was getting better.
But unfortunately, nothing comes for free. The community had agreed to pay a monthly water maintenance fee (cheaper than a three liter bottle of Coca-Cola) to the community’s water council for maintenance costs, e.g., chlorination and pipeline repairs. This mutual agreement went well since many families saw the benefits of having running water in their homes. But what happens when people stop paying… or caring?
Observations
Once we had arrived to Palo Verde, our internship coordinators informed us that the community is identified as holistic. According to Global Brigades, a community can only be considered holistic if it meets the standards of the holistic model. I was glad to hear this as I have never been to a community where Global Brigades’ work was complete.
As soon as we jumped out of our GB van, all I could see were fields of coffee plants (a dream come true) and a vast, mountainous terrain; the view was truly breathtaking. But we couldn’t wander around for too long, we had to get back to work.
Coffee fields of Palo Verde, a rural community in Honduras. Photo by Aiste Manfredini
The water engineering coordinators grabbed their DIY water test kit and lead the way up the mountain to the community’s water dam. The president of the water council had also joined us on the hike for water system evaluation purposes.
When we arrived to the location of the dam, I was so impressed by how well the community has taken care of it. The dam’s filter was clean and the pipelines functioning (most people living in this community have not attended school past the sixth grade). According to the president of the water council, the community had fixed several pipelines where maintenance was needed. Overall, Global Brigades did a good job educating the community on the water system, like what to do in case of a pipeline malfunction.
After taking several different water samples from the dam (e.g., testing levels of E. coli, chlorine, hardness, nitrate, pH, and pesticides), we learned that the community’s water is potable but not chlorinated to the level that it should be.
The GB water engineering coordinators asked the president of the water council why that was. His reason: lack of funds. But how is that possible if the community is paying their monthly water fee? How can the council’s funds be insufficient?
Well, the answer isn’t quite that simple.
Many Hondurans don’t like the taste of chlorinated water; they’re not used to it. And we can’t just assume that the community is careless, lazy or unmotivated to pay their water fee. That assumption would be ignorant and misleading. Instead, we have to consider other factors that may be causing the issue, like affordability, education, and leadership.
To better understand the issue, we asked a family in the community if we could come on their property to test their water from the tap. We decided not to test the community’s water from the tank (the normal procedure) since it hasn’t been treated with chlorine for over one month. But we wanted to check if there would be traces of chlorine left in a household’s pipelines.
A mother gladly invited our team into her home and offered each one of us a cup of sweet Honduran coffee. We sat down on her patio, gazed at the panoramic view and got a little distracted prior to lunch. The GB staff and I began to discuss Honduran politics, immigration, violence and drugs in San Pedro Sula, correctional facilities, and Honduran culture. After lunch, we got back on track and discussed Palo Verde’s water issue.
The president of the water council looked in his late 60s, with dark brown creases that formed around his eyes whenever he smiled. He has been in charge of the council ever since the water system inauguration about a year ago and has lived in the community for a great period of time–if not his entire life.
He told us that 90 percent of the community is not paying the monthly water fee and that each household is accumulating more and more debt as each month goes by. Concerned, we asked why. He replied (in Spanish) to the GB coordinators and said that the there is no money and that the community refuses to pay for a source that they can fetch for free.
Next, we asked the mother of the household for her opinion on the situation.
“I’m caught up with all of my water payments, but I don’t know, people just don’t care,” she said. “They just don’t care…”
Her feedback was helpful but made the situation seem even more frustrating. I can image it made the water engineering coordinators’ blood boil. They have put so much effort and time into this community, pursuing the holistic model and building a water system from scratch. I could sympathize with their frustration. But who can really blame them?
According to the president of the water council and the housewife, Coca-Cola is a major factor. It’s consumed by many Hondurans today, and has become more accessible now than ever before. Even people living in rural areas can afford to buy a three-liter bottle for 40 Lempiras, or $2, up to five times per month! On the other hand, water is cheaper, healthier and even more accessible if they have a water system in their community. So why not choose water?
Well, because the popularity and consumption of Coca-Cola isn’t necessarily the problem. It’s a combination of pop culture and the lack of leadership in the community’s water council.
The water council has failed to put their foot down and take full responsibility of their water debt issue. A neighboring community, Buena Vista, who has also worked with Global Brigades, is showing major progress with their water system. The water council, there, is ambitious and enthusiastic with big plans for the future. They are keen to learn and improve their community’s water system.
So why is Buena Vista doing so well if Palo Verde is just around the corner but failing to do the same?
There are a couple of reasons:
Palo Verde is a smaller community and people aren’t used to the new payment system. Looking from their point of view, paying for water (when they were never required to do prior to the water system) sounds absolutely bizarre. This means additional money will be taken away from their already insufficient incomes. Who wants to drink a glass of water after a long, hot day working in a coffee plantation if Coca-Cola is readily available? Sure, it’s going to increase their debt and suppress their health, but that’s just a common habit of human behavior: we do things that hurt us because we can.
Another major reason for the community’s water debt is that people are following the behavior of their neighbors. For example, if you know your neighbors pay a monthly water fee to the water council, you’ll probably do the same, in fear that you’ll get bad-mouthed or disliked by the community. But if little by little you hear that your neighbors aren’t paying, why should you have to? You’d probably take advantage of the situation and wait until the water council takes notice or action. That is the case of the people living in Palo Verde.
A possible solution
On my flight back home from Honduras, I was reading a briefing on TIME about California’s current water crisis, which reminded me of the water issue in Palo Verde. A survey released this past July showed that the state used 1 percent more water in May than the previous three-year average for the same month. This happened after California’s Governor Jerry Brown asked residents to cut their water consumption by 20 percent due to the drought emergency in January.
Should officials fine people who abuse water, a public good, or will that force the resource to become a commodity?
There is currently a statewide emergency water-use restriction in California since the drought began. But according to author Kate Pickert, “The curbs on lawn watering and other outdoor uses carry fines of up to $500 per day for each violation, but officials acknowledge that the fines’ real value is less enforcement than awareness.”
Whether the issue is in California or Honduras, people will be people.
Both examples vary but are also quite similar, they prove that people must have a desire to take action, and officials must show strong leadership skills to keep the community on its feet. Education, commitment, and strong leadership skills must be present in a community to prevent the downward spiral to water deficiency. There needs to be a bigger push to change habits, otherwise restrictions will continue for the sake of people’s health and overall quality of life.