CAMDOC

Clean Water Well Project

Ever since CAMDOC is active in the Roeul Commune wells have been drilled to supply clean water to the very poor.

The wells are in between 10 and 20 m deep, the installation consists of a simple PVC tubing with no-return valve and a suction group from thinner tubing with rubber piston. The suction part is hand driven. Although the construction is rather flexible, it is pretty stable, easy to repair and cheap. Average costs for drilling and installation, including hardware are about $70, depending on the necessary depth. It includes the materials (concrete and bricks) to build a kind of basin underneath, for washing and bathing purpuses, and to keep the immediate surrounding of the well clean. Building the basin is, when not impossible, done by the new owners, themselves.

So far, since its start-up in 2009, CAMDOC installed 45 new wells. The project is financed from direct private donations, mainly through Cambodia Child Aid in Germany. This organization also spended CAMDOC its own drilling equipment, that is used and maintained by a fix CAMDOC crew. It is carried on a Tuk-Tuk trailer tawn by a motor bike.

Since March 2010, all CAMDOC wells, and all school wells, have been checked on contamination with E.coli. All school wells were clean, 25% of the older private wells were found contaminated. Here extra measures are taken, either in the form of re-drilling a new nearby well, or easier, instruct the users how to clean their water for consumption, e.g by a 6 hr exposion to sun light in PET bottles or by cooking. In the current situation the use of ceramic filters is still too complex and expensive.

Inspections are made to avoid possible contamination as much as possible, by choosing the right place, it should not be flooded in the rainy season. New owners are instructed not to allow their animals in the wells neighborhood, and not to touch the mouth piece of the well with their (unwashed) hands.

Meanwhile, other pump concepts (UNICEF) are investigated on their price/performance ratio. They are more compact and more solid, also more expensive. Measurments on local ground water levels will be carried out to get a better view on suited places, carrying in mind that the dry season causes some wells to become inproductive, and the monsoon season is extremely wet, causing flooding from time to time. Last but not least, the concept of wells for distributed water systems for smaller living compounds, with a solar pump and elevated water containers, is subject of new experiments, starting at the CAMDOC Training Center.