What YOU can do to Help

So what can you do to help? Currently we are in the process of raising funds for our trip to Dajarra and also to buy the equipment pieces for the desalination unit. We are planning on going to Dajarra at the end of May. There, we will install our first desal unit, followed by some interaction with the community. We want to really help and make a difference there. Larger goals include helping with economic development in the commuity as well as teaching locals entrepreneurial skills so that they may be able to start their own businesses and success stories. Our website is currently under development. However, any donations you may have you can contact our project leader, Nate Myers about how to get them to us. His email is ngmyers@ncsu.edu. We are currently in need of $5000 - this will cover the costs of the desal unit as well as fund our trip to Dajarra. Thank you.

The Desalination Process

We plan to purify the groundwater in Dajarra by utilizing basic desalination system. We plan on using solar power as well as hydrophobic membranes in order to separate the pure water from the brackish, salty water. The process we will use is a direct contact hydrophobic membrane desalination system. The most important part of the design are the hydrophobic membranes – they are the filter that separates the pure water from the salt concentrate. A partial pressure difference serves as the driving force that allows water vapour to filter through the pourous holes in the membrane and separate from the salt concentrate. This pressure difference can be generated by heating the water to approximately 60-80°C.

The basic units for the desalination unit include a solar thermal collector/solar hot water heater and the membranes themselves. The solar thermal collector, powered by the sun, will heat the groundwater as it passes through the collector. The water will then pass over the membrane, where the water vapour will filter through and condense on the other side – forming pure, clean water. The salt concentrate – known as brine – has several commercial applications – the simplest of which includes serving as a preservative for certain foods and meats. The direct contact membrane desalination process is a simple process as it has low technical maintenance and compared to other desalination techniques, is very inexpensive.

Current Water Issues in the World

Water is the most abundant substance in the human body, making up to 60% of an adult’s weight and up to 80% of infant’s weight. A person can live several days without food, but just a few days without water. Like air, water is essential to life. Because water is so much important to life, health and nutrition experts recommended drinking at least two liters of water a day.

Although, the water means so much to human life, there are still problems of inadequate access to safe drinking water for about 884 million people. Moreover, there are about 2.5 billion people inadequately access to sanitation and waste disposal (UNICEF 2008).

Apart from the worldwide water scarcity problem, water pollution becomes a major problem in global context. Many developing countries facing with the disposal wastes from industrial and household contaminating their sources of consumption water.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent even though some areas have annual rainfall of over 1200 millimeters. The climate is highly various across the country and drought becomes the major problem thorough the continent. Since 2000s, Most Australia capital cities are facing a major water crisis with less than 50% of water storages remaining in reservoirs. Drought conditions often provide too little water to support food crops, through either natural precipitation or irrigation using reserve water supplies. The same problem affects grass and grain used to feed livestock and poultry. When drought undermines or destroys food sources, people go hungry. When the drought is severe and continues over a long period, famine may occur. Also, Drought often creates a lack of clean water for drinking, public sanitation and personal hygiene, which can lead to a wide range of life-threatening diseases.

Dajarra, a town in the far north-west of outback Queensland, near the border with the Northern Territory, is the target of the project which has been suffered from drought and contaminated drinking water. As they rely on rain water and store it in tanks unfortunately, the water is too salty and it corrodes everything. Therefore, the idea of installing desalination device to turn the salty water to drinkable water for the community was created.

sources:

http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Joint_Monitoring_Report_-_17_July_2008.pdf

WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (2008), Progress in Drinking-water and Sanitation: special focus on sanitation. (MDG Assessment Report 2008)

PROJECTS: DAJARRA

A small and remote area

Dajarra is a small, remote town located 150 kilometres south of Mt Isa (North-west Queensland) with high proportion of Aboriginal inhabitants. This town was established in 1917 as a railhead to the Great Western Railway. In 2006, Dajarra’s total residents are 178 (151 of them are Aboriginal).

A place with rich culture

The town also has a rich aboriginal heritage and is home to aboriginal tribes from around the Diamantina River, the Gulf and the Northern Territory.

The old culture is upheld here. The aboriginal language is taught at the school by a couple of elders and one local elder shows the children how to make boomerangs, what wood to use and what timber is best for didgeridoos. They still know where to find the bush foods and the 'bush lollies' on the gidyea trees after rain, berries, wild oranges at Christmas and wild bananas on the road to Mount Isa.

A town with SERIOUS water problems

· Approximately 40% of Aboriginal housing in Dajarra has no supply of potable water because of the contamination of rainwater tanks by the roof-mounted evaporative airconditioners.

· A drought through the years 2007 and 2008 reduced the supply of drinking water from rainwater tanks, resulting in the use of a tanker truck to cart water from a variety of locations around Dajarra

· The hard, saline bore water reticulated to the town fails to meet the standards of the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. Dajarra residents rely on alternative sources for their potable supply.

· Domestic collection of rainwater is the preferred source of water for drinking although in Dajarra only 60% of Aboriginal households had functional tanks in 2009.

Water-related issues to Dajarra

· The quality of the town water supply undermined the economic, social and environmental sustainability, and health of the people residing in the town of Dajarra.

· Lots of people buy their water or get water about 35 kilometres away. Some Dajarra's residents must buy bottled water for drinking.

· Residents have claimed that drinking the town water has caused diarrhoea. Residents have avoided drinking the water because of its taste, but also because of the potential effect on health. Children visited the health clinic to request drinking water.

· The cost of bottled water and soft drinks adds to grocery bills and reduces potential expenditure on food.

· The use of the bore water adversely affects infrastructure system such as the maintenance and longevity of housing and household items, and energy consumption in Dajarra.

Sources:

http://dropbox.eait.uq.edu.au/uqlshepp/DK_Tim_Water/

About Project Pyour Wartar

So if you are reading the name of our organization, you will probably figure out that it sounds a lot like "pure water" - and if you came to this conclusion after looking it over a couple of times, then you are correct in the pronounciation. Project Pyour Wartar is a new non-for-profit business venture that is getting ready to hit the ground running hard. We are based in Australia - more specifically the University of Queensland in Brisbane. So what are we about?

The MISSION of Project Pyour Wartar is to provide pure, clean water to a remote community which does not have attainable access to pure water. This will be done utilizing a small-scale, cheap solar powered desalination unit designed for household level. The larger goal and vision will be to provide a method and simple way for communities and villages on a global scale to have access to pure clean water.

This mission statement involves two direct actions in achieving the goal. First and foremost - providing a service to a community in need. The second - designing and developing a simple and cheap desalination unit that will purify brackish water. We have identified a community in need and have begun establishing contact and a relationship with that community. Our first project - DAJARRA (more about that in the next post) - will serve as our first and trial run of our project. In short, Dajarra is a small indigenous community in northwest Queensland, Australia. The groundwater contains too much salt and other minerals - basically it is undrinkable. The only source of drinking water is rainwater. We plan on being able to provide another source of drinking water for Dajarra.