Engineers Without Borders – Sacramento Valley Professional Chapter

pan1useThe project team recently conducted a trip to Panama to gather data to allow analysis of design alternatives. A major objective was to locate and take measurements of potential, unused water sources. Drought may be responsible for the drop in performance of the existing system, which led community members to drill into pipe sections in an effort to extract water where they could from the system. Another major objective was to consult with the community. The team is currently in Panama and has been meeting with La Junta who are in charge of the water system and discovered they took the team’s advice from the last trip and replaced and realigned 750 m of pipeline and repaired almost all of the pinholes in the pipeline. In addition, they found 2 new springs and are in the process of trying to connect them to the existing system. The team met with a well company that inspected the decommissioned well and determined it is still in good condition and will proceed with the well capacity test and water quality tests. So far the trip is going very smoothly.

Read More About This Project