Program Background

The residents of the Barangay of Apatut suffer from numerous illnesses generally associated with poor drinking water quality. Most residents currently obtain water directly from shallow wells within the village; the surficial aquifer is believed to be impacted by fecal matter. To protect themselves, residents must boil the local water before drinking it or buy bottled water. Households with babies and small children are at particularly high risk for disease.

Former residents of Apatut have teamed up with Rotary clubs in the area to initiate the project, deemed “Water for Life.” These project movers have assisted Apatut in forming a water cooperative to oversee construction and maintenance of the water system, as well as the activities leading up to its construction. The resolution to form the Water Cooperative, as well as Water Cooperative members and Barangay Council members, is listed in Appendix B. Through meetings with the community and water cooperative leadership, EWB-PHILLY has refined the project scope to better fit the community’s needs. The team was originally under the impression that Apatut desired a few centrally-located faucets from which residents could draw water. Instead, the community’s eventual goal is to have clean, running water in every home. To address the expanded scope, the team has proposed a 2-phase implementation of the system. Phase 1 will provide the community with water at the originally planned central faucets, and Phase 2 will bring the water into the homes. The community has accepted this plan and expressed much gratitude towards EWB for continuing the project despite the expanded scope and alternative water source.

The potential design includes:

• New deep well at the water source
• Storage tank sized for one day’s worth of water
• Submersible electric pump that will pump groundwater from the well to the storage tank
• A sloped distribution pipeline down to the community
• Water treatment (if necessary)
• Distribution piping to the school first, then to the rest of the community

Description of Community

The entrance to the Barangay of Apatut is off of the National Highway south of the central part of the city of Balaoan, which is made up of 35 different barangays. The barangays close to the center of the city are supported by the city’s infrastructure, which includes water and sewer. Apatut, although part of Balaoan, is an outlying farming community with utility service limited to electric and cell phone service. Access through Apatut is on a 3 meter (m) wide concrete road from 0.2 m to 0.3 m thick. This road extends to 95% of the houses in the community with the remainder of the houses served by common stone driveways. 0.6 m wide concrete sidewalks snake their way between the houses and connect the houses to each other along the edges of the fields.

The community is broken up into 7 sectors, each represented by an individual called a Kagawad - a political position similar to a U.S. city counsel member.

Apatut is governed by a Barangay Council consisting of elected officials, including the sector Kagawads, and headed by the Barangay Captain. The Rotary Club has assisted the community in forming a water cooperative separate from the Council. The cooperative is registered with the national government in accordance with Philippine law. One requirement for membership in the cooperative is that members may not be on the Barangay Council. Thus, the missions of the two bodies do not become compromised. Both organizations have been very active in the project so far and are expected to continue as such.

Housing in the community is varied. Houses in the first two sectors situated between the National Highway and the elementary school are larger masonry structures with perimeter walls and electric jet pumps for their wells connected to pressure tanks that provide indoor plumbing. Deeper into the community, the quality of housing declines, and most of the houses are built from concrete blocks with outdoor latrines and either a dedicated manual well pump or a common well pump used by several families. In the worst cases, 12 families use the same well for their water. Sector 4 is the hardest hit with families having to pump water from up to 100 meters away to fill up water drums on their properties. The housing in the outlying sectors is sometimes a concrete slab with bamboo siding and a thatch roof. Many of the wells in all of the sectors are located in very close proximity to the sanitation facilities that most often consist of a concrete block septic tank. Some latrines only have a plastic or metal drum buried underneath them or, in the worst cases, a hole that is dug adjacent to the latrine.

The description of the community by the in-country contacts was accurate with respect to the demographics, mostly Catholic farmers and unskilled laborers, and the overall sense of community, which is very high.

As most of the community is accessible via the Barangay Road, the team anticipates material transportation and delivery to be fairly straightforward. Both the central areas of Balaoan and the nearby city of San Fernando are more urban than Apatut, and the team expects to acquire most, if not all, of the construction supplies and materials there.

Project Location
Longitude: 120 deg 25'45.77"E
Latitude: 16 deg 47'31.5"N

Project Impact
Number of Persons directly affected: 164 households, or 742 people, and children attending the school
Number of Persons indirectly affected: nearby communities