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rural vietnam achieves safe drinking water
Ted Loudon spent the month of April in Vietnam with an organization called MEDRIX. This is an NGO that has been working in the country since 1994 primarily training nurses who work in rural medical clinics. One of the major issues that had been identified as a problem was the lack of safe water in many rural clinics as well as rural homes and schools. The MEDRIX organization set about finding a simple, low cost, point-of use water treatment system that could be locally built and would be affordable in rural Vietnam. A concept using ultraviolet radiation from low cost lamps was identified. Dr. Loudon and Robert Catherman from Seattle took several of these 8 watt bulbs and the treatment concept to the Hue area in north central Vietnam and spent the month developing a unit that can be built there. They located a small metal fabricator who could build stainless steel housing for the units. They then designed a complete system that could be built from components available on the local market, built 5 units and deployed them in rural schools as a test of their performance and
acceptability.Testing has shown that the units are producing safe drinking water from shallow well water that is biologically contaminated. Rural teachers have learned to test the units using simple colorimetric tests and are thrilled to have the units available to produce safe water for their classes. The concept has been shown to professors in an environmental center at the University of Civil Engineering in Hanoi and they will be doing additional testing and development. UNICEF in Vietnam is very interested in the simple, affordable units and will be involved in continuing development and proliferation of the concept. The test units are capable of producing about 1 gallon of safe water per minute and were built for a total cost, including the imported lamp, of less than $35 each. It is anticipated that these units can be used throughout the developing world to help provide safe drinking water to many people who cannot turn on the tap and have safe water.
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