Today a notice on News Boquete warned about drinking untreated water due to fecal contamination and incidents of amoeba and giardia infections. This week our water came out of our taps blackish-brown. Then it went off entirely. The outage is into its second day. This is the second long outage this month. The last one was 3 days. This is not Santa Lucia or Jaramillo where water outages are common. This is a neighborhood in Volcancito that has always had a dependable water supply. This is a new problem.
The proposed water treatment system will not benefit Alto Boquete (which includes Volcancito). Who can we talk to about the water? Brown fecal water is not acceptable. Days without water is also not acceptable. Yes, I do have storage tanks, but some of my neighbors don't. We also had two days this month with 10 hour power outages. Come to Boquete and live like a barnyard animal.
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PANAMA love it or leave it. Anyway I have been a director of a mineral water plant in Spain. Good filters and UV will solve the problem. However UV will also destroy the natural minerals in the water. If you want the best system it will be basic pre filters and then a final Milipore filter of 0.6 micron with pressure pump. No bacterials and the original minerals will be saved.
0.6 micron will not stop most bacteria. You need a 0.22 micron filter. It is highly unlikely you would be able to get such a filter here. And that filter wouldn't stop viruses. I think the only sure way of purifying water is to boil it.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12798998
Bacteria growing on MF-Millipore filters (thickness, 150 micro m) passed through the underlying membrane by their infiltration activity. Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Escherichia coli passed through a 0.45- micro m pore size filter within 48-96 h. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Serratia marcescens, and Listeria monocytogenes passed through a 0.3- micro m pore size filter. P. aeruginosa passed through a 0.22- micro m pore size filter. The membranes which allowed passing-through of bacteria showed normal bubble point values in the integrity test.
You are right I made a mistake. It is 0.22 micron.
Excellent info, thank you!
In my rental house in Santa Lucia I have 4 filters as well as UV. Every 7-10 days I have to clean the filters. Basically these filters get quickly clogged with black mud. Best and simple way. Install the smallest plunge pool silicon sand filter with a pressure pump, it can be backwashed, easy and fast. The silicon sand will last for years. After that 2 two normal filters
leading the water to the storage tank. from the tank a pressure pump to the Millipore filter.
All not cheap but easy to service.
Yes, and also parasites and viruses.
As far as I'm aware: The drinking water supply system of the district of Boquete is carried out through three rural aqueducts, which are: Los Ladrillos, Valle Escondido, and Alto Quiel. This system covers the districts of Los Naranjos, Alto Boquete and Bajo Boquete. It is this area that the water project is focusing on.
The rest of the water supply systems in the Boquete territory are administered by JAARs (Juntas Administradoras de Acueductos Rurales) with six aqueducts in Jaramillo, two in Los Naranjos, two in Palmira and one in Caldera.
So, is Volcancito considered part of Alto Boquete? I hope so. This shit-water ain't gonna cut it.
Volcancito and El Salto distribution was always part of the project and Santa Lucia has been appended.
https://boquete.ning.com/forum/topics/government-seeking-proposals-f...
https://boquete.ning.com/forum/topics/santa-lucia-will-be-connected-...
Thanks. It's going to be quite a project. I hope it brings improvement.
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