Day 22

By elissam

There was another meeting of the water board this afternoon. Elections for president, VP, secretary and treasurer were held. Our previous meetings had involved all of the same members, but no positions had been formalized. Today, there were more people from the town present to vote. We talked in more detail about the committee’s responsibilities.

We spent a while discussing in detail three options for the town. The first option involves only our group- we would start by refilling the Mari Pata system, and then start a several-year process to build the other two systems. The next option involves mostly the governmet, and does not include the Mari Pata system at all. The government would build just the two new filters with our supervision. Both parties are part of the third option in which we refill Mari Pata in January as a temproary filtered source and as a model for the next two filters, and then we work with the government to design the other filters. The government agreed that would fund the majority of the project if we were to collaborate, so the project will run much faster if the government is involved. The community agreed that it would be best to have government funding so that the project can be completed within a couple of years, and so that we can also direct our attention to other initiatives in the community. Most members now agree that it would be better to fill the Mari Pata system as a model for the other tanks.