Summary
Urban community project to manage and conserve water resources and repair and enhance sewage system
Background
The Laughing Waters community is one of the oldest planned/gated communities in Whitefield, Bangalore. However, for most of the last 20 years the plots remained mostly vacant. Recently many homes have been built (including 3 apt buildings) and there has been much stress on the original water and sewage systems.
The current water tower has a capacity of 300,000 liters approximately. It is filled up every other day and the residents get water for a couple of hours. Each home has put in tanks that fill up and thus supply water inside the home. There is quite a bit of leakage, however, it is hard to measure.
The plan called for 4 sewage treatment plants (STP) and one was constructed. Due to being volunteer run, the association was unable to continue the original project to completion. The costs for completing the other 3 have gone up and the residents are raising funds.
Originally there was one borewell and a second one was installed a greater depth. The first one is showing signs of drying up and there is a plan to put in a 3rd.
There is 2 acres of common area which are watered with borewell water. The residents are hoping to use grey water to water all the common areas and thus save precious ground water.
In addition, consumption needs to be measured and then maybe a plan to have a pay-for-use system.
Location
Karnataka, South India, IndiaAttachments
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ADEPT-LW...
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ecolife2...
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LW_Water...
Focus
Primary Focus: Water - Community
Secondary Focus: Sanitation - Community
People Getting Safe Drinking Water: 400
About 60 families currently live in this community and due to a high volume of construction of new homes, there are over a 100 laborers. There are 20+ homes under construction and there are 320 plots. Capacity is planned for 345 households (1500 people)
School Children Getting Water: 0
People Getting Sanitation: 400
People Getting Other Benefits: 400
Plan is to measure and reduce water consumption and to reuse grey water and recharge ground water too.
Start Date: 2008-08-01
Completion Date: 2009-07-01
Technology Used:
The Decentralized Treatment Systems (DTS) design for the entire STP project is attached.
DTS applications are based on the principles of making maximum use of natural gifts like gravity,
microbiological activity or temperature. This result in a system which can work without technical
energy input (in fact it’s producing energy in form of methane/biogas) and needs only minimal
maintenance. DTS application provides state of the art technology at affordable prices because
material/inputs used for construction are locally available.
The water system enhancements include:
1. Grey water recovery: piping the grey water from the completed STP-1 back to the common area, putting a storage tank and then using the water for irrigation.
2. Fixing leaks: replacing old pipes with new galvanized iron (GI) pipes (or PVC pipes) or a thinner diameter.
3. Additional borewell and designing the piping an storage.
Phases:
This project is divided into many projects and phases:
1. STP project: 3 STPs need to built in a parallel phased plan
2. Grey water recovery - independent
3. Leak fixing - independent
4. Metering - independent
Community Organization:
The community is in complete agreement on the sewage issue. There are many people concerned about water usage and conservation and all are concerned about quantity and quality of water and provision of handling sewage.
Government Interaction:
Ancillary activities:
Tree planting is related to greening the community and recharging the groundwater. The children of LW have formed a group - EcoLife and have started planting trees along the roads and plan to plant trees in the vacant lots.
Other Issues:
A committee was formed to raise the funds. Another committee has been formed to oversee the project.
The idea is to also share with the global community everything about this project: from the design to the selection of contractors, ... This community is happy to share its learnings and to learn from others too.
Maintenance Revenue:
This costs need to be determined. There is some budget already in place from the monthly dues of the residents.
Maintenance Cost:
Metrics:
Prior art before metrics
Cost: $100,000
The original estimate was for 60,000 but prices have really shot up in the past year. 3 contractors have been asked to submit bids and it is estimated to be around $100k
Co Funding Amount:
Community Contribution Amount: $120,000
Laughing Waters Owners and Residents Association (LWORA)
Fund Requested: $1
Implementing Organization: LWORA
This project will be managed by a group of volunteers (sub-committee) from the community.
Here is the LW website.
Attachments
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ADEPT-LW...
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ecolife2...
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LW_Water...