Dog Walking in the "desert". The "pack" are ready for action.

Off we go. !

 Down to the river or up the Irrigation Line. ?

Past the birth point of the Irrigation Line looking at the Carob tree. I look forward to posting a picture of a carpet of green which happens after rain.

 This is looking very like a desert. !

 Not a lot of life out here. !

 Without rain more trees will die. !

 The dogs like this area, sometimes they find a wild boar in the mountains.

 Looking back and yes, they did find a wild boar. I was too busy endeavouring to stop "the hunt", as the boars are bigger than the dogs and can inflict some nasty injuries, even death. I missed a good picture. ! The boar ran down into the valley on the right.

 I am now on the plateau above the village. You can see that even the Esparto Grass is dying. It is very dry up here and almost all of the Thyme plants are dead - totally dried out.

Coming up to the house. The Palm tree is self seeded. I have been watering it and watching it grow for 16 years. !

 OK Back home. Chill out terrace.

 

Dry conditions - olive trees - Honsa family - Rosie and a couple of doggie pics. !

A view over what was, years ago, an irrigated terrace.

This is an example of a dying "dry land" olive tree. We have now started watering these trees. Last year we had 43 mm of rain in September. This year we have had 43 mm in the last 10  months in other words ten times less water than last year.

 Shoe harvest. ?

Fidel (Castro) as he has a five pointed star on his chest - looking good.

 Isa, Errol's dog, also looking good.

Rosie doing her laundry using the Sunseed bicycle washing machine.

Silvie, Heinik and Joshua in the "Honsa and Silvie" garden.

More tomorrow. !

Day 7 - A great success. We find lots of roots.

Here we are, Wednesday - 7 days since we started cleaning the Irrigation Line.
Setting up for more pipe cleaning.

There are two pipes down this hole. We push the rods down both of them in case of blockages.
  There is one pipe running from the two pipes. It also seems clean.

 And a fourth pipe in here. Errol moved some root material from the end of the pipe.

 We then walked up the line to see how much water was entering the system. Not much. !

This is a very nice bit of ecological restoration, restored by creating a small waterfall at the top end of the pool and cleaning the algae and dead bio mass from the pool.

Back down the line again and I still think the water is being held back somewhere. Look at all this root material I found at the exit of the 3rd pipe tunnel. !. !

This is an excellent water level at the "crystal tank".

You Tube movie - From Under Our Feet

This is our first documentary which we made about 18 months ago. 

 From Under Our Feet

It is 15 minutes long. It describes what is happening to our water from under our feet. !

Checking and re-setting the Ram Pump.

The Ram Pump was not pumping water so Joe and I go down to see why it is not pumping water. ! Joe is looking at a small piece of plastic that came down the pipe.

The compression chamber is off and the valve looks good. Joe has lifted the rubber to expose the holes which allow the water to flow into the cylinder thus compressing the air to send the water up the tube.

 This picture shows the rubber lying flat. The valve is in perfect condition.

This display measures the pressure in bar of the water going up the pipe. We are measuring 4 bar. Very good. !

This is a "shot" of the Ram Pump reservoir showing a good overflow.

This picture shows the mid stroke and the complete sealing of the valve. Good work Joe. Joe built the pump on the island of Jersey, off the coast of England.

Finally Joe set the delivery to 5 liters a minute.

Day 5 - Irrigation Line work - Low levels and finally success.

Day 5 Sunday Morning. 

This was the level at the crystal tank - really very low- the Ram Pump was working and not pumping water.

After 4 days of cleaning and optimising obviously we had missed something. No water for our watering point either.

This picture is showing the vegetation supported by the watering point.

Here we have a picture showing the feed pipe to the "coffin tank" running at half full.

The water level here seemed too high when taken in relativity to the rest of the line.

Under the water there are two pipes. One of those pipes was blocked with root material - about 20 kilos of material. !

On the other side of the two pipes we find this small area of open water. Below the water level is another pipe whose entrance was also covered in roots.

This is the actual flow that we are receiving from the tunnel in the mountain. This water is supplying the village through the Irrigation Line.

Here is Blondina with her right paw on the pipe which runs into the coffin tank. As you can see the pipe is now almost full.

Here is the measurement of water in the "crystal tank". With all the pipes and the ditch running at maximum flow there was a good 300 litres per minute running to the Ram Pump, even with this low level. 

This is good news. ! 

Irrigaton Line - Day 4 - September 17th

Day 4:

We started late today. We found the flow again very small with no water overflowing at the Ram Pump reservoir. Clearly a bad sign. The flow was low all the way up the line.

Here you can see the pipe entering "the coffin tank" flowing not much more than half full. !

This is what is left of the second Nacamiento Pool. 

In the last 24 hours the level had dropped. You can see this evidenced by the whiter damp clay line. This drop is reflected right down to the Ram Pump reservoir.

So, into the top tunnel.
 

So, here I am, inside and here is a big root. !
 

  Here is Errol, sitting beside the big root.

We will see tomorrow whether and by how much this root extraction has increased the flow.

Irrigation Line - Day 3 - Sept 16

Day 3.

 

The crystal tank had dropped to about 4 cm from the top. There was still enough water to overflow the reservoir and run the Ram Pump.

 

 

We finalized the work on the pipe under the mountain by once again pushing the rods through. We found no obstructions, so we have a clear line from the Ram Pump to the "crystal tank".

The next logical next step was to survey the line right up to the Nacamento looking for any anomalies. 

 

Unfortunately the levels was uniformly low all the way up and into the tunnels.

 

This picture is of the highest flowing water pool of El Rio and is waist deep at the top end with a small waterfall.

 We determined on Day 4 to venture into the tunnels.

 

 

 

 

 

Irrigaton Line work. Day 2 - September 15

Day 2: 

We decided to push the rods through the next 4 sections of pipe leading to the Ram Pump.

The first bad sign was that there was no water overflowing the  Ram Pump reservoir.

There was a blockage in the first section of pipe. We cleared it. Here are Joe and Errol working on the second section.

Here is Joe, deep in the ditch on the fourth section of pipe. We were able to clear a blockage in this pipe.

Finally there was a lot of carob blocking the entrance to the flow just a few meters above the Ram Pump. 

As a result of our work the flow was increased and there was an overflow at the Ram Pump reservoir, but not as much as we had hoped for.

We decided to tackle the blockage under the mountain on Day 3.

Work on the Irrigation Line in September 2016 Day 1. September 14th

Good morning all. 

Here we are at the "crystal tank". It is full to overflowing and there is very little water at the Ram Pump, so, time to clean the pipes. !

 

 

After cleaning the first two sections 

 this is a picture of Joe getting ready to get under the mountain to the next rodding point.

 Here we are - Dashinka in the lead - into the mountain. It is amazing to realize that this line was an open ditch 50 years ago. !

 OK A nice clear picture of the rodding point. 

There is water here as I did not glue the pipes together when fitting the rodding point. Glue is a really bad idea when we may always have to move or open pipe work. !

 Joe in action, pushing the cleaning rods through the pipe through the mountain.

Here is the hole at the other side of the mountain. We could not get the rods through and we did move a fair amount of mud.

 Day 2 on the next post.

High speed help needed in regards to information granted on subsidies

Hello All,

I am copying in an E mail from Nick Meynen, (EJOLT), in case any of you have contacts and can help at high speed. !  My  E mail is - david.dene@gmail.com

On 8 February 2016 at 10:16, Nick Meynen <nick.meynen@eeb.org> wrote:
Dear Rio de Aguas supporters

As David explained well, EJOLT supports this case through the atlas of environmental justice - but more recently the EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL BUREAU have offered support.

EEB is the largest federation of environmental organizations (NGOs) in Europe (we are based in Brussels) We are specialized in bringing environmental issues to EU policymakers’ attention – in name of the millions of members that we have.

My colleague working on Rural Development Programs asked all her colleagues for examples of badly spend money from pillar 2 of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy).

I said I might have something and showed her the conflict and she was interested BUT I need to know if there is EU subsidy involved and FROM WHERE THE MONEY COMES.

If I have assurance, proof about the olive trees being funded through the Rural Development Program, I could have ensured that this case was presented to EU policymakers in a report that gives very strong critique on the CAP. So if someone does find out which EU subsidy the olive planter gets: DO let me know and I’ll see if we can still add the information at this very late stage.

Kind regards

Nick Meynen

Nick Meynen
Project officer for Global Policies and Sustainability
European Environmental Bureau (EEB), BOULEVARD DE WATERLOO 34, 1000 BRUSSELS, BELGIUMTel: +32 (0) 2 790 88 15 | Mobile: +32 (0) 485 45 73 73
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