Water: a most precious commodity

One can live without food for a month, without water for a few days and without air for a few minutes.

After clean air, potable water is the most important commodity on earth and in these days when waterways are polluted everywhere, we, at Uchima, are truly blessed !

Below is a photo of yours truly having a first sip from our new spring water system. Absolutely delicious !

The water that I am tasting on the photo comes from a water catchment which we have built using only rocks and clay to guarantee absolute no compromise zero contamination.

Below, we see Manuel working on the catchment.

Here is the catchment finished and all covered with a quality shade cloth

One visitor recently commented: "this is the best tasting water I have have ever had".

Location of the water sources

We have 4 sources of potable water:

• Rio Uchima
• Springs
• Projecto a Toronche
• Rain

The Uchima river is a powerful river with crystal clear water (and trouts) flowing directly from the Podocarpus National park. It is easy to tap into, in particular for the water-front quintas (Q1, Q2, Q17, Q15 and Q14).

For mountain quintas, the river water can be pumped into a storage tank and then gravity supplied from there.

In addition to the river, we have 3 springs which flow throughout the year without interruption. However we must say that due to a very dry 2010 summer, itself following a very dry 2010 winter, 2 of the 3 springs dried out this year. the river water was still abundant throughout the summer so this is not really a problem, more of an inconvenience as more water has to be pumped.

The 2 springs on the western side of the road (of which one is indicated on the photo below) are located at an altitude of 1830m and 1850m respectively. This allows to gravity feed quintas Q8 and below. The water from these springs is pure, light and absolutely delicious.

The Uchima spring (photo taken during rainy season)

The spring on the eastern side of the property is even higher being located at an altitude of1970m. This will allow the gravity feeding of quinta 5 and quinta 16. 

Q4 has its own water supply from the Toronche community project.

Quintas Q6, 7, 10 and 11 are located higher than the springs and for these quintas we have several options which are currently being assessed:

• pump the river and/or spring water into one or more storage tank located near the southern boundary line
• use another supply located higher. There is much water available above the property. It is just a matter of building the infrastructure to collect it.
  

In addition to river and spring, rain water can and should be collected particularly in the rainy season. It is a requirement in our homeowner association by-laws for each individual quinta to have their own storage tank (in addition to our tanks) and to set up the necessary infrastructure to collect rain water. This way, in the event of water outages (for maintenance or due to extreme weather conditions) water is still available. We endeavour to provide the best water to all quintas but cannot be held responsible for outages. Rain water is also an excellent supplementary source of water for gardening and irrigation. Our water only caters for normal domestic use.

All in all, we must reiterate that water on the Cutanpamba property is abundant and of extremely high quality. Considering that water outages on the public system in Vilcabamba are extremely frequent in the winter, we don't envisage any serious restrictions.

Storage

A large water tank(approx 100,000 liters or 22,000 gallons) is now completed

We use the same ecological approach as with the water catchments, using only clay and rocks (with a tiny amount of cement to prevent the clay from cracking and falling off the sides of the reservoir)

This reservoir shown below collects water from 2 springs. At the driest time of the summer we plan to complement the spring water with river water pumped from our river catchment (click on River tab for more details) and/or water from another source higher in the mountain.

The next task was to cover the reservoir so that no animals or debris can contaminate the water and to protect the water from sunlight. We have created a roof with bamboo and top quality shade cloth and at the time of this writing (Novembre 2010) the work is complete.

The advantage of using shade cloth is that it lets the rainwater through. Therefore with no additional complexity, we get protection from sun, leaves and insects as well as an efficient and clean rainwater catchment.

View from the inside of the reservoir

Uchima River catchment

We have buried a small tank below the Uchima river phreatic line in a pristine location well upstream of any human interference. The tank has holes at its bottom to let the water in and the water is collected near the top of the tank with a 2" pipe.

The site is shown on the photo below:

This simple and inexpensive system works wonderfully and has the following advantages:

• the water is naturally filtered through rocks and sand before reaching the holes at the bottom of the tank
  
• in case of bad weather, when the water turns brown and carries leaves, branches and sediments, our water remains clear
• the level of the river water has no impact on our ability to collect water

The tank is closed with a strong lid. When the level of the water rises, the dirty water and sediments flow on top of the tank.

From the catchment tank, 500m approx of 2" pipe conveys the water down to the boundary of Uchima on the eastern side of Q14 and then another 300 m approx. along the riverfront quintas Q14 and Q17, then through Q15 and finally to a small storage tank located on Q15 along the road to Q17 at an elevation slightly lower than the catchment (red circle on the map shown below). The system is in essence an 800m long siphon conveying water  from one tank inside the river to another tank.

We have measured about 1 liter per second of water reaching the tank on Q15. That is equivalent to 86,000 liters per day.

From the tank on Q15, the water will be distributed in the following way:

• 1/2" lines will gravity feed Q14 and Q17 to the east
• a high pressure pump will convey the water to the large reservoir located along Q12
• the overflow of the tank on Q15 is conveyed through a 2 " pipe along the main road to gravity feed Q1 and Q2
• whatever water is left in the pipe that reaches the bottom of the road feeds the cascade by the entrance gate of the property

Depending on the season which will dictate how much water is available from rain and from the springs, the pump will have to run a certain amount of time each day (we don't expect this time to be more than a few hours). The high pressure pump spec is 52 liters per minutes which is pretty much the total amount of available water from the river catchment. During this time, little to no water at all will be available to the distribution points other than the reservoir. This is not a problem as it is part of our conditions that each quinta must have its own water storage tank to cover its own water usage for a period of a few days. A minimum capacity would be 1,000 liter but bigger is better.