Mark Johnson: Haiti, municipal water systems and rainwater collection

Mr. Mark Johnson was kind enough to join our class to discuss his work in Haiti after the terrible earthquake where he was able to assist in providing the people with basic necessities like homes, drinking water, and try to restore any sort of normality to their lives. The earthquake which took place in January of  2010 was not the strongest but to due overcrowding and lack of any type of reasonable building code structure after structure failed as the earth began to shake and these structures came down on unsuspecting Haitians injuring countless and killing so many that bodies couldn’t be counted only estimated by the truck load. A true human tradgedy but a chance for other to try and help show their humanity and to try by any means to get these people back on their feet.

The Haiti earthquake of 2010 only measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, and occurred along the Enrique-plantain garden fault, off the island of Hispaniola. The island was colonized for the growth of sugar cane by the Spanish in the 1700’s and was a major port in the slave trade up until it being made illegal in the 1820’s. The country is really deprived of natural resources which causes it to be the poorest on earth. As a result a earthquake of this magnitude in a country with such limited resources, poor disaster planning, and poor structural standards caused chaos. Days after the earthquake countries from around the world were trying to fly in assistance in any way possible, but due to poor logistics and major damaged to the airport it was almost impossible. Thankfully German engineering were able to repair the airfield and help began flooding from U.N. , US, and various countries.

The major issue was removing collapsed buildings, many of which still had bodies of the deceased inside the logistics of this were gigantic, hiring workers, moving debris, and removing bodies in a sanitary and respectful way. The large population of Haiti provide the workers many of whom were more than happy to help serve their country at its darkest hour. Bodies were first buried one by one it graves and numbers were recorded but when it became evident that the number who had deceased the grueling decision to bury people in mass graves was made. Debris was moved by large equipment and moved out of the towns and cities at a very slow pace because of its volume. It was a slow painful time.

The first major issues to arrive for the engineering was providing water and homes to the people who were currently deprived of both. The major issue with providing clean water to the population and restoring the flow was that the previous water system had thousands of taps off of it which where illegal and unrecorded in public records. This was due to a practice of dividing up a piece of land and subletting them to multiple familys. So basically they were building a new water system for a city which was already in place, and currently in ruins. As for home the solution can from another source, thousands of quick build homes where brought in and built under strict regulation, however they were very small and were suppose to hold large families.

The next aspect of the recovery operation was finding water for everyday use this came from a great idea; Rain water collection. The rainwater collection systems were attached to the gutters on the quick build home and collected enough water for familys to wash and for other general uses, but not for consumption. The water system was simple but effective and after analyzing data which included consumption, collection area, harvest collection, rainfall data, and volume they were able to streamline the collection process and analyze a family’s need. The systems were simple but effective and could be used in the everyday lives of other countries to reduce water use.

The tragedy that occurred in Haiti was the cause of a large population boom which occured after the tapping of deep water wells and the ability to get water to Port o prince. After a governmental change and deregulation of tons of things in the country this tragedy began to build for decades.

Using Rainwater in our own lives

the systems being used to collect rainwater could be used by any one in the U.S. . They could be used on farm in large scale to water plants and provide irrigation to crops this would reduce the need to abuse municipal water systems, and the need to produce large sums of energy need to pump that water to farms and homes. The rain water can also be used for the same purpose in a smaller scale at home were it can be collected treated and pressurized for use throughout the home. Removing dependence on the municipal water system again.