When Electricity is Expensive Use the Wind and Sun

The island of Taquile in Lake Titicaca was also surprising. We learned about the very traditional customs related to dress and salutations. You can spot the single people by the men´s hats and women´s shawl. Although these people have changed very little about their culture in hundreds of years, they have too started using solar panels, wind turbines and rain water harvesting. If they can do it, why can´t we?

One of the conclusions reached by Pearce in When the Rivers Run Dry was that simple things like rain water harvesting might be a key solution for places facing water crisis like Los Angeles. L.A could meet half of their water needs with rain water harvesting instead of buying water from hundreds of miles away. One home we saw on the island used sheet metal to create a gutter system, a sawed off coke bottle as a funnel and a garden hose to siphon water into a holding tank. It was so simple but very effective.

Floating Islands with Solar Panels

Uros is a group of floating islands just a few kilometers from Puno on Lake Titicaca (spelled titikaka in Spanish). We visited one, the floating heart, that is home to about 3 families. These islands have been maintained for thousands of years. When the Uros people were threatened by the expanding Inca empire, the began to hid in the reeds in their boats. Because the lake gets cold at night, the Uros people began building homes in their reed boats. Reeds rot rather quickly and this process is expedited when the reed boats sit in the water. However, rotting reeds create a kind of floating material. The Uros people began harvesting this material as they added more reeds to their boats. Eventually the shape of the boat changed into what are now floating islands.

The Uros people that live on the islands fish and hunt for their food. Women also travel to the mainland once a week to trade for potatoes, grains and other goods. Tourism and artisan crafts also help bring in money to the community. We were lucky enough to be invited into the home of one family on the island. Just like the boats and the island, the house is built of reeds. What was most surprising was walking into the house and finding a boom box and a television. The Uros people use reeds for most things, including food, but they have started using solar panels to run their modern technology.  Very cool!

Lake Titicaca

Trevor and I arrived in Puno in the wee hours of the morning. It is so cold at 3800 meters! Puno is one of the ugliest towns I have visited. The houses are not well maintained, the streets are dirty and even the touristy walk along the lake is quite polluted and smelly. Nonetheless, we booked an all day tour of the artificial reed villages for tomorrow and then we will cross the lake again on our way to La Paz.

Lake Titicaca is significant in Inca Culture because the first Inca, Manco Capac, is said to have been born of the lake. The lake is significant to a water nerd because the culture of the people living on this lake is so directly dependent and have been for thousands of years. Although I have been disappointed in the obvious pollution of the lake in Puno, I have high expectations for the families we will visit tomorrow. For example, the cattail like plant, Schoenoplectus tatora, is used by people indigenous to this area to make baskets and reed boats. These plants are also used to remove phosphorus and nitrogen from effluents before being discharged. Water and waste water projects in Puno and in Lake Titicaca have brought researchers here from all over the world. Because of this I will cross my fingers and hope for a little water zen tomorrow....

Source to Shower in the Amazon

This lagoon was situated directly outside our bungalow. It is home to black and red piranha, crocodiles and countless other animals. It also happened to serve as the source of my shower water for the 4 nights we were in the Amazon rain forest. The water was pumped from this floating well up to the holding tank before being used to flush toilets and wash dishes.

Juicy Vines

I don´t think watching water turn into wine would have been as impressive as watching a vine become a canteen. The water was fresh and delicious (I know you can´t tell from my face)! We also learned that rubbing live termites on your skin is a form of natural bug repellent. Delicious.

Desalination on the Galapagos Islands

We were quite surprised by how dry and flat the land is in the Galapagos.  One would expect an island in the pacific to look more like Hawaii than the Atacama desert.  However, due to the Humboldt current, the Galapagos islands can receive as little as 60-100 millimeters of rainfall annually.  When Frey Tomas landed here in the early 1500's he described these islands as "hell" because there was so little water.  Where we began our journey, in San Cristobal, a canal systems was built in the 1800's to irrigate sugar cane crops and in the 1900's these canals were again used to transport water to the U.S army base on Baltra. People living on other islands have always had to rely on rainwater harvesting or brackish water for survival. 

Currently, water from crevices close to the ocean, where sea water and fresh water mix, are being used as island inhabitants and tourists main water source.  This water is collected, purified and desalinated in small, local desalination plants.  I had the opportunity to tour two of these plants.  

I was surprised at the size of these plants.  They are very small; the size of a standard living room at a maximum or as small as a large closet.  These companies take the brackish water, that unfortunately is also highly contaminated from household leakage into the crevices, to treat and desalinate.  Then the water is sold in large jugs or plastic bottles to households, stores, and boat companies.  

Because these plants can be so small, some tourist boats have their own desalination plants on board.  I was not able to see a boat with this technology.  The boat I traveled on used purified water from the second plant I visited.  However, I found that I was surprised at the fact that this technology was so wide spread in such an isolated space.  I also thought of desalination plants like I do water treatment plants.  I suppose they would have to be much bigger if they were supplying water to a larger population but it is interesting to consider possibilities of desalination on a small scale.  

See more pictures here!

For more information about water in the Galapagos, visit this website.  

Virtual Water

How much water is embedded in that burger? Find out here

Water, water, water!

Following the lead of National Geographic, Texas Park and Wildlife´s feature of the month... you guessed it! Water...

Salt Boogers

While snorkeling off the island of Bartholome we saw a marine iguana several meters under water, chowing down on some coral. These animals are amazing! They can stay underwater for a really long time and when they come up they have special glands that help them expel salt from their noses. Trevor suggested someone look into synthesizing these specialized glands as a desalination method for sea water. Defiantly food for thought!

Water Expert = Wetspert!

As I read, When the Rivers Run Dry, I am trying to figure out what to call my future career. It is difficult for a few reasons. First, there are jobs that will exist in water in the coming years that don´t yet have a name. Second, there are already so many different names for people who work with water and water problems. In this particular book, Pearce (2006) cites engineers, hydrologists, glaciologists, oceanographers, climatologists, environmentalists and geologists. These experts work at universities, institutes and organizations all over the world. Some are specific and local, like the Mekong River Commission, others are powerful international organizations like the World Bank´s Commission on Dams or the International Rivers Network.

This can be a bit overwhelming for a blossoming water nerd. However, at the delightful Black Sheep Inn I had the opportunity to meet a water expert in flesh and blood! Jeff La Frenierre is a first-year PhD student at Ohio State University. He was in Ecuador working on his dissertation research on glacial melt on Volcan Chimborazo. Glacial melt from this volcano forms the headwaters of three different watershed systems. Jeff is interested in how glacial melt is connected to local hydraulic systems and how regional water supply would be impacted if the glacier atop Chimborazo was to melt away.

Jeff´s master´s research was also quite interesting. In Laos he looked at human energy expenditures, measured in caloric intake, to measure water access. He writes, ¨there is evidence that the current metric for measuring access, the presence of an improved water source located within 1 kilometer of a household, is inadequate. The physical burden of transporting multiple loads of water over such a distance has distinct consequences for a person's health. Understanding these consequences must be a fundamental part of future water development research.¨ I am currently reading Jeff´s thesis- more on this later.

Jeff is a scholar of political geology with interests in paleo-glacial geomorphology- a few new names to give to water nerds!

The Black Sheep Inn: Composting toilets and sustainable water projects

The Black Sheep Inn, located in Chugchilan, Ecuador is a water nerd´s It is a true eco-lodge in every way you can imagine. Tea bags are reused as scratch paper, water from the sink is used to irrigate a bathroom garden and even human poo is composted and used as a fertilizer.

When you go to the bathroom at the Black Sheep Inn, you walk into a greenhouse like room with a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. You then open the lid to a normal looking toilet and do your business. When you are done you wipe with recycled, biodegradable toilet paper and then dump a scoop full of wood shavings in when you are done. With careful temperature control and rotation the result is what they called “humanure” that is then used on the fruit trees and gardens.

After you close the lid to the composting toilet your eco-poo experience is only halfway done.
When you wash your hands with biodegradable soap you can watch the water drain from the sink onto the garden INSIDE the bathroom! No water is wasted and a useful byproduct is created. I have never thought of peeing and washing my hands as a potentially eco-helpful experience.

In addition to composting toilets, the Black Sheep Inn has several water projects used to supply the Inn and the surrounding community with water. These projects include pumping ground water, solar energy run irrigation systems and rain water harvesting. However, I am on the Galapagos Islands and my boat is about to depart on a several day exploration. I hope to post again when I am back on the mainland of Ecuador. Today I had the chance to visit two island desalination plants and can´t wait to write about it. Desalination is the next big thing in water… I am sure of it!

See more pictures here!

Museo de agua in Quito

The Water Museum in Quito is a must visit! It is built on one of the highest points in the city. Besides having a fantastic view of the basilica and the down town area, it is one of the most interesting and entertaining museums I have visited. It was clearly designed with children in mind. In the first exhibit, you climb up a ladder and arrive at the top of a mountain where you become a droplet of water. In lieu of a river, the museum has built a bright blue slide to help you imagine your first moments as a drop of water melting off an ancient glacier. As you navigate the slides and ladders of the exhibit you begin to see all the ways that water can be used. A drop of water might power a hydroelectric plant like the Paute plant in eastern Ecuador. Because Ecuador uses more energy than it produces, the country has purchased energy from Peru and Colombia. In recent years, this dependence on other countries has pushed the Ecuadorian government to begin exploring the use of hydroelectricity. In 2006, seventeen percent of the country’s energy came from hydroelectric power. However, I have been told that that number has increased significantly in the last four years.

A droplet of water might also be treated for drinking. The young woman who gave us a tour of the museum was proud to inform us that the water plant in Quito produced water that was clean enough to drink. However, no one we met in the city would dare ingest the water. Quito, like many cities, has a fantastic water treatment program but a less than sufficient water distribution system. From what I understood, the lack of pressure in the pipes keeps the treated water from arriving in a drinkable state.

I also found that a visit to the museum greatly enhanced my water vocabulary. I
will post a list of my new water vocabulary in the coming week as well as pictures from the exhibit.

The best part of the museo de agua was the bubble room! Words cannot do it justice! See pictures here!