Water-well bucket protection in Zambiaby Dermot Carty

Figure 1. The third and final method was to construct a cage in which the bucketwould be fued.

Community participation and educationhave proved essential in finding asolution to the 'bucket problem' facingthe villagers of Kasama. Dermot Cartydescribes the evolution of a simple, butsuccessful, design.THE KASAMA RURAL WATERSupply Project (KRWSP) has been inoperation in Kasama District, NorthernProvince, Zambia, since 1983. Fundedby Ireland's Department of ForeignAffairs bilateral aid division, togetherwith the Zambian government'sDepartment of Water Affairs andMinistry of Lands and NaturalResources, the aim of the project is toprovide a safe and convenient sourceof water in selected villages in theform of dug wells.

The most common source of water,and the one used by the majority of thecommunity, is a dambo, a smallseasonal swamp area, usually locatedsome distance from and downhill ofthe village. From 25 randomobservations, the average distancefrom a central point in a village, oneway, was 835m, (maximum 2,700m,minimum 355m). These sources arenormally a shallow hole dug in thedambo area where the water table isclose to the ground; no protection isprovided and they are particularlyprone to contamination during therains.

In most of the villages, there arealso a number of unprotected dug-wells. These, however, are prone to•dry up' in the dry season and areusually privately owned and operatedby the family group only. Other watersources such as springs, rivers, andstreams are used by the community,but are located mostly some distancefrom the village.

Kasama project objectivesProject wells are located in villages onsites chosen by the community withassistance from project personnel andrepresentatives of the Ministry of

Dermot Carty was Project Manager of theKasama Rural Water Supply Project. Formore detailed information on the bucket-cagedesign, write to: KRWSP, PO Box 410221,Kasama, Zambia.

Health, the District SocialDevelopment Office (where available),and the Department of Water Affairs.The wells have to be dug, lined, andprotected with a concrete surround andsoakaway; water can then be extractedusing a bucket and windlass system.Simultaneously, health education isconducted by local health assistantsduring and after construction, andtopics discussed range frompreventative maintenance to personaland domestic hygiene and sanitation.

Villagers are encouraged to keepthe area around the well clean, and thesoakpit free from leaves and otherdebris. This should prevent pondingand the resulting breeding ground formosquitoes, and stop surfacecontamination entering the well.

Community participationA major feature of the project iscommunity participation. The projectoperates on the basis of outside

assistance being given only after thecommunities have provided a specifiedamount of input, which is provided inthe form of labour: the villagers digthe well until they reach the watertable. Some villages are lucky andreach the water at reasonably shallowdepths, 4 to 6m, while others have todig considerably deeper, and in onecase a depth of 22m was recorded. Toorganize and supervise this work avillage well-committee is elected,encouraged by the project to consist ofa minimum of six people, half ofwhom should be women-though ofcourse this can prove problematical forsocial and cultural reasons. Thecommittee is also responsible forhelping to motivate the community,liaising with the health educationofficers, and on completion of thewell, making sure the well ismaintained and there is adequatefunding for spares.

Solving the bucketproblemOne area requiring constant attentionis the well head where the windlass,bucket and windlass supports arelocated. Experience has shown that thebucket itself requires the greatestattention, as the manufacture andquality of the bucket is outside thecontrol of the project. If the bucketfails or falls into the well, the usersquite often use paint cans, plastic

25mmx3mmmild steel

Clamp and twonuts to adjustsize

500mm

15mmthreaded bar

26 WATERLINES VOL.8 NO.4

Plastic containers tied to a piece of rope are often used if the bucket fails.

containers or old oil cans to extract thewater. These are usually tied to a pieceof rope made from bark, rubber strips,wire or string. It is also necessary tostand on top of the well to lift thecontainer out and the rope is thrown tothe ground behind the user. All ofthese activities can easily introducecontamination into the well and soonmany cans, containers, bits of rope anddebris fall into the well. When thissituation develops, the villagers tend torevert to their old source.

The two sizes of bucket commonlyavailable throughout Zambia have a15- and a lO-litre capacity. Thesebuckets are manufactured fromgalvanized sheet steel, and have foldedside and bottom seams. The handle ismanufactured from 6mm-widegalvanized mild-steel bar. Holes arepunched in the sides of the bucket andthe handle pushed through and bentupwards to prevent it from falling off.Initially, IS-litre buckets wereinstalled on all wells as standard.These were simply fitted by weldingthe handle to the chain and thenclosing the handle loops and spotwelding. The most common problemwith the bucket was seam-splitting, orthe handle pulling right through thesides of the bucket.

The search for alternativesTwo physical approaches to help thecommunities with the problem ofunreliable buckets were adopted:

o encouragement of communities topurchase and keep in hand a sparebucket at all times;

o investigations into alternative typesof bucket; or methods to strengthen

and protect the existing types.

The first attempt to strengthen thebucket involved the manufacturer

fIxing a flat steel bar to the bottom ofthe bucket to strengthen the bottomrim, but this resulted only in thebottom falling out completely more

WATERLINES VOL.8 NO.4 27

A popular innovationDuring Phase One of the project, fromJuly 1983 to June 1988, a total of 115self-help wells were completed, and afurther 22 existing Kasama DistrictCouncil wells were rehabilitated. Thebucket cage was introduced in mid-1986 on a trial basis and wassubsequently adopted as standard.

Existing wells were issued with acage to bring them up to the samestandard. To date, only one cage hasbeen found in need of repairs andreturned to the project, and this wasdue to an earlier design fault when asolid steel handle was used. Thishandle was flared where it passedthrough the upper ring and in this casethe flare had worn away and thehandle had fallen off. This cage waslater rehabilitated and used again.

The cages were readily acceptedand used when introduced, and theirreliability has further encouraged theirwidespread use. A conceptualproblem, identified in a sociologicalsurvey carried out in the communities,was that although the IO-litre bucket isautomatically issued with the cage,villagers often believe the bucket andcage full of water is heavier than a 15-litre bucket of water. This has beenproved wrong, as shown by thecontinuing use of the cages.

connected to the cage. This protectsthe chain from wearing at this point asthe assembly is being lifted and pulledthrough the opening in the concretecover.

To facilitate the tightening of theclamps on the bucket, a notch is cut inthe windlass assembly which issuitable for this purpose. The windlassassembly and the cage aremanufactured at the project workshopin Kasama.

Room for improvementThe 'bucket and cage' system, whileworking well at present, would benefitfrom further improvements. Althoughthe cages are holding up extremelywell, they are starting to deteriorateand will eventually wear out as a resultof continuous scraping and rubbingagainst the top of the well opening. Asolution to this problem would be areduction in the width of the windlassaccess across which the chain cantravel as it is being wound up; thiscalls for a major redesign of the wellhead. As with the introduction of theoriginal idea into the Zambiancommunities, these improvements willneed time to be worked out andaccepted. •

necessary to tighten the bucket inposition;

o the fmal cage must be easy for therural communities to operate,without outside assistance;

o the project staff must be capable ofmanufacturing the cage.

Cage componentsBasically the cage consists of twometal rings made from 25mm x 3mmflat mild steel which are weldedparallel to each other 500mm apart,using four 25mm x 8mm mild steeluprights and two pieces of 15mmthreaded bar. The bottom ring has twopieces of flat bar welded across it toprevent the bucket falling through. Thethreaded bar has a clamp fixed to eachside which can be adjusted to suit thesize of bucket and which can betightened and held in place by twonuts. The handle of the cage is madeof a short piece of chain fitted to aloop on either side of the cage. Asecond, larger loop is fitted to the cageat the point where the handle is

quickly. The second attempt was tomanufacture a complete bucket from3mm sheet steel at the projectworkshop. A number of shapes andsizes were made allowing the projectfitters a free hand in what they thoughtwas an appropriate design for a long-lasting well bucket. These bucketswere installed by the communities andwere found to be too heavy, as well asproving far too expensive. Nowreplaced at the well, these buckets arestill in use at the project workshop.

The simple cage designThe third and fmal method adopted tocope with unreliable buckets was toconstruct a cage in which the bucketwould be fixed (Figure 1). The designcriteria proposed were:o the bucket must be manufactured

from locally available materials;o it must be adjustable to suit most of

the buckets which are being madein the rural areas;

o the cage design must be simple, notrequiring spanners or other tools

CIII.s::.~~o~@

When it is necessary to stlU/d on top of the well, debris and c01'l1i111linationare easilyintroduced.

28 WATERLINES VOL.8 NO.4