Jersalen, La Lima
Water, Sanitation, Drainage
The neighborhood of Jerusalen is located in the municipality of La Lima, close to the strip of industrial development along the highway from San Pedro Sula to El Progreso. The region has recently experienced extremely high population growth because of the increased number of factories and job opportunities in the area.
The population has grown at a faster rate than the communities have been able to keep up with in terms of public infrastructure.
The community of Jerusalen currently has a potable water system that does not give good continuity. The storage tank is undersized and many houses are not hooked up to the system. A wastewater collection and treatment system is needed.
With a potable water system and no wastewater collection system, the contaminated water drains from houses through provisional open ditches in the side of the road to a large canal that carries the waste over to the nearby stream. Odors and possibility of contamination are major problems, especially near the soccer field, which is almost completely surrounded by a channel carrying raw sewage waste.
This project will include the design and construction of a treatment plant that will serve Jerusalen, Gracias a Dios, and have the capacity for the future to treat four or five other neighborhoods in the region
The project began as an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) project assigned to the San Francisco San Jose Annex Chapter of EGB. Before the group made their first site assessment trip, the Municipality of La Lima contracted two local engineers, Alma Mendoza and Roberto Torres, to design and prepare the package to be submitted to FHIS for funding.
Global Community Development (GCD) decided to recommend to the San Francisco-San Jose Annex Chapter that they drop the project and let the local engineers handle the design and the package. A treatment plant is proposed for this system that will serve the community of Gracias a Dios and four other neighborhoods.