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This simple 200-year-old technology brings life-giving water to mountain villages


At the top of a mountain in Barangay Lake Lahit in South Cotabato lies a sitio where around a hundred people reside. The 45-minute trek up crossing narrow edges of rice fields, and steep, rocky mountain sides, was made worth it by the breathtaking view from the top, and the hospitality of the community above.
 

A man and his kid pose quickly for a photo during the hike to their home, Upper Tialan. One of their main sources of living is corn, planted along the path. Kim Luces

The first thing you'd see is a makeshift basketball court a few square meters wide, with a thin tree trunk holding the ring. Little kids paused, while mothers peer out of their huts and smile as they see their visitors arrive. Their livelihood involve farming, with corn and bananas being their main crops.
 
At the top of the mountain is a sitio composed of 40 households of around 100 people. Kim Luces
 

Sitio of Upper Tialan is in many ways like a normal rural community, except that their nearest stable source of water is a spring 200 meters down the mountain: a source they have to frequent, if not for a system that brings water to the uplands without the use of electricity or gasoline.

In a trip hosted by the Coca-Cola Foundation, members of the Upper Tialan community showed the media, including GMA News Online, how the ram pump works.

The ram pump: revisiting a very old technology

The device called a ram pump uses only pressure to bring two liters per minute to water chambers uphill. There are two water chambers, one in Upper Tialan and and a smaller one in Sitio T'boli.

Water from a spring 200 meters below Upper Tialan is first routed to a catchment tank a few meters below. As the tank collects the water, it flows down through a drive pipe to the ram pumps.



As the flow of water accelerates in the drive pipe, the waste valve (labelled above) is forced shut, causing a pressure surge as the flowing water is suddenly brought to a halt.

The pressure surge causes the check valve to open, allowing high-pressure water to enter the air chamber and the delivery pipes. With the pressurized air in the air chamber and the shut waste valve, the water has no where else to go but up the delivery pipes.

The water is then transported 100 meters vertically to the highest elevation in Upper Tialan through delivery pipes. It also transports water to two more sitios: Lower Tialan, and T'boli.

"Kung baga po hangin lang ang nagtutulak ng tubig doon galing sa baba papunta sa taas," said Pastor Julito Fadon, Chairman of the local Barangay Water System Association (BAWASA).
 



Each ram pump can bring two liters of water every 64 seconds, and functions 24 hours a day. The water is then stored in water chambers in Upper Tialan and Sitio T'boli and distributed to a total of eight communal faucets the two sitios and Lower Tialan.

From 4:00 to about 5:30 in the afternoon, people line up in these faucets to fill up their water containers. They use their supply of water for cooking, drinking, and sometimes, bathing, and laundry.

There are two ram pumps in Brgy. Lake Lahit, but only one is made to work during summer.

"'Pag tag-init isa lang ang ram pump na gumagana dahil (bawas) ang tubig na galing sa source. Pero 'pag tag-ulan, parehong ram pump ang gumagana," Fadon explained.

The water needs no filtering, Fadon added, since it's spring water they're using.

Community's response

Before the ram pump, able members of each family, both adults and kids alike, would hike down from their sitio to get their daily fix of water.

Kids as young as 10 years old carry four to five liters of water back home in one trip. The adults, on the other hand, carry about five to six gallons.
 
Residents of Upper Tialan used to take a ten-minute trip down to the spring, and carry liters or gallons of water back to their homes before the ram pumps were installed. Kim Luces


Many members of the community seem to love the ram pump that they've had since it began serving them in November 2012, including 31-year-old Todina Lambas, mother of two.

"Ang tagal namin (akyat-baba) araw-araw para makakuha ng panlaba, panluto, pang-inom. Ngayon, dito na lang kami nag-iigib," she said while filling up her container with water from a communal faucet.

The communities do not pay for the ram pump itself, but each family contributes 30 pesos a month for the technicians' fees.

History of the ram pump

The ram pump is a 200-year-old technology that was improved and locally fabricated by the Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI) more than 20 years ago, Tina De Lima, Lake Lahit Area Manager of Earth Day Network Philippines (EDNPI) told GMA News Online in a phone interview.
 


The ram pump in Lake Lahit is part of the Agos Hydraulic Ram Pump Project launched in November 2011 that is sponsored by the Coca-Cola Foundation in the Philippines. They were done in partnership with both AIDFI and EDNPI.

It is an affordable way to transport large amounts of water to upland communities. The entire operation of the Lake Lahit Agos Ram Pump, from the installation to the training of technicians from the communities and the turn over took around Php 700,000 to 800,000, De Lima said.

"It's a one-time budgeted thing, plus it's low maintenance," she added. In each Agos Ram Pump project, AIDFI and EDNPI train at least two technicians from the community to maintain the system. These technicians only need extra hinges, faucets, bolts and knots should the system need repairs.

At present, there are over 70 Agos Ram Pumps all over the country. Recently turned over is the ram pump in Brgy. Suawan, Marilog District in Davao City, which is a 239-meter vertical lift, the longest distance any AIDFI-developed ram pump covered. A total of 129 households and a school population from Unapan Elementary School are expected to benefit from the project, a press release said. — TJD/VC, GMA News
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