Quote Originally Posted by Steve the Planner View Post
Along with a brief explanation of why that 7 to 15 is important, and its variabilities (temperature, etc...). And simple version of how to treat water, or detect water borne illnesses.

And some basics about wells, karsks, etc...

And about "water rights" and an overview of what of the farmework and implications of that concept are at a local level.

All the dumb stuff in one place,

Makes any soldier capable of being a fairly decent first level responder.
Why would we want soldiers building water systems? We've spent prodigious amounts of time and money training and equipping them to be soldiers, let them do what they are trained and equipped to do. There are plenty of people out there trained and equipped to do water work. If immediate supply is a problem there are fast solutions available, for example biosand filters; easily made or delivered, long-lasting, and effective. You don't need to understand water tables or water rights or the hydro cycle at that level; that comes later, when you're looking for a long-term solution... and that's not a job for soldiers.

Not trying to put down soldiers here, it's just not what they do. You don't ask a dentist to do brain surgery, or a neurosurgeon to do root canal.

Quote Originally Posted by Steve the Planner View Post
Anyone building or maintaining a school system knows that you try to standardize all the parts, equipment and FFE (furniture, fixtures and equipment---desks, flourescent tubes & starters, chalk boards, etc...) in order to improve service and cut costs.

Same stuff is just basic to health clinics, etc..., better to have five that are identically equipped and easily resupplied, maintained, operated, than ten that are all different and won't be sustainable beyond a year or two.
To some extent... however, I'd prefer to see buildings, furniture, and anything else possible contracted to local labor, even at the expense of identicality. Large procurement contracts seem more efficient but they draw vultures faster than a decomposing elephant carcass on the Serengeti; opportunities for corruption are rarely passed up. Local contracting puts money into the community, and when people have a role in building something they tend to see it as theirs, rather than something an outsider took out of a box. They also know how to fix it when it breaks.

The single most important variable in making a school or a clinic work is competent, motivated staff.

Steve, re this:

Infiltration flows may be an issue for both water and wastewater piping systems depending upon their current condition, baseline + earthquake damage. *Crosscontamination (fecal) and the introduction of anthropogenic sources (chemical etc.) are a concern for treated water that is being piped. *Wastewater quantities to be treated may increase due to infiltration. *An additional caveat to wastewater treatment quantities would be a combined sewer system. *In this instance both wastewater and stormwater are carried by the system and quantities to be treated are greater than those resulting from a system limited to just wastewater.

The appropriateness of a CMOC or CIMIC is not addressed in this note but I would like to come back to that in later post. In this note I have crossed from aid to development and assume that local inhabitants are in the lead of that effort, again, we are functioning in a tech support role.

Once the water systems have been triaged project management skills will be needed to rehabiltate things. *We have touched upon how Walt Whitman Rostow's linear evolutionary development model has echos in maturity models employed by business and engineering communities. *However, for us, things start to get a bit nonlinear for the next portions of solution development. *Using the water system assessment a work breakdown system, which describes tasks, roles, and responsibilities would be developed. *A cost estimate (often close hold) project schedule, statement of work (operations order), specifications, and design are developed in concert with a variety of professions to include maintenance personnel, planners, legal personnel, community members, NGO, IO, and military - aka the CIMIC - something in between the hood of a truck and a facility.
Are we still talking about a village? For a village setting this seems way over-engineered. You want it as simple as possible. If possible you want to be able to build everything with local labor and local skills: again, if they build it they know how to fix it. You don't need piped house-to-house water and sewage collection systems; small wells at strategic locations, or springbox systems with standpipes in key locations, do fine. The biosand filters are very useful and can be locally made. Water-seal toilets over septic tanks are quite adequate for village needs.

With enough money you can bring any village up to western standard, but then you have a few thousand more villages... a project has to be replicable to be anything more than a showcase and a windfall for the selected village.

When I went into the Peace Corps, back in the dim distant recesses of the last century, there was already an enormous base of literature on village-based water and sanitation systems; by now I'm sure it's increased a hundredfold. There are people out there who specialize in that field, so if you want the expertise, it's there. No need to reinvent the wheel.