Friday, August 28, 2009

2009 08 28. Friday.

Yuri, 2 other guys and I went over the backwaters to see the Amma Engineering College (AEC) wastewater treatment plant and biogas plant this morning. One of the other guys (Ben) has experience with wastewater treatment in the US. We're all interested in getting options for treating the ashram sewage. For some reason the AEC has to follow strict rules for sewage treatment but the ashram doesn't. Strange. The wastewater plant was running fine but the biogas plant was totally defunct and covered with weeds and trash. A biogas plant takes in food waste and/or sewage and converts it into methane that can be used to cook food or generate eledtricity. Apparently the biogas plant failed because the people in charge didn't properly sort the garbage from the food waste. So apparently the plant got clogged and no one bothered to clean it. The other guys and I plan to see if we can get it restarted somehow. Its always a very interesting adventure trying to get projects done at the ashram. All kind of roadblocks interspersed with sudden unexpected breakthroughs.

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