Created in the Lab, Verified in the Field, Now Improving Lives

Photo: Children at the first Groundwater Treatment System in Los Ricos.

Community-Driven, Community-Owned: The Evolution of Our Groundwater Treatment System (GTS)

Arsenic and fluoride contamination in water sources poses a severe global threat, with upwards of 300 million people worldwide exposed to excessive levels of these contaminants, and an estimated 21 million exposed in Mexico alone. These contaminants, invisible and tasteless, present significant risks to health, including chronic illnesses like skeletal fluorosis, cancer, and developmental issues in children.

Conventional solutions fall short due to the complexity of removing dissolved contaminants. While Caminos' rainwater harvesting systems offer relief, the demand surpasses their capacity. In response to this challenge, we developed our Groundwater Treatment System (GTS) to provide a replicable, scalable, and cost-effective method to treat water at the entire community scale. 

The evolution of our, first anywhere, GTS spans over seven years. This collaborative venture started with Caminos’ technology development team working hand-in-hand with university partners, academics, and other technical experts to first design and prove the technology in laboratory settings. 

Transitioning from successful lab trials to a practical in-community application required deep support from Caminos’ social outreach team as well as a group of mothers – living in a small rural village called Los Ricos – who were looking to improve the health of their families and their community. Los Ricos emerged as the inaugural GTS pilot site due to its excessive levels of arsenic and fluoride as well as its proximity to the Caminos Field Center. In 2021, this first GTS became operational in Los Ricos. 

Ana Torres – Community Organizer with Caminos – underscores the importance of a truly community-driven, and community-owned, process from the beginning to create promote long-term impact:

“If we had just arrived  with technical workshops… this project would never have worked. It works because there has been a process, first of identifying, creating awareness, and then letting [the community] be the owners of the process.”

Photo: Allie Álvarez, Director of Tehcnology with Caminos (first from left) answers questions from a group of donors together with Ana Torres (second from right), Community Organizer with Caminos, and María del Rosario (first from right) at Los Ricos' GTS site.

Today, the GTS in Los Ricos regularly provides upwards of 40 families with their drinking water, and the system thrives under the stewardship of the newly-elected water committee, underscoring the need for community-owned solutions. The committee not only provides the ongoing operation and maintenance of the system, but they also collect payments – making GTS sustainable both operationally and economically in the long-term. Each of the families pay a nominal MXN $50 pesos (USD ~$3) a month for all of their drinking water needs, more than enough to cover the on-going costs of the system. 

María de Rosario, one of the mothers who spearheaded the project reflects: 

“We had many years without safe drinking water. While taking care of the GTS is hard work, it’s changed the reality of my family and community.”
 

Bigger Communities, Bigger Impact: The Next Phase of GTS

After detecting fluoride levels more than five times above the limit in the rural community of Alonso Yáñez, the urgency for community-wide action was palpable, and the site for our first large-scale GTS was decided. After months of working with the schools, water committee, land council, dozens of families, and a newly elected “GTS Committee” (made up of diverse representatives from the water committee to the parent’s council) the construction of the GTS in Alonso Yáñez is now well under way and will soon provide safe drinking water access to the 270 families in the community. 

Photo: Victor Hernández,  Technical-Social Community Organize with Caminos, showing a diagram to a group of operators and beneficiaries at Alonso Yáñez' GTS construction site. 

Over the past two months, community members have come together every week to construct the building that will be totally dedicated to this new GTS. Located on land donated by the community itself, the building is now complete and water started flowing in this past week. In the coming weeks, we begin construction of the system itself, which will be ready to go online and provide clean drinking water by the first quarter of 2024, all in a race to complete the first phase of a health study in partnership with the National Public Health Institute that needs to happen prior to the GTS going live (more on this study in a future newsletter in the coming weeks). 

The next steps for GTS encompass installing two larger GTS systems, serving up to 1,600+ users, by the end of 2024. These community-led installations aim to ensure sustained, year-round access to clean water while laying the groundwork for a replicable model for wider implementation.

Our vision is to have 10 operational GTS units within five years, each community-owned and managed, demonstrating a scalable, autonomous solution to a critical global water quality challenge, creating both a technical and social blueprint for addressing similar challenges in similar communities throughout Mexico and beyond.