In our last ten years of doing water projects, we funded each project “a la carte” through our Turn On The Water campaigns. A typical water project takes over two years time and costs roughly $200,000.
Our primary goal via Pipeline is to raise $8,333/month which would theoretically equate to one SuNica H2O Project being constantly funded at all times! We’re really stoked to report that in our first year of promoting Pipeline, we hit $3,749/month – which is 45% of the goal! I don’t know how we’re going to beat that effort in 2024, but we’re sure going to give it our best effort!
The Los Ranchos Water Project continues to make good, but slow, progress. Every time I visit the community, I feel the anticipation rising as we get further and further along. The drill rig arrived in mid-October 2023 and the hope was to have a fully completed well in about two weeks time. After three weeks of very slow drilling through hard rock, the bit got stuck and had to be abandoned at 150 feet below the surface.
Well drilling in this part of the world is not easy (as this is our 4th attempt). Our drilling partner purchased a new bit (~$3,000) and commenced a new borehole. Three weeks later, we finally had a bored and cased well that was promising, but it would all come down to a pump test to see if this well would produce an adequate amount of water. The key issue is whether or not the well itself will refill with water fast enough so that we can fill the tank in a reasonable amount of time – such that they won’t ever run out of water. We need to be able to pump about 20 GPMs (gallons per minute) without any problem in order for this well to work.
As an aside: the ability for SuNica to perform its own pump tests is a fairly new skill for us. We used to have to pay $600 – $1,000 every time we needed to perform one of these. As of last year, we were able to acquire all of the necessary equipment and training to do these pump tests in-house! Not only is this a considerable savings in the long run, but we also don’t have to wait weeks or months to get another organization to come out and do the work.
And as for that latest well in Los Ranchos – it held its water levels steady up to 60 GPMs!! Praise God, y’all. We’ve got a good well in Los Ranchos.
Thank you all so much for being a part of this work!
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