Saturday, August 7, 2010

FIGHTING EROSION FOR FARMLAND, by Starry Sprenkle, HTRIP Project Manager

Recently, Eddie and I went up to see the work accomplished by the Cash for Work crews at the low, mountain community, Source Dupont.  The work at Source Dupont had been done in the first month of the program and all efforts focused on addressing the damaging effects of erosion. Two local crew supervisors led us on a hike through mountains and up ravines to proudly show us the progress of their crews; they'd built rock walls in the bottom of steep ravines to slow the damaging flow of water during intense rains in order to trap sediment, eventually creating agriculturally-rich soil, reduce flooding downstream, and slow the ongoing erosion in the ravines. The work being done is classified as “Ravine Correction”.
Even though I’m used to the physical work which comes with working in the mountains, I actually became winded as I climbed the ravines to inspect the crew’s work...I was well aware that the crews, many of whom are older than I, have been climbing these steep ravines while doing far more physically demanding work than I was doing;  the stamina of the people who live in the mountains continues to amaze me.
The lack of a local water source in the mountains is an ongoing struggle to the mountain communities in Haiti, a problem we at HTRIP are constantly trying to address with both long and short term solutions. In an attempt to access a local water source, the crews dug a channel at least 10 feet deep to allow the water to flow from their local spring, which up until now has been a stagnant source of water.  Unfortunately, the water just isn’t coming out fast enough, and a stagnant pool remains at the top of the deep channel.  We concluded that we need to reforest above the spring to allow more water to infiltrate the mountain itself, and eventually filter out at the spring.  That’s the long term plan......
As we walked through a few ravines which hadn’t been worked on in the past month by the Cash for Work crews, the leaders begged us to bring a second crew to continue the work.  We said we’d consider it,  but later, after we visited the last ravine (a wide-cut ravine, lower down the mountain) we realized that we couldn’t say no.  The crew lower down the mountain had built 8 ft. tall rock walls through this particular ravine, which in the last month alone, had completely filled in with sediment.  One month’s erosion represents hundreds of cubic meters of potentially farmable land which could be cultivated within these cleared, nutrient-rich ravines.  Even though the risk of losing valuable crops due to a flood remains, considering the soil on the surrounding, sloping mountains is poor in nutrients and water, the comparitively rich soil in the ravines makes it a risk worth taking. 
It’s clear that we need to do more work upstream...work which will not only protect the incredible effort that went into these newly built walls downstream, but will also protect the new captured sediment which represents potential farmland. So, we’ve decided to give the mountain communities a second group of workers for the last month of the Cash for Work project.  This last crew will correct more ravines and will also work with a Mason we’ve hired to build a rock wall in a basin, to create a water-catchment (an “Impluvium”) near the center of the community.
The two Supervisors we’ve hired are very good leaders, and even though neither of them is literate, each has a good technical knowledge of what is required to get the job done. I’m confident that they’ll continue this amazing work which will undoubtedly benefit not only their own community, but also the communities downstream, as well as the local environment as a whole.....

1 comment:

  1. What a lovely story - It is apparent that poor Haiti is caught every day between the extremes of not enough water and too much water... Somehow, this work will help to level out these extremes. Good for you.

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