Río Manta, Ecuadorian coast

biochar water treatment facilitator Pablo Yepéz holds another workshop

In late November 2022 Pablo Yepéz of La Clínica Ambiental - one of the facilitators of our first biochar water treatment workshop held at Amisacho in September of that year - held another training in the community of Río Manta, Manabí Province on the Ecuadorian coast.

Pablo Yepéz, second from left. Also pictured: Luis Muñoz (left), Lexie Gropper, and Josh Kearns at Amisacho in September 2022.

The community in Río Manta was displaced by an oil refinery project. Now they are trying to get re-established around a single well water source. Water quality is unknown but suspected to be poor.

Pablo sent the photos depicting biochar generation and processing and the set up of a “blue barrel” treatment system.

The biochar feedstocks included a mix of corn cobs and locally abundant muyuyo (Cordia lutea) wood prunings.

The handsome guy in the maroon shirt in the photo above is Edison Castro, from Muisne, Ecuador. Edison attended our September workshop at Amisacho, the returned to Muisne to work on biochar water treatment installations in his home community. He accompanied Pablo (lower left in the photo above) to assist with the Furukawa training and installation, and now joins the team again in Río Manta. (Muisne and Furukawa projects were described in a previous issue of Field Notebook.)

Edison is becoming a true biochar water treatment expert and champion!

Congrats to Pablo, Edison, and the others on an excellent job!

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