Short Term

Nan Chapelle Spring – Short Term Project
This project is an example of a one-time project in which we use our expertise and resources to help a neighboring area get on its feet with water. The Nan Chapelle area has been without clean water for many years and people were forced to get water from unsafe stream side holes dug by hand.

After a scouting visit and survey, ODRINO engineers and spring capping experts located an area where a previous spring capping had been attempted and failed.

ODRINO technicians along with the community under the leadership of the pastor of one church and the lay leader of the other excavated the spring to see if there was still any water available. They had to break out part of what was left of the front wall of the old spring cap ruins and then dig out more than four feet of sand, gravel, slime and mud. After two weeks, water bubbled up in the sand at one end of the enclosed area and they halted operations to wait for the project engineer. He requested the men dig a little deeper just to see. Within a few minutes they uncovered the exact spot where the water source was and it strongly gushed up out of a crack in the rock.

A three month long study of the water situation and excavation of the spring capping ruins from the 1980s at Nan Chapelle resulted in a deliberate plan and spring capping strategy that provided a durable and safe water source for all the people who came there to get their water.

ODRINO has engineers, technicians, and masonry crews who are experienced in capping difficult springs like the one at Nan Chapelle. ODRINO also has specialized equipment for breaking rock underwater and the other equipment necessary for doing specialized work in remote locations. The spring at Nan Chapelle was capped, distribution lines run and fountains installed as ODRINO worked together with the leaders of two local churches and the community. People from up to 200 communities now come to the spring at Nan Chapelle. It is especially valuable during drought conditions to have water when everything else dries up. Some of the people who regularly walk to this spring walk five hours roundtrip to get water there. Now they get it out of a pipe and fountain instead of out of a muddy hole alongside the ravine.