WaterWorX on the ground: the quick-wins of using air lifting wells

During a field visit at a well of the Indonesian water company Perumda Sragen, Harrie Timmer, hydrologist at WaterWorX mentor utility Oasen, saw how employees desperately tried to get sand out of the wells. In vain.

“At the beginning of this year 2020, I was on a working visit to help Sragen design a multi-year plan to integrate climate adaptation. The local team and I also had to take a look at the water extraction system. When the team from Sragen showed me the problems they have been encountering, I showed them my pictures of the so-called air lift installation (well vacuum cleaner) that the maintenance group at Oasen uses on its wells. The Indonesian colleagues immediately responded enthusiastically to this method and started to recreate it.”

“A sand-free pit is important; if they can’t get the sand out of a well, the well slowly fills with sand, the capacity drops and they have to make a new one. So it is a quick win with which they can save a lot of money and capacity. They will soon also see this reflected in the available extraction capacity, because during the visit we also started on the multi-year plan to cover the drinking water demand in view of the changing climate!”

Photo Caption: Employees of water company Perumda Sragen struggle to remove the sand from their extraction wells