Weekly Site Meetings

Every Thursday we meet on site to review open issues. A typical meeting discussion includes things like construction productivity, budget and spending, community issues, and future work planning. Here are some regular attendees:

Chai (Project Assistant) and Ceda (Community Development Assistant)

Narith (Construction Manager)

Bouny (Project Coordinator)

one of Bac Krons dogs (potentially lunch)

Kong Chanda

Our original plan for the implementation of this project was to start the embankment work then begin the concrete water gate and have two separate crews working simultaneously. However, when we began gearing up for the concrete work it became increasingly apparent that our crew did not have the so-mat-a-pe-up (capacity) to handle it. An example of this being the rebar cutter shown above. When purchased, the crew incorrectly believed it could cut up to a size D24 rebar. So we tapped into the ex-pat network and found three concrete contractors in Siem Reap to provide bids. But they were all high and not having any personal experience with any of them we were a bit hesitant to start anything with someone new. So in December we called Kong Chanda.


Chanda worked for HT about a year and a half ago and worked with our first site assessment team. wiL, Ryan and Alexi had nothing but great things to say about him and we were very concerned when he left the project for work in Phonon Penh. When we originally contacted him in December it was just for his opinion on our situation; high bids from unknown contractors. But after that first phone conversation Chanda called back 5 minutes later to tell us he would be in Siem Reap the next day to meet with us and see the site. As a side note: when Chanda saw the rebar cutter he correctly told us it could not cut anything bigger than a D16 rebar.


After that site visit in December we decided that hiring Chanda and his company to build the concrete water gate would be our best chance of finishing. Almost all business contacts we had made so far simply looked at us foreigners as a dollar sign despite the explanation of our project objective. Chanda was the first person to have a genuine interest in the project and helping the people of Balang. So we began trying to create this new project team. Chanda, very patiently, provided many different bids, schedules and met with us several times in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh over the next two months. Finally, after lots of very hard work by Chanda, HT and EWB-NY, we were able to agree on a contract price, sign the contract and Chanda has begun working. Chanda’s contract scope includes the complete concrete water gate and soil backfill around the structure. Essentially, everything left to make this reservoir functional.

The Earth Work Is Complete!

The earth work is complete! We finished the all of the major earth moving necessary for the embankment repair and the equipment has been removed from the site. Above is the main embankment ...


the North embankment ...


and the South embankment.
We still have a lot of work, most critical right now is grassing the entire embankment before the rainy season begins. We will also need to install a rip rap band at the future water level, install monitoring wells and potentially a toe drain on the down stream side. But this is a major milestone completed a month before originally scheduled!

superbowl decision

Superbowl Sunday, and as most Americans started their day today with anxious excitement to watch the game, the EWB Cambodia team started with a conference call to discuss final decisions on selecting which design to move forward with; the labyrinth design, or the straight weir design previously submitted to TAC. We have spent the last few weeks optimizing the labyrinth design to bring the cost down to fit the budget, but as time became a critical factor, the group was under pressure to finalize on one design to focus on.
Both designs have their pros and cons, and the group discussed at great length all of their concerns for each design. We concluded by agreeing to each write an individual final statement to submit to Steve Forbes, as he had previously agreed to be moderator should a decision not be reached within the group.

Trip to Cambodia (a short version)

Hey bloggers! It's Jess, and I am on day...9 of my trip out to Siem Reap. I don't have too much time to write now, and I only wanted to get my first post up on the blog before I ran out of time here. But I would like to say that this trip has been incredible so far. Everything I can think of to write at this moment is falling short of accurately describing the experience, which I imagine that the rest of you guys who have been out here on a site visit can attest to also. Everyone is really puttnig a big effort in right now, trying to close the gap between our budget and our costs.

I have taken a lotttt of pictures that i will post on the website as soon as I get them downloaded (or uploaded, i guess).

More from me in the near future....

Jess

The Helicopter Ride

Before leaving Siem Reap Steve Forbes insisted on taking a helicopter ride to the site to get some aerial photography. The helicopter was just brought to town by a company that uses it to fly tourists around Angkor Wat but our pilot, Matt, was happy to take a detour from his normal loop and help us find Trau Kod.


It took us less than 10 minutes to fly to the site and Steve, Bouny and I didn't stop taking photos until we landed. It was really amazing. This was the first time we could see the entire project at once; other than the blurry satellite photos we have been using from google earth.


When we got back I sent a text to Chai asking him if he saw us flying above. He wrote back: "I only saw steve clearly.did u land off? A lots of people ask me did u operate or pilot instruct u some and Y not land off at site? Oh,i think u had big..fun.!"

Mr. Trau Kod

Recently, our friend Boc Kron built Mr. Trau Kod (shown above) to protect the reservoir and embankment. It was explained to me that Cambodian people believe there are spirits for all elements such as earth, wind, clouds, etc. and Mr. Trau Kod was built to represent the spirit of the reservoir. This spirit is meant to protect the area and seek revenge on anyone that would harm the reservoir. I think we will still need to implement our inspection and maintenance program after the project is completed but it's comforting to know we have Mr. Trau Kod on our side.

Filling the Breach

This week the site crew began filling the embankment breach. This is the location where the river eroded the existing embankment away and destroyed the old reservoir. As you can see in the photo above, the river is still running through the space so we are filling it with soil and spreading it with the bulldozer to create a solid platform for our heaver equipment to work.


Once this platform is complete we can cut the key into the base and begin filling and compacting the new soil.

Stella!!!

l to r: Narith, 'Stella', and Steve Forbes. at this moment, Stella buckles under the pressure.

we spent an afternoon fabricating a 12’ long, 2” diameter split spoon tube out of a pvc pipe cut longitudinally in half, then banded together with steel bands. the split spoon would core a sample of the soil by being probed into the ground using the bucket of the excavator to drive it down. we were uncertain if the pipe would be strong enough to probe through the unknown soil conditions, so we simply just had to take the risk. we invested a lot of sweat equity, and passion, into the creation, and joked that if the pipe were to simply burst into pieces during use, we would cry, “Stella….!!!!”, to express the pain of our loss.
Well, unfortunately, we hit a tough clay layer where Stella started to buckle under pressure. We weren’t able to probe any further than 0.25m when we started to hear a lot of cracking in the pipe. But, the good news is, the clay layer was a good discovery, as we had assumed worst soil conditions during design. We verified the clay layer by using the excavator to dig a ~10’ deep test pit, upon which we discovered a 1m layer of clay at the surface. Stella was demoted to being used as a measuring stick when taking photos of these test pits.

….Stella!!!!

Raw Steel

photos by mulaohu

8 tons of raw steel....and that doesn't include the pickup truck. These #20 (#6 US) rebar was delivered to the site yesterday. we spent over $6k for this purchase alone.

Embankment Excavation

l to r: bryse and bouny

it took about a week and a half to excavate a portion of the main embankment for the proposed watergate location. the excavation is approx. 20m wide, and 3.5m high.
this location was chosen because the soil conditions at the existing breach (not pictured) is unknown, and consolidation and stabilization of that soil would require surcharging over an extended period of time. instead of building the watergate at that breach, a new location was proposed with the assumption that the soil which it is founded on will already be well consolidated over a number of years by the existing embankment.

The Sheepsfoot Roller

Part of our design was to specify the use of a sheepsfoot roller for the soil compaction on the embankment. Narith assured us that it would not be a problem to obtain one here in Siem Reap. However, when we made the deal with the equipment owner they mentioned that their one sheepsfoot roller was already rented but they could provide us with a sheepsfoot tow.


The sheepsfoot tow was definitely inferior to a full sheepsfoot roller and on top of that, the flat drum roller they sent out to pull this thing was older than me and broke down after a week.


Finally, after some tough negotiations, we were able to get a Self-Propelled Tamping Roller and this thing is a beast. You can feel the earth shake when it rolls by. This is a relatively rare piece of equipment so if it breaks down we could be in big trouble but for now it looks like we are in pretty good shape.

Forbes Rides Again

Our mentor and friend Steve Forbes has come back to Cambodia to help wiL and me out with the start of concrete construction. Steve was the first EWB representative to visit the site and has continued to stay involved with the project by providing advice and much needed reality checks throughout the design process.

Embankment Excavation

Excavation of the existing embankment for the watergate began about one week ago. Much progress has been made since. The crest elevation is currently at ~6.4m, and excavation will continue down to ~2.0m. As shown above, the watertable is at ~3.4m, thus, dewatering will need to be performed to have a dry working area.

the ride home

A long day in the field is often complimented with a picturesque sun setting over the rice fields, accompanying the ride back home.

CPAC Ready Mix

l to r: scared wiL, content chai, happy bryse

Bryse, Chai, and I paid a visit to the concrete mixing plant (CPAC) in Siem Reap (there’s only one plant in this town) to see what facilities were available. Their testing room was quite impressive, they had three compression machines; one for low range testing (such as smaller concrete samples, or compacted soil samples), a high range 350kips machine for the standard 6"x12" cylinders, and a small scale two point loading machine to test unreinforced beams.

Perhaps by saying impressive, I really mean to say I’ve wrongfully assumed such a facility would not have been available here in Siem Reap, or at least would not have been fully equipped with comparable standardized machinery. But I stand corrected, and once again, am proven wrong for underestimating what this town can provide. During the prime stages of the project, we’ve considered perhaps sending samples to Phnom Penh, or teaming with local engineering universities, to provide for concrete sample testing. But the solution was right around the bend, only 5km away, in this CPAC mixing plant.

Moving Met Sin

Met Sin, shown above, has been living on or close to the Trau Kod embankment for his entire life. Unfortunately, it was not safe for Met Sin and his wife to stay in their current location. It would be unsafe for them to stay during the embankment repair operations and later to be living and farming on the embankment.

Human Translation had been working with the District Government, the local community, and the Met Sin to resolve this issue. The District Government obtained a letter with Met Sin's thumb print stating that he agreed to move, the local Village Chiefs agreed to collect rice from the villagers benefiting from this project to donate as compensation, and HT has continued to communicate with him to make sure he understood our plan and he felt he was being treated fair.

Once we all agreed upon a moving date we built a new platform out of soil using our excavator, dump truck and bulldozer then used our local laborers to dismantle, move and rebuild his house. It has been a long process and frustrating at times but it HT has been patient and plans to continue communication with Met Sin throughout construction and in the future.

ECOSORN Meeting

Tobias, Will and I met with Ab Koster of the ECOSORN Project yesterday. Ab has been working here in Cambodia for over ten years on civil infrastructure projects and we affectionately refer to him as "The James Bond of Cambodian infrastructure" because of his cool European style and composure. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss some of our ideas for the Water User Group (WUG) with someone that has had a lot of experience. Although the discussion was pretty overwhelming, it was extremely valuable to hear some of Ab's ideas for creating a WUG such as:
1. Use an existing community system rather than trying to create a new one
2. Work with strong local leaders that you trust
3. Try to avoid involving cash transactions
4. Keep it simple

Soil Moisture Content

It took about a week and a half to prepare the site for construction but the embankment repair work has resumed. This photo is of our compactor with the sheepsfoot roller towed behind. Our design specifies a soil type and tight range for moisture content for the new fill material. However, with the rainy season just ending the water table elevation is still very high and we are still getting rained on a few times a week so obtaining the correct moisture content has been difficult. But Narith has been able to stay ahead of construction by excavating and spreading the soil to dry before it is compacted.

Balang Commune Rice Yield

One of our goals is to measure the impact of our project over the next few years. We hope that this project will provide many indirect benefits to the community but the main direct benefit we are working towards is an increase in the rice crop yield. It took a few weeks but the Prasat Bakakong District government was able to provide us with the Balang Commune rice yields for the past few years. As you can see from the graph above, the rice yield for Balang is below average for Cambodia and Cambodia is quite a bit below average for Asia.

Surveying the River Bed

Brian, a new friend to the project, was brave enough to volunteer to be the rod man on the day we had to survey the river bed for the group back in New York. He told us he wasn't worried about leach bites but we were all glad to see he didn't have any friends attached when he got out of the river.


In additional to helping EWB obtain some valuable data Brian was also afternoon entertainment for some of the local villagers.

Site Logistics

The Cambodian dry season is only five months long, from about November to March. So we decided to begin construction November 1st to give ourselves the longest time possible in case of delays or other issues. However, the river flow is still at its highest right now so we had to come up with a solution for crossing the river with our heavy construction equipment. Narith proposed installing a concrete culvert as a temporary river crossing.


It took about two and a half days to set the culverts, place the soil on top and divert the stream but our new path across the river works very well and the equipment has had no problems crossing.

JETS

Shannon Flanagan and Christina Ho of the EWB New York Chapter have been working very hard to create an Educational Outreach arm for the chapter. One of their recent initiatives was to collaborate with the Junior Engineering Technical Society or JETS to create lesson plans based on an EWB Project and they were nice enough to use the Cambodia project for their first project! They did a pretty amazing job and it's really interesting to check out the lesson plans.

Community Meeting

We had a community meeting at Trau Kod with HRND and some of the commune and village leaders last weekend. Human Translation and HRND wanted to let the community know that we are starting construction and we intend to finish before the next rainy season.


There are still quite a few community issues such as the Water User Group, land merchants from Siem Reap purchasing land within the reservoir basin and a farmer still living on the embankment so we also tried to let everyone know that this is a community project and we are only here to help facilitate resolutions to the issues. We are not here to make decisions for the community. The general tone of the meeting seemed positive although 99% of it was spoken in Khmer so it was tough to tell. For the most part, Tobias and I just tried to look interested and then laugh when it appeared a funny joke had been told.

Construction Has Begun!

The equipment finally made it to the site and the embankment repair work has begun! The bulldozer will be working on vegetation clearing and erosion damage removal for the next few days but next week we will begin placing and compacting soil.


This is a photo of the site office being constructed. Work will be taking place from 7:00am to 5:00pm, 7 days a week so we are going to try and make things a bit more comfortable.

The Road to Trau Kod

Last Thursday we began moving the equipment to Trau Kod. It takes a little over an hour to get to the site from Siem Reap and that is due, in large part, to the last 5km of dirt road through Kroper Village. So our plan was to unload the equipment from their tailors and repair the road as we went so the concrete trucks will have an easier time traveling to the site. The majority of the repair work was just filling holes and moving vegetation that has encroached on the road. However, there was one wood bridge that was completely unsuitable for heaving equipment.


So Narith directed the equipment operators to demolish the wood bridge, back fill soil into the river, dig a trench, and install a concrete culvert.


The photograph above is of the audience that came to watch the bridge demolition and culvert installation. It was quite an operation but the villagers seemed very excited about the improvement to their road.

Villager Construction Taining

Last week I attended one of Narith's construction training sessions. Narith has been providing construction training to members of all of the Balang commune villages interested in working on the Trau Kod project since the beginning of the rainy season. The session was held in a small building next to the Balang Police Station where we met with the Commune Chief and the Prom Kod Chief, the man that hosted us when we stayed over night in village on our last trip.


The villagers in attendance that day were "group leaders" or foremen that will be in charge of small groups. Narith's sessions have reviewed the project scope, the project location, construction safety, construction techniques, etc. Most have had experience working as carpenters and masons in Siem Reap and seemed rather bored with Narith's lesson but the benefits of these sessions will probably be very valuable for the group and for the project when we start construction tomorrow.

they came, they saw, ....they supported

picassa photos
thanks to Maria and Linda for their tremendous efforts in organizing the bar night fundraiser event. friends and colleagues came and supported, helping raise over $1100! with a match from the PB Foundation, that brings us to over $2200! linda and maria

thank you all for your support!

Back to Trau Kod

After traveling for what felt like a week, I finally was able to go back to the site Thursday morning with Chai and Narith. We spent almost every day at Trau Kod on our last trip but seeing the size of the embankment and future reservoir basin again still amazed me. I also saw my first leach in the O Ta Bet river which was kind of terrifying.

The plan is start moving the heavy equipment back to the site next week, begin the embankment repair the following week then the water gate in about a month. There is a lot of work to be done but I think everyone is excited to begin.

bar night: the return

Last year, around this time, we held our first bar night fundraising event. The event was both fun and successful, as many of our friends and colleagues helped us raise about $1600, and with a generous match from the PB Foundation, that totaled $3200! It was a great kickoff event for the project! Join us, nearly 1-1/2 years later, to celebrate and learn of the progress we've made.

Location:
Underground, 613 2nd Ave (btw 33rd & 34th)

When:
Thursday, Oct-25-2007

Suggested Donation:
$10 Students/$15 Everyone Else
(INCLUDES 1 FREE DRINK)

Spread the word!

Heading Back

Today is my last day in New York! I'm heading back to Siem Reap for a few months to help start up construction. In the past couple of weeks I've been spending a lot of time with friends, eating a lot of pizza and trying to enjoy the city before leaving. It's certainly exciting to be going back and it's really excited that we are getting so close to construction but I'm going to miss New York.

topo

Every little information helps. One can quickly see how impossible it is to survey every square inch of a 160 acre open field (not to mention, the danger of potential landmines). But after compiling all of the any little surveying that has been done, the hydro team was able to produce a projected topography map using AutoCadd. Ryan spent the weekend shading in the proposed embankment location (solid orange), the estimated water elevation (light blue shade), and the elevation during a 100 year storm (blue hatch).