Working in Nicaragua - Chureca

In my second week in Nicaragua we spent 5 days installing piezometers and sampling at Chureca, Managua's city garbage dump. Apparently the dump was started in its current location after the earthquake that decimated Managua in 1972; they needed a large area, close by for all the building debris, and the large vacant area adjacent to the lake was selected. But, I think it has continued as the dump for all the city waste since then and now is very large and slumping into the lake.  The garbage is about 20 m high.

This is not a landfill, it is a dump: there is no lining, no leachate collection, no control on what comes in, and no planning on where different materials are placed. In the image below, the large grey area along the top is Lake Managua, the dump is visible just south, with a long road running through it.

The green areas between the dump and Lake Managua are areas where vegetation is growing on older portions of the dump; the garbage extends right to the edge of the lake. When the lake level is high, it is above the bottom of the garbage.

Life in the dump

There is a village in the dump.

People work in the garbage and live immediately adjacent, or on top, of the garbage. Each truck that comes in to the dump has a handful on adults and children inside it, digging through for the best stuff, before it even gets dumped.

 

One thing that struck me about the houses was that even in a village in a dump, there are those that are better off, and those that aren't.  Some house have fences, more permanent walls made of scrap sheet metal, some are even painted.  Others have plastic sheeting roofs and cardboard walls.

(film crew was with us, documenting the Chureca and the work being done there for Spanish TV)

And animals - everything you could imagine lives and grazes here - cows, horses, goats, cats, dogs, I'm sure rats, and vultures.

Even still, there were some beautiful areas, if you could ignore the smell and forget what was behind you.

Field Work
 
For the people who read this that have an environmental background, I wanted to capture some of the differences in field work here compared to what we are used to. One of the big differences from consulting is that here people time is pretty much the cheapest item, I think.  We had 10 people in the field (6 labours to dig holes) and only one waterra valve: there was a lot of standing around and I had to turn off my project management thoughts.
 
Drilling methods - for shallow wells anyway - and drill cutting (note the shoe)

 

Piezometer construction and filter socks - or filter panyhose

 

Vegetation clearing - and protection

 

Driven piezometers in the lake bed

   

Crazy labours (note the hat, he forgot his that day) and film crews. I have a starring role as sample carrier, preserver and field measurement tech.