Niono, Mali, West Africa

See the video (Feb 2009):

The Collector of Niono, Mali (ENGLISH VERSION) from Loïc de Lame on Vimeo.

Le Collecteur de Niono, Mali (VERSION FRANÇAISE)

This video shows the problem the city of Niono, Mali has with its rain collector. At this stage of the project, the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Rocky Mountain Professionals and Chicagoland chapters went to Niono to do a topological survey and collect data in order to be able to gauge and design as sustainable, long term solution.

Niono's collector pond is a noxious mix of excess water, garbage and human waste.

The Problem

The town of Niono is in dire need of a sanitation management system. A naturally created gully runs through the center of town and becomes entirely saturated/inundated during the rainy season.  For many years, a pumping mechanism emptied and distributed the water from the collector.  In 1998, the pump broke.  Now, the collector is a noxious mix of excess water, town garbage, household runoff, and human waste.  All of this exists right in the center of town.  The result is not just an eyesore, it is also the perfect breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.  Malaria is the most prevalent disease in Niono.  It is EWB's hope that addressing the standing noxious water problem will result in a healthier community with a reduced malaria rate. 

Niono Reborn - Artist Michael Eade

The Solid Waste Management Project

The collector needs to be cleaned out and the areas surrounding the collector need a waste management program to prevent this problem from occurring again. Once this clean-up is complete, the NGO ALPHALOG is willing to transfer these clean-up and solid waste management practices to the community.

The Niono Storm Water Management Rehabilitation Project

Niono also needs a system for handling storm water runoff in order to prevent stagnant water from pooling in the town

EWB-RMP goal is to develop a sustainable and complete overhaul approach to Niono's storm water management system.  The project design will ensure that there will be little to no negative impacts on the surface water and shallow groundwater water balance from performing project tasks.

• The first step will be to perform a site investigation and assessment, including collection of existing hypsography and hydrographic data within the town limits of Niono and performing a thorough research of available data. Until more data is collected, there is not one clear solution to this problem. It may be best to replace the pump and create canals to bring all rain water to the collector. Another possible solution is to divert all the rain water (assuming it was clean) into the canals, or have some sort of rain water harvesting program implemented. Other possible solutions may include galvanizing the collector and its feeding “gutter” to prevent further erosion; fixing the pump so that excess water is pumped out into the outlying grass marshes so that it can evaporate; grading and building retaining walls so that water in the collector and the “gutter” do not enter the town’s canals and drinking water systems, or the possible redesign of the entire runoff drainage system in the town.

The project team will have to work with the community of Niono to develop a feasible and appropriate solution.

The trash filled rainwater collector

The rain collector during the rainy season.

Further Details about Niono

Safe drinking water in the town comes from deep-drilled Saudi pumps; however wells in family concessions have a very high water table and are easily contaminated. The canals are about 8 feet wide and 8 feet deep; they have a slow current flow. Sewers line each street in the town and run by gravity into ditch drains that flow into the collector. Thus, the collector and its feeding “gutter”, (which runs through the center of the town), formed naturally over the years during heavy rains.

In recent years the collector has become so large that it is infiltrating the canal system, which is fed by a dam in the Niger River, 80 kilometers south in Markala. The terrain is flat, and Niono sits in a low and level area which was an ancient tributary of the Niger, which allows the water from the dam to flow north toward Niono and beyond.

The broken collector pump

The project is necessary because the current sanitation situation in Niono is very dangerous to the health of the community. The canal water is clean and supports fish from Markala to the outskirts of Niono, but due to infiltration from the stagnant collector water, in the center of Niono the water is filthy. In the canals people wash clothes with toxic soaps, and bathe. Further, throughout the year the collector has become a dumping area for household waste, which in the dry season is unsightly. However, in the rainy season, the overflowing sewers that run into the collector create a lethal combination of garbage, sewage, and dead animal carcasses, posing serious serious health risks from infection, transmittable diseases, viruses, parasites, poisoning, schistomasis, and due to the standing water, furthering the spread of malaria, the most prevalent disease in Niono. Cholera has been a problem as well at times.

Niono has electricity, and large machinery can be obtained for grading and hauling of materials. Local building materials such as cement, rebar, and tole metal for roofing can all be found in Niono, and ordered from Segou and Bamako.

Although most houses are made of mud bricks, many in Niono are mud brick covered with cement, and the more affluent citizens have cement houses, made with cement, cement blocks, and rebar.

Project status:

In February 2008, some of the group travelled to Niono, Mali to view the situation and make connections with people and groups who will be helping us.

Here are the Meetings we attended:
Mayor of Niono, M. Fomba,
Regional Governor of the region of Segou, M. Keita ,
Niono head of The Office du Niger M. Diarra
Head of The Office du Niger (Segou) Idrissa Traoré,
Niono Chief of Police, M. Fomba,
The United States Ambassador to Mali, Terence P. McCulley,
Peace Corps Country Director for Mali, Kateri Clement <kclement@ml.peacecorps.gov>
Peace Corps Doctor, Dawn Camara,
Millennium Challenge Corporation personnel, Amadou Camara <camaraa@mcc.gov> and Deputy Resident Country Director Gautam Ramnath <ramnathg@mcc.gov>,
ALPHALOG NGO representatives: Souleyman (“Solo”) Traore (Head of the Niono Office), Koniba Diabate (Chief of Sanitation & the Environment, Niono), Mamoudou Traore (Accountant, Niono), Adama Oulale (Head of the Segou Office), ...
The head of CERF,
Rotary Club of Bamako Members, Doudou Sacko, Daniel Assy, and
Doctors and staff of the Niono Hospital, including The Chief of Medicine: Dr. Oumar Sangho

Facts we gathered during the trip:

The city officials turned on the pump, which worked for ~10 seconds, then stopped and reversed flow for ~20 seconds and then the power failed.

The collector is filled with plastic bags, paper trash, human waste. Never witnessed anyone dumping into the collector. The collector runs through the entire town.

Precipitation data:
In year 2006, 34 rainy (non consecutive) days produced 380 mm of rain;
In year 2007, 19 rainy (non consecutive) days produced 473 mm of rain;
In 2007 1 single storm produced 117 mm of rain in Niono and 129 mm of rain at the start of the collector causing flooding and collapsing several houses including one that killed a pregnant woman and her five children.

Niono was founded in the year 1937.

The French designers planned to use the area where the town now resides as rice fields. They had planned the residents to live in other villages on higher ground. The town let people live in these areas, but they don't own their homes. The Office du Niger owns the land and lets the villagers live on it. This didn't encourage residents to make improvements on their property. Recently people who have lived in town for a while can buy their homes.

The area North of town for 80 KM will be part of the MCC Alatoona road project.

1995 census showed population 54,000; 26868 men and 27383 female
8920 families and 4840 dwellings

Ethnic Tribes/Groups in the area (virtually everyone in the Niono region grows rice):
Bambara - Traders, grow rice and millet
Bobo - Grow Cotton
Bozo – Fishermen
Tuareg/Tamachek – traditionally Sahara Nomads
Bella - traditionally nomadic slaves of the Tuareg/Tamachek
Fulani/Peulh - cattle herders/the women sell milk
Dogon - Cliff Dwellers, grow onions in Dogon country
Senufo - Farmers

For water the people of Niono do the following:
- For Drinking: From 40-60 meter wells (some drilled by the Saudi government)
- For bathing/washing dishes/cooking: either in the canals or in shallow wells
- For irrigating crops: the canals
- For watering animals: the canals

The food people eat:
- Rice (lots of rice nearby)
- Millet
- Potatoes
- Cabbage
- Peanuts
- Tomatoes
- Plantains
- Fish (Capitaine, Perch, Catfish)
- Goat
- Lamb
- Beef
- Chicken

People generally have enough food to eat. Some of the nomads and remote villages went hungry during the famines a few years ago, but in Niono, rice and food are easier to come by.

Most people generally don't eat pork or drink alcohol (due to Muslim food laws).

All women breast feed their babies (as far as we could tell).

Toilets were as follows:
5% Flush Toilets
80% Pit latrines
10% Composting latrines
5% use fields

There are very few trash cans. Only 20% of the people use the trash collection service that exists. The trash is collected by donkey carts and placed in trash transfer stations. Eventually it will be taken to the main landfill when that is completed (soon they say).
There are two trash transfer stations and one large dump. Trash collection is 750 CFA/month.

Most people get around town by walking, bicycle, donkey carts, motor scooters, some cars.

Households have access to these things:
90% - Radio
30% - TV
75% - Cell phones
30% - Newspaper (more have access, but most are illiterate)
60% - Mopeds/scooters
5% - Tractors/mini tractors
80% - Donkey carts
10% - Car/Truck
80% - Some vehicle

Buses to other cities are available on a daily basis, but intermittent (buses leave when they are full).

City electrical power is intermittent and fails very often
There are very few land line telephones, but many cell phones
There are many pumps that provide drinking water from deep wells (these charge the people 10 CFA [1/4 Cent US Dollar) per 10 Gal can.

The Dutch built a bunch of houses on high land that is now used for conferences and can be rented. The area is called the CEFE. They have 100 beds, 6 beds per house. They charge 30,000 CFA/person/month, 5,200 CFA/person/night/house (includes electricity), 400,000 CFA/month/house with cook/handyman/gardener/cleaner (food/elec. is extra). Electricity is 100,000 CFA/month, water is free, there is a generator for backup (lights only, no AC)

ALPHALOG is building 5000 latrines a year.

The Office du Niger can dig canals or plow areas with their equipment and employees. They charge as follows:
To push the dirt (dozer?) = 350 CFA/meter^2
To dig and build canal with dike (backhoe) = 2500 CFA/meter^2

Volunteers should drink bottled water (available in town), or from the 60m Saudi wells.

We got a report from ALPHALOG about water quality.

We learned about the MCC's Alatona Irrigation Project ($260 million)
Here is the info from the website:
The Alatoona irrigation project is focused on increasing production and productivity, improving land tenure security, modernizing irrigated production systems and mitigating the uncertainty from subsistence rain-fed agriculture, thereby increasing farmers' incomes. It seeks to develop 16,000 hectares of newly irrigated lands, representing an almost 20% increase of "drought-proof" agriculture in the Office du Niger area. The Alatona irrigation project will introduce innovative agricultural, land tenure, credit and water management practices, as well as policy and organizational reforms aimed at realizing the Office du Niger's potential to serve as an engine of rural growth for Mali.

Here is a list of all the web sites I've accessed for Mali info:
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Tappan Heher - The Pump That Failed
Peace Corp Mali:
United States Embassy - Mali
Millennium Challenge Corporation - Mali
Millennium Challenge Account - Mali
USAID - Mali
US (CDC) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Institute of Health (NIH)
US African Development Foundation (ADF)
The Great Mosque of Niono
African People and Culture - Tribes
Agricultural Water Management Abstract
Wikipedia - Niono
Oxford Journal of Tropical Pediatrics - Management of Malnutrition in Rural Mali
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene - Vector Abundance and Malaria Transmission in Rice-growing Villages in Mali
Swiss Tropical Institute - Malaria transmission dynamics in Niono, Mali: The effect of the irrigation systems