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On Thursday we completed a water regeneration project at Anurapura. We had been told by locals that a severe mosquito problem was developing behind their village. There are a series of pits that had been dug there for limestone. They had subsequently filled with water. The locals had also added fish to ensure that the mosquitoes were kept under control. However the Tsunami had destroyed all the vegetation and salinated the pools with the result that several of them had become dead water - with all the fish dead too and covered with mosquito larvae. To solve the problem we had a team of people clean all the rubbish and dead vegetation from the pools. We then cut channels between the pools connecting the healthy pools and the dead pools into a continuous network. By pumping water out of one pool into the last pool we managed to get a flow of water through al the pools and the also aerated the pumped water. The system worked and when we added fish to the dead pools they swam happily. The mosquito problem is now under control for these people, which considering they are mostly sleeping in tents now, is a good thing and ought to make their lives easier.

Many thanks to Mike Bourke at Chistchurch City Council for providing invaluable advice and ideas on how to solve this problem.

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