June 2011 12Stone Water’s Edge Liberian Mission Trip

STS Compound Property Thoughts

BACK TO THE TRIP JOURNAL 

Here’s some photos of the STS property in Congo Town along with some comments and thoughts.

Electricity and Water. First, electrical lines have been run down as far as the Chinese Embassy which gives me hope that we might soon have access to municipal electricity. This would be much cheaper than using a generator (although we would likely need one as a backup). Municipal water lines have also been brought close to the compound. So, again, we have hope for a less expensive potable water solution than digging a well.

Completion of the fence allowing security of the compound. There remains the removal of the large, volcanic rock at the front of the property in order to allow the fence to be completed and the compound secured. Robert and I had some discussions regarding how to best accomplish this. I guess there are 3 options, 2 of which are more viable (and more lengthy) than the third.

1. We could hire people to remove and break up the rock giving us the resulting gravel which can be used for our personal construction needs on the property. This seems to be the most financially attractive. We need to put in a concrete drive for the trucks to use for container unloading so there is an immediate need for aggregate. Of course it also means we have to put out upfront cash. I’m not sure how quickly this can be done since it involves burning tires against the rock to heat it and then breaking it into smaller rocks with hammers and it’s the rainy season.

2. We could “give” the rock to people who would then remove the rock at no cost to us but also would keep the resulting gravel meaning that we would be forced to purchase gravel for aggregate when we begin to build. There is some merit in this as it allows us to get the rock out and complete the security fence without additional cash expenditures. Again, I’m not sure how quickly this can be done during the rainy season.

3. We could hire heavy equipment contractors to come in and break up and remove the rock. I think there are now some large pieces of equipment (track hoes) in the area but am not sure what the cost would be to bring them in. I’ll try to find that out.

Regardless of the choice we make, we cannot secure and begin using the compound without completing this task. So it is dead center on the critical path right now.

You can see the large rocks in the center of the picture. They are massive and the fence, for security purposes, is meaningless without their removal.

The footer walls are in place and all the wire poles secured except for where the aforementioned rocks are preventing completion.

We need wire for the fence itself and the razor wire that provides the security in the “Y” shaped structures on top of the poles. Ultimately we need to send some quality chain link fence from the U.S. rather than the lower quality fencing available here which the salt air would soon corrode.

Drainage. In the above photograph and the ones below, you will see that the main drainage problem has been addressed. The large amount of water that comes onto the front of our property from our neighbor is now routed through concrete ditches and flow underneath the frontage road and into the ocean. Although we don’t have a good picture showing it, we will need to expand the covert under our driveway to allow a widening of the drive to allow large trucks to back the containers into the dock area.

This is a repeat of the picture above with more detail. It shows the entire length from the waterway under the neighbor’s drive to the drainage area that goes underneath the roadway and into the ocean.

A little more detail on where the water comes from. There area where the dirt, rocks and trash is shown (lower right of the photo) was hauled in to fill the ditch that previously existed. Once we cover it with a layer of dirt and plant grass it should look much better.

This is the area where the water makes a turn and goes underneath the roadway to the ocean. The small opening at the top of the picture is where the culvert running underneath our driveway comes into the drainage ditch.

Here’s another view of the end of the drainage area going into the pipe that runs underneath the roadway. During the heaviest part of the rainy season it is necessary to move a lot of water from our property.

Because, as shown below, we closed off the entire back side of the property, there is nowhere for the water coming down from the land behind us to go. So the wall was opened up in places by placing drainage pipes through it. Thus we are still carrying a lot of water from the property behind us (uphill from us) to the roadway below. There’s really no way to not bring this water through our property. So we still have to determine how we will direct this water to prevent it from eroding the lot or undermining the wall’s foundation. While this does have to be addressed, it is not of immediate concern. The water from the neighbor’s property on the side was the big issue.

This picture shows the entire back of the property being blocked by our fence. Since we also tied into the neighbor’s fence this has created a significant length of wall which does not allow water a way to the ocean. So we put in pass through drains to alleviate this problem.

Concrete Driveway.

As you can see from the picture below, the current area from the roadway to the dock is earth with a little grass/weed base. The picture doesn’t show it but further out toward the road it is lower and muddy. There’s no way that a tractor-trailer could utilize this dock during the rainy season. We knew that when we built this. But now it’s time to put in a concrete drive. This would require some aggregate which ties back into the earlier rock removal conversation.

I don’t know what a concrete drive like this will cost but will try to get estimates before we leave.

The sand in the foreground and the concrete blocks being made in the background are for the lady that currently lives in the house on the rear of our property. It was something that Robert worked out with her. I’m not sure what she will use them for.

Dock and Container Area.

Robert and Jerry have been able to set the containers along the dock as we discussed last year. The rear of the containers are on piers while the front of the containers rest on the dock area. As some of the pictures will show, the containers are in the general position that they need to be in but we will have to shift them around some to get them perfectly aligned and leveled in 2 plains. I think that we can do this with 20 ton bottle jacks and heavy duty come-alongs but need to think through the process.

Looking at the front of the dock, there are 2 containers facing us. These are shifted to the right of the dock because there is a ramp at the left rear of the dock to allow cars and trucks to be unloaded and brought down to the roadway. On the right side of the dock are 3 containers. All 5 of these containers would be used for secure storage, unloading and sorting of materials, etc. The plan is to get the containers into perfect alignment, bolt them together at the top and bottom of all corners, and cut out the interior walls between them giving us two large, open areas. One would be 16x40 feet while the other would be 24x40 feet. These are all high cube containers so the height is 9 feet 6 inches.

My plan is to put another level of containers on top and use them for lodging/offices. We would have to make sure our foundations are strong enough. We would also like to put a roof over them both for protection of the containers and to reduce the direct sunlight heating them up. This roof would extend, at a high level, over the dock area so that we can still use a forklift but can unload during the rainy season without the contents being drenched.

There would also be an extension of roof off the right side containers which would provide a covered parking area for vehicles.

This particular configuration allows even further additions in the future.

We could close in the area underneath the containers and make storage.

You might have noticed from the other pictures that there is a problem with the alignment of the 2 rear containers. This is due to my poor measuring. The hill falling from the rear of the property is almost totally volcanic rock which is not easily removed. You notice the rear left container is higher than the rear right container. That’s because the one on the left is sitting on rock.

This shot gives you a better view of the problem. We will have to dig out enough rock from underneath the light blue container to drop it down at least a foot.

This shot shows how the corner container on the left is tilted forward. This will not work for the plans we have.

But I am excited to have the large dock area and to be moving closer to securing our compound and performing the container offloading here.