Fresh Water for the Thirsty
Diocesan Press Service. January 8, 1965 [XXVIII-6]
Fresh water for the thirsty -- this is one way in which Church World Service helps people throughout the world.
On the island of Symi, Dodecanese, located in the Aegean Sea, the Church World Service has donated the money to build a Solar Energy Distillation Plant.
This plant demonstrates how small dry islands and costal communities can solve their chronic water shortage problem. The process of solar distillation takes place in long shallow "bays", overlaid with sheets of rubber to hold the sea water and lined with a heat retaining material. Sea water is pumped into these bays which are covered with an air supported, specially treated plastic film. This film "traps" the sun's heat beneath the film and causes the sea water to become scalding hot and begin evaporating. The steam rises to the underside of the plastic where it condenses and runs off into side gutters, from which it flows to a collection point where it is elevated to the municipal reservoir.
This particular plant's collection is augmented in two ways. At night and during the winter, when the temperature drops, "waste" heat from Symi's diesel electric power plant is used. During the few winter months of rain, the large surface area of the solar still serves as a catchment for the rainwater. Thus the daily output remains fairly stable.
The money for the project was donated through Church World Service by an American friend of Greece who has long been interested in the water shortage problem of the Greek islands as well as other similar islands around the world.