Obituary: Dr. Otto Langenegger – Kloss (22 April 1938 — 19 February 2023)

I am sorry to inform you of the passing of Dr. Otto Langenegger, who peacefully left us on 19 February, 2023 surrounded by his family, aged 84. 

Dr Langenegger was the pioneer of rapid handpump corrosion. His seminal publications in 1989 and 1994 set the foundation for all that followed in trying to understand and address this phenomenon.

In his eulogy, he was poignantly referred to as a “nomad around water”. He grew up, in humble surroundings, close to Lake Constance in eastern Switzerland, the youngest of six siblings. 

His thirst for discovering and learning could not be quenched by his apprenticeship as a radio technician in Winterthur. He was a through-and-through scientist and researcher, moving between subjects throughout his life, and building on the learning from one area as he branched into another. Together with his wife Dorothea, he moved to work in Canada for several years, from where he was able to, amongst other experiences, be part of an expedition to the Arctic, an exposure that he relished for the rest of his life. 

Dr. Langenegger and his wife, with their two sons Urs and Thomas, moved back to Switzerland, and he completed his first PhD at the University of Bern in 1973. But he was soon on the move again, this time to Ethiopia, where he worked as a Hydrogeologist with the Christoffel Mission. He was fascinated by the people and culture, and was saddened to have to leave in 1976 due to the difficult political situation at the time.

Dr. Langenegger was not long back in Switzerland, before heading off to Africa in 1981, initially to Ghana, where he worked for the World Bank on the pioneering water well drilling and handpump installation project of its time in West Africa. This position, and the subsequent assignment based out of Abidjan, took him to Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Niger.

As a keen observer and compassionate man, Dr Langenegger was both intrigued and appalled by the ‘red water’ problem, coupled with corroding and failing handpumps that he observed in many parts of West Africa during his field work. And so, he set out to understand the causes. Initially using his own allowances to test water quality, he diligently researched this issue. One of his colleagues from the time told me that he stayed in the cheaper hotel in Kumasi – saving money for testing, and filling the bathtub with his tests. He also had his wife, Dorothea, cook plantain with different concentrations of iron-rich water from the rapidly corroding handpumps to see what happened to them. They changed colour.

Anyone working on handpump corrosion is familiar with Otto Langenegger’s seminal publications (1989 and 1994), which have provided the foundation for all that has followed on this topic. His second PhD was in fact on Handpump Corrosion. 

After returning to Switzerland in 1989, Dr. Langenegger set up his private consultancy practice, working out of his home in Gais, Appenzell. Overlooked by snow-capped Alpstein mountains, his interest in water found an outlet in learning about the blue coloured snow, high on the slopes. And so once again, this through-and-through researcher set about observing, measuring and interpreting. I would say that Dr. Langenegger’s, keen interest and thirst for knowledge in relation to water was insatiable. 

It was 2019 that Dr. Langenegger, who would soon to be known to me by the informal address simply as Otto, contacted me. He had found my own report on Rapid handpump corrosion in Burkina Faso and beyond and wanted to know more. Otto was both disgusted that the corrosion problem had not been fully addressed (after more than 30 years), but was also pleased that it was at least being looked at again. Unbeknown to me previously, he lived just a few stops along the train line from St. Gallen where I am based! 

Otto had been out of touch with the water supply world in Africa for a long time, but had, now and then, searched for what may have followed on from his work on handpump corrosion. And so he was aware of the presentation entitled  ‘New signs of an old Problem’ at the WaTer Conference in Oklahoma in 2015 by Vincent Casey, Lawrence Brown and Jake Carpenter.

Over the last two and a half years that Otto and I were able to share, he followed all of the ongoing efforts and work to address rapid handpump corrosion – the issue which he has pioneered in the 1980s. He was delighted to be able to talk about the subject, and, researcher that he was, always asked such pertinent questions and put forward ideas. 

Throughout his long illness, and even as he grew weak towards the end of his magnificent life, he always wanted to hear the latest news. His delight to hear that the corroding handpumps in Ghana had been replaced in the 1990s is something that will always remain with me. “It was not all for nothing” he remarked, fist in the air, referring to his efforts over 30 years ago.

Dr. Otto Langenegger will be much missed. May he Rest in Peace.

He leaves behind a large family: 

Urs and Marika Langenegger-Bohse with their children Tabea, Dominik and Eliane.

Thomas and Anita Langenegger Vogel, with their children Samuel, Jonas, Elias, Rahel and Salome.

His sister, Rosa Massey-Langenegger.