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By Anne Ju Cornell Engineering students help bring clean drinking water to rural Hondurans. Clean water is something many of us take for granted. But 18 Cornell students probably never will again. Mostly civil and environmental engineering majors, they are members of AguaClara, Spanish for "clear water," a Cornell student engineering team, and they are making a difference for thousands of people in Honduras who live without clean drinking water.
For the fifth time in as many years, Weber-Shirk accompanied a group of his students on a two-week trip into the heart of the Central American country during the end of winter break, Jan. 4–20. They toured existing municipal water systems, visited completed and ongoing AguaClara projects, and volunteered some design and construction help for a water plant in the city of Marcala. More than anything, Weber-Shirk stresses that he brings
"They’re getting all the context that includes not only the engineering, but all the other pieces that go into making this a successful project," Weber-Shirk says. Central to AguaClara’s efforts is a blossoming partnership with the Honduran nonprofit organization Agua Para el Pueblo, "water for the people." Founded in 1984, the local organization has technicians, engineers, and outreach coordinators who scout out potential sites for AguaClara plants and help the students make connections with the towns. They are in charge of getting the plants built; the students lend them technical support. During the students’ recent stay in Honduras, Agua Para el Pueblo personnel met with the students several times, accompanying them on day trips and listening as the students described the treatment technology they use for the plants and their ongoing research to improve the designs. Jacobo Nuñez, director of Agua Para el Pueblo, says he was happy about the relationship that’s growing between his organization and the Cornell students. "They have provided us with a new technology to improve the quality of water in many communities in Honduras," Nuñez says. Others who accompanied the students on this year’s trip were Weber-Shirk’s wife, Juanita Weber-Shirk, as well as Chris Bordlemay, manager of the water treatment plant that serves all of Cornell. Támara: A new chapter for Hondurans
A group of five students worked on the Támara plant design and three of them—Rebecca Thompson ’08 CE, Raúl Santiago, M.Eng. ’08 CE, and Kolby Hoover ’07 ME, M.Eng. ’08 SE,—came on the January trip. Other students in Weber-Shirk’s classes worked on technical designs and models, such as an automated design system for future plants. Construction on the Támara plant began while this year’s students were visiting Honduras. They attended a groundbreaking ceremony, along with local officials and Agua Para el Pueblo members, on the afternoon of Jan. 13.
Bringing clean water to Támara has been a challenge due to several factors, according to Arturo Díaz, an Agua Para el Pueblo leader. It is a growing area, in which the population has tripled since Hurricane Mitch struck in 1998. The municipality has struggled not only with water quality, but with having sufficient quantity to supply its expanding populace. Ojojona: Celebrating a handover
On Jan. 11, the students witnessed the symbolic changing of hands of that town’s water plant from Agua Para el Pueblo and Cornell engineers to Ojojona’s local water board. Designed by a previous generation of AguaClara students, that plant has been running since June 2007. Those students worked with Agua Para el Pueblo last year to help bring the plant from design stage to reality. This year’s students spent an afternoon at the Ojojona plant, meeting its operators and peering into the flocculation tanks and chemical feed systems that their predecessors had designed in class.
David Railsback ’08 CE, a civil engineering major who joined the AguaClara team in Honduras for the second time in two years, says he was "psyched" to see the Ojojona plant working. He also says it was important for this year’s students to see the plant, and that there’s still more work to do there—such as lowering the turbidity, or cloudiness, of the water. "There are things that can be improved, and things that could be placed differently," Railsback says. Marcala: Lending a hand
Fred Stottlemyer, a volunteer field coordinator for the association, is spearheading a treatment plant project along with the Honduran organization Agua y Desarrollo Comunitario, "Community Water and Development," that will serve about 70 percent of Marcala’s population. Some of Weber-Shirk’s students worked on the design for the Marcala plant last semester.
The plant is now under construction, and the students spent several days there, lending a hand cutting PVC pipe and doing engineering calculations. Tiffany McClaskey ’08 CE, one of the students who designed the Marcala plant, explained that her team had faced the challenge of designing treatment systems that had to fit the into the existing structure. "I had to design around it, which was what made it hard," she says. Touring the countryside
In Danli, they visited a water plant that had been donated by the Spanish government, as well as a slow-sand filter high on a mountain. Hondurans also invited the students into their homes so the students could look at personal-use water filters, made of clay or sand.
Though some of the chemical processes the AguaClara plants use are identical to those used in modern U.S. plants, the students face many design challenges of rural water systems. On of them is that electricity is often unavailable. The biggest issue, explained Weber-Shirk, is that the student-designed plants use
"We figure out ways to do it so that the water is dissipating the energy required to do the mixing we need," Weber-Shirk explained. "Except for one component, we do that, using supplies purchased in local hardware stores." One of AguaClara’s key supporters over the past few
The couple has also recruited friends to donate at least $55,000 to AguaClara efforts, according to Brown. Brown says AguaClara is a project he cares for deeply, and that he is very happy with the direction it’s going. He says he is pleased with the ability to not only help get water plants built for people who need them, but also for the educational value of giving engineering students real-world experience.
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