A part of Engineers Without Borders, they create a filtering system for village

[SHANEA]

Rice students helping clear the water in Mexico

Oct. 11, 2007, 12:54AM
Rice students helping clear the water in Mexico
A part of Engineers Without Borders, they create a filtering system for village

By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
After about four years and a dozen road trips, a group of Rice University students is poised to finish a project to bring cleaner water to a Mexican village about 30 miles south of Big Bend National Park.

"I was there in the beginning," said Candace Marbury, a 22-year-old senior mechanical engineering major and San Antonio native, "and I want to see it through. I made a commitment to these people."

Marbury is a member of the university's chapter of Engineers Without Borders, a nonprofit devoted to improving the lives of people in developing countries through infrastructure projects.

The students designed, built and installed a water system in Piedritas, a rural desert town of about 100 people that relies on a well for water. They've driven to the village several times a year to work on the project.

Holiday plans
During semester break next January, they expect to drive there to install water filters, the project's last piece.

Like Marbury, some are seniors who started the project as freshman and are eager to complete it.

"It's very rewarding to help people out with something like this," said Sean McCudden, 21, a senior chemical engineering student from Boulder, Colo.

The Rice chapter, founded in 2003, has about 70 members, divided into four teams. In addition to the Mexico project, the chapter is working on a water system in an El Salvadoran village, a footbridge over a ravine in a hamlet in Nicaragua and a health clinic in another Nicaraguan town.

"You usually don't get a lot of hands-on experience in college," said Claire Krebs, chapter secretary and treasurer. "So with this you get an opportunity to build and see the principles you learn about."

The projects teach students to adjust their plans to the availability of building materials at the sites, as well to adapt to cultural concerns, said Brian Campbell Davis, president of the Central Houston Professional Partners chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

"The real benefit is the lesson you get in decision-making," Davis said. "There's always complications that arise, always modifications (to plans). It's an exercise in learning agility."

The Rice chapter's Piedritas project entailed a water quality analysis in addition to the design and installation of a freshwater distribution and purification system for the village's nearly 40 homes.

They installed a solar-powered pump in the village's well, laid PVC water pipes and installed faucets with hoses to supply water to houses.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, about a dozen students, including Marbury and McCudden, mixed cement in a concrete lab at Rice University and packed it in a mold to build a test water filter for the project.

Helping and teaching
The 3-foot-tall square filters will be partially filled with sand and gravel. A perforated fiberglass plate will be placed inside close to the top. Residents will pour water into the filter and it will be cleaned as it percolates through the stones and sand.

Bacteria-eating microbes will develop on the water's surface just below the plate and will help clean the water as well.

The students will install a few of the filters, which they'll build at the village while teaching residents how to build and install the rest.

"We haven't finished," Marbury said. "We have to wrap things up."

dale.lezon@chron.com