March, 2007 - Newsletter and Meeting Notice
Next General Chapter Meeting: Our next chapter will meeting will be Wednesday, March 14th at 7:00pm at Rice University in Room 253 of the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, which is Building 46 on the map. Agenda: 7:00 to 7:30 pm: Chapter Updates 7:45 to 8:30 pm: Breakout Sessions Bolivia El Salvador Pipeline UPCOMING EVENTS March 15th: Brian presenting on "Designing Across Cultures" at Rice University. March 28th: Oil Supply Professional Development Seminar CANCELLED. April 2nd: EWB-Central Houston giving Bovay Lecture at Texas A&M Univ. April 12th, 2007 EWB-USA International Conference at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. Register here. May: AnnMarie presents to Environmental Protection Agency in Atlanta. EWB-USA International Conference April 12 – 14, 2007, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, MA Our Conference theme, "Bringing Resources Together to Build Vital Communities," will focus on many new concepts, technologies and long range planning processes for strengthening worldwide collaborative efforts. We are scheduling a single track agenda that will allow every attendee to roll up their sleeves and work on strategies looking into the future of world rural development and future sustainability practices. What will be the roll for humanitarian organizations like ours to play in the year 2030? Will the Millennium Goals be enough? Are we confident that our future communities will be sustainable? This conference will take our own project experiences and lessons learned and place them into a pathway for the future. We would like to invite you to partner with us in building greater understanding of how this "sustainability revolution" becomes a vital part of our life's work. We'll have three exciting days to interact within major areas of Rural Development, Energy and Water. We'll focus our attention on combining public health issues with engineering solutions; linking to resources in world community service learning; and concentrating on ethnographic issues, economics, effective long term planning, education and implementation. There will be many opportunities for networking. Look into the collective display of project work that has escalated EWB-USA into one of the fastest growing humanitarian organizations in the United States. Within our Grand Exhibition Hall you will also find Corporations ready for discussions and interviews; Trade Associations and other Non Profit Groups ready to lend support; NGO's and other Vendors to showcase their products and services.  Please join me for our 5th Anniversary Celebration and a look into the future of Engineers Without Borders-USA. Sincerely, Cathy Leslie, EWB-USA Executive Director Grand Challenges for Engineering In this website sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering you can read about thoughts on the future of engineering from people like Norm Augustine, Ed Catmull, and Jimmy Carter, as well as everyday engineers like us.  It is interesting to note that the major challenges that face us are not so much technical in nature, but social, ethical, and political issues tied to engineering that confront us today. http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/7125.aspx	EL SALVADOR Retaining wall construction is almost complete!
	INDIA The SRPP Housing Reconstruction project team has been making much progress in completing the final architectural and structural design drawings for construction of the houses.  Details for the rainwater catchment design and the sanitation facilities design will be incorporated into these drawings as they are finalized.  The rainwater catchment system will collect water from flat concrete roofs as well as porch roofs made of bamboo material, and the water conveyance will rely on gutters and PVC pipes.  The sanitation facilities will include a washing (bathing area) and a water closet located adjacent to the main house rooms (with separate access), and the toilet will make use of manual flushing.  Design work on the Water Stations is ongoing, with presentation to the TAC planned for April.  The Water Stations will rely on solar power to pump groundwater for storage and daily use, and it will also include rainwater catchment for periods of intense rainfall.  Team members plan to start traveling to the project site in India beginning in April of 2007.  For more information on the India projects, please contact the project managers AnnMarie Spexet, PE (aspexet@gmail.com) or Guo-Pin Fuan, PE (gpfuan1@sbcglobal.net).
	BOLIVIA The Bolivia water project will drill a water well, install a pipeline, and build a water tank at the top of a hill to provide a safe and reliable source of water for the aproximately 3,000 residents of a poor neighborhood in the periphery of the city of Cochabamba.  An official project team was formed in January of 2007 with 4 members, two new members have volunteered in the last month.  A project application submitted to EWB-USA in December 2006 has been assigned to a review group and we are expecting approval shortly.  In the meantime a detailed project budget is in development in preparation for a Rotary Foundation grant application.  We received great news from two Houston-area Rotary clubs, Humble Intercontinental and West Houston, that their respective boards have decided to partner with us on this project and have committed funds.  A third Rotary club partner is in Bolivia, where the Cochabamba Norte club has committed funds to the project as well.  Our contact in Bolivia, Jaime Portugal, has been working tirelessly and has managed to obtain and email us detailed blueprints of the street and property layouts of the communities where the project is to be implemented.  This will allow us to verify a number of initial assumptions used for the project and provides the necessary information to place the water tank in an optimum location.  Preparation of the project budget is well underway with quotes received from the pump manufacturer and a quote requested from two drilling contractors.  The team is still in need of volunteers with experience in civil structures such as water pipelines and water tanks.  If you can volunteer any of these expertise, please contact team leader Marcos Flores ( marcos.flores@chevron.com ).
NEW ORLEANS NEEDS STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS! Pride of Algiers Masonic Lodge, Teche Street   New Orleans, LA The lodge dates back to 1903 and is perhaps the oldest African American Masonic lodge in the country.  It has served as anchor to the African American community of Algiers, offering a venue for dances and community meetings in the past.  It also touts a rich musical history having hosted jazz performers such as Louis Armstrong, and Ray Charles.  The building suffered some severe damage in the storm, and since some structural issues have been identified (such as a cracked foundation).  They are hoping to offer community programs, such adult literacy courses and after school programs, so we see them as a future anchor to the street.   EWB tasks: 1. Assist the Masonic Lodge to develop a construction cost estimate for the repairs needed, which include shoring the building, removing the layer of brick veneers on the front of the building, repair/replacing the original brick facade once the veneers are removed, removing internal sheetrock, replacing plumbing and electrical wiring to meet code. The lodge members have started to obtain estimates from contractors to shore the building as well as to remove the brick veneers.  The members are available to meet contractors at the site.  EWB would provide assistance to schedule site visits from contractors and would review the contractors estimates for consistency. 2. With the construction cost estimate, assist the community to determine the value of preserving the building versus demolition and new construction.	EL SALVADOR The Tiembla Tierra and Santa Carlota project is getting started again with a full project team. We will submit our project application to EWB-USA this month and are beginning to work on a redesign of the sanitation pipeline. Our next team meeting is March 17th at 11am (location TBD). Email Erin Lyons (erinklyons@gmail.com) and Sara Beck (sbeck@ewbhouston.org) if you're interested in getting involved. CONTACT US

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EWB-USA is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt organization that partners with developing communities worldwide in order to improve their quality of life, while involving and training internationally responsible engineering students and professionals.