3-6-08 Board Meeting

March 5, 2008 at 9:39 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off
  • March 6th, 2008, 7:00pm

Kelley 2057

Members in Attendance: Aparna, Aracelli, Malia, Jessica Varin, Kati, Kendra, Carl, David, Jesse, Dr. Sessions, Doug, Brad, Rob, Kelly Kibbler, Kelly Wilson, lindsey C

I. Requests for Conference Funding - David

There are currently $2475 from departments and $2475 from COE. Reimbursements will be made with receipts. Total cost of trip was ~$500 a person covering food, conference registration, hotel etc.

II. Review of Spring Break Travel Proposal

The project team believes its necessary to go to El Salvador Spring break to

  1. secure site for construction
  2. assess water levels during dry season as well as soil analysis
  3. Begin work on attaining access for beginning construction
  4. explain properly to Aaron and community about horizontal wells and infiltration Gallery
  5. identify more locations for future rain water catchment system

They received an email from Aaron O confirming that Easter day will be the end of the holiday. The week before easter is the holiday. Transportation into the communities on Sat or Sun could be difficult. They have meetings set up with people to begin working on land ownership issues. At this point Aaron feels uncomfortable doing any of the soil/other assessments. It might be inappropriate to ask Aaron to come up to the US. It would probably be out of his scope of project.

At this point the water system is projected to not be an annual system. If any of the 5 sites come up with water that would be above expectations. If no water is found during dry season, soil analysis will give information to help this decision. It could take 1-3 days to complete these assessments at 1 or 2 sites per day. The 5 sites came from observations from the Dec trip. Also kept in mind head lost and proposed flow to determine range of area where the site would be. Our project may require artificially raising the water table because the area has lots of bedrock.

Malia gave us an overview of a project in Oaxaca that she and her husband participated in. They constructed a filtration gallery that would have a lot of pertinence to our project.

As of Monday tickets were at $1400. Aparna found a special for tickets $400 each way. Aaron O is meeting with Rotary this upcoming Monday. Potters for Peace distribution could occur during the trip if money can be transfered in the next week. The rationalization was made the the fee for the transfer would be worth being present for and associated with the distribution.

There will be a meeting the first week of April to get a jump start on the master plan. The idea is to complete assessments during construction trips in the future. Hopefully this assessment will be the last assessment where we are just gathering information and not dividing time between construction and assessment. The NGO fones may proceed with construction of rainwater catchment systems.

Rob moves that the Board provide funds for three travelers for the Spring Break Trip. Passed 4-0-0.

III. Ideas for Communication between the Project and Board

- Have some board members at project meetings to keep information flowing between both parts of the group

- Have the people approved to distribute large amounts of funds expanded to include people from the project team.

- Each week have someone from project team designated to go to board meeting.

- Have clearer minutes for Project meetings

- Have Project Coordinator become elected position- with voting rights

- Change system - Select travelers after TAC submission and submit TAC paperwork earlier on.

IV. Travelers

Doug made the motion, rob seconded, a motion to exchange Janice as a traveler for Alfonso on the Spring Break trip.

3-1-08 Special Board Meeting to Address Project Ticket Purchase

March 3, 2008 at 10:55 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

March 1st, 2008, pm

Kelley 3057

Members Present: John Session, Kevin Boston, Kendra Seniow, Kelly Wilson, Rob Hess, Carl Moen, Douglas Van Bossuyt

 

Project Presentation- Carl Moen

 

Current Situation

         Construction spring break canceled due to no t knowing about water rights or ownership. TAC has supported taking a step back to have another assessment. At this point all paperwork is turned into national to have the selected 4 travelers and 1 professional go to El Salvador to conduct another assessment.

         The construction phase has been rescheduled for summer break. The idea is to construct an infiltration gallery that will fill 1 or 2 tanks to service water for El Naranjito. There are 5 potential springs that could be the site for the infiltration gallery.

Approximately .5-.75 km of trench will have to be dug to connect the gallery to in town tanks.  This construction phase was chosen over another rain catchments system because this project will service a larger number of people and roof space in EN isn’t ideal. Pipe and pipe laying will be the expensive and labor intensive portions of this project. The community members could do the trench digging.

 

Spring Break Trip

         The main objectives for the spring break trip will be the potters for peace distribution and evaluating springs above EN for water tables and geology suitable for infiltration galleries. The 4 travelers would arrive in EN on a Saturday and leave the following Friday. Easter Sunday is the first Sunday of spring break, so the only days for working with the community are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

         The tests for looking at the water tables involved digging holes about 2 ft in diameter and looking for water to appear over time. The work would take approximately 3 days of digging and then going back to check at the locations. The potters for peace deliveries could be made without EWB present, but Carl commented that he likes having us there so we are associated with the distribution.

Questions

·        Does the project team have what it needs to settle the water rights issues on this trip? Who has the water rights, and what about the parks water rights. Can you find someone in San Salvador to interpret the water law for us?

·        Could be educate Aaron O to complete our analyses for us?

·        Can we meet with Rotary while in El Salvador?

Commentary

         It sounds like a majority of what is being competed could be accomplished from a distance with detailed instructions. Potters for Peace distribution could occur without us present.

         Aaron O pitched the idea to Tom Hawk but since Aaron O isn’t bought in on the project it he conveyed that to Tom Hawk so for now there is no approval to work on a construction phase. One of our first priorities should be to get Aaron O bought in on the project so he can support us in the community.

         Ideas to pass back would be to bring Aaron O up to Corvallis spring break and host him at a multi-day project team retreat and planning session where we catch Aaron O up on what we would like to do. Then take him to the conference in Seattle. With or without it would be a good idea to have a Project retreat where a lot of time can be spent focused on the project.

A chapter of EWB-USA
An OSU student organization