Engineers Without Borders

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

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

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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.