From Starting a Chapter to Consulting on a Maryland Water System: University of Rhode Island Student Chapter's Story
Our story started with one student and one professor who had the passion to help communities in need through engineering projects in May of 2022. All the surrounding universities had EWB-USA student chapters, along with several professional chapters in our area. Why not change that and start our own chapter? In the beginning, over 60 interested students in a wide range of majors showed up to the first-ever general interest meeting. Our chapter received significant financial support from the Dean of the College of Engineering and letters of support from EWB-USA, Harvard, and Rhode Island's State Volunteer Representative. We even received recognition from our University President, Marc Parlange. Ultimately, in April of 2023, we were accepted as a chapter and joined the EWB-USA family.
Now it was time for the next step, finding a community to partner with. After searching Volunteer Village (EWB-USA’s portal for all things volunteer and project related), we decided to look at unassigned Community Engineering Corp Projects (CECorps). As this was our first project we set parameters including the project had to be relatively close in proximity and had to be within our mentors’ expertise, which mainly consisted of water and wastewater treatment professionals. We found a few suitable projects and submitted an application, anxiously waiting for a response.
In December of 2023, we heard back, finding out that our application was accepted. We were tasked with developing a preliminary engineering report (PER) for the replacement of a community’s current water distribution system. This 28-home community resides in Allegany County Maryland.Their spring-fed water distribution system is about 60 years old. Over the years, the community has faced many challenges with the system and have fixed these problems themselves. Their current problems require more engineering expertise, though: They face water pressure issues that have caused the community to not be able to use the water at the same time, and also face water sourcing issues. The water quality is good but in need of a licensed professional to maintain treatment. As this system is old, there have been little to no documents stating where their pipes are laid and what the current status of them are.
Our chapter is currently drafting an alternative analysis to provide to the community. The alternative options for this community are replacing the whole piping system, connecting the community to city water, or fixing their current system. Our chapter will work with the community and professionals to find the best solution. As of right now, the best option in our opinion is to replace the whole piping system, as connecting to city water can be costly, and as previously stated, there is not a lot of information on their current pipe system. Our goal is to finish this project during this calendar year. The impact we hope to have is to see a community that has a dependable water source to not only drink from but to use in other daily household matters.
Our chapter is 30 people strong, all with goals of working with communities to help them reach their basic human needs. We have set goals including simultaneously running domestic and international projects, expanding our executive board to include DEI positions, maintaining and recruiting new members, and volunteering locally. Yes, we are a new chapter, but our goals are big and we have the passion and determination to make a change in this world!