MI-AWWA's The Current
"The Current" is the official podcast for the Michigan Section of the American Water Works Association. Host Jaime Fleming and Matt Lane dive into water and wastewater topics with experts from across the state.
MI-AWWA's The Current
Episode 2_ SWIE
This episode of The Current discusses the work of Safe Water in Ecuador (SWIE), a partnership between the Michigan section of the American Waterworks Association (MiAWWA) and local organizations in Ecuador. Our hosts Jamie Fleming and Matt Lane talk with Colin McCorkle and Mark DeHaan, who are involved in SWE's efforts to provide clean, sustainable water systems to rural communities in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador.
Welcome to the Current, the official podcast for the Michigan section of the American Waterworks Association. I'm your Eastside host, Matt Lane.
Speaker 3:And I'm Jamie Fleming, your host from the West Side.
Speaker 2:Join us as we dive into water and wastewater topics from across Michigan, from across Michigan. Welcome to the Current everybody. I'm Matt Blaine, your Eastside host.
Speaker 3:And I'm Jamie Fleming, your Westside host.
Speaker 2:And today we are talking with Colin McCorkle and Mark DeHaan about what does SWE stand for? Safe water in Ecuador.
Speaker 4:Nailed it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so why don't you guys introduce yourselves, and then we'll get into the questions.
Speaker 1:We'll start with you, colin. Yeah, so my name is Colin McQuirkle, one of the co-chairs on the Safe Water in Ecuador committee, kind of recently minted co-chair, but I've been part of the committee for a long time. You know, mark and I went down in 2019. We went down again this last March and April. So I've been down to Ecuador twice, been part of the committee for a long time. You know I have a background in this sort of international I guess volunteerism work. I was actually in Peace Corps from 2012 to 2014. It took me a little bit to remember that In Sierra Leone and West Africa. So I have a whole this is real close to my heart kind of work. So you know my job. I work at Fishbeck over in Grand Rapids and do water wastewater design, but we're here to talk about safe water in Ecuador.
Speaker 3:I'll hop in real quick to give a shout out to Colin. Him and his band are the artists for our theme song, which is just awesome. It's a great little jingle.
Speaker 2:It is, it's fantastic. Thank you. So Mark you're up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I'm Mark DeHaan. I currently live and work in Ecuador, south America, so I'll be your South American guest today. Firm in Grand Rapids, prida Newhoff, during that time, was involved in Safe Water in Ecuador and actually became involved in the work in Ecuador when I was at Calvin University in 2015. That was my first trip here. So, while I was working at PNN in Grand Rapids, traveled down to Ecuador with SWE in 2018 and then again with Colin in 2019.
Speaker 4:And, like many of you, had a lot of time to think during COVID, decided to make the life change to come down here to Ecuador and work full-time, and so, essentially, I work with Safe Water in Ecuador as, I guess, the in-country contact. So if we have needs that we would like addressed by engineers in the US, if we have questions about certain products or just processes or things like that, then I'm the one that sends an email off to Colin and says, hey, we need assistance with this. How can you guys help? Do you know somebody that can help? And says, hey, we need assistance with this. How can you guys help? Do you know somebody that can help? Also, yeah, during the trip that Colin was on in April, I was kind of the guy on the ground in country so I was doing the driving and doing the translating and that kind of thing. So that's kind of my current role with Safe Water in Ecuador right now.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Let's level set a little bit, because there might be some listeners who don't know exactly what Safe Water in Ecuador is. So tell us a little bit about what it is and why Ecuador, whoever wants to take it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I guess I can kind of give you a brief history on Safe Water in Ecuador and how it all started. It started with a student at what was then Calvin College and the student Scott Zastrow. He got connected to Michigan AWWA, gordon Jones at the time and said, hey, I'm doing this work in Ecuador with these folks from my church. Would the Michigan AWWA section be interested in helping out? And so Gordon Jones got connected. And then Scott Zastrow, once he graduated from Calvin and joined industry my understanding is that he got connected to Michigan AWWA. And then at the time, what was Water for People? The Michigan section had a lot of enthusiastic members of that Water for People chapter and just ended up raising incredible amounts of money for the projects staying connected to the work that was happening in Ecuador, connecting at that time to Bruce Ridbeck who was the director of community development ministry here in Ecuador. And so, just as time went on, the money continued to flow through the Michigan Water for People chapter and there were some disagreements between the national group and then the Michigan group, especially with how the funds were being used and considering Michigan was raising more money than some other chapters.
Speaker 4:The folks in Michigan I'll name a couple that were really heavily involved Janice Skatz and Mike Ruhn, paul Siegert, john O'Malley, I believe were some of the other big names that were connected with Rotary and other organizations to raise funds.
Speaker 4:They really wanted to be the ones that were determining where those funds were going, rather than a national chapter that wasn't involved in the fundraising. And so they decided, hey, we're doing this good work and we've got great connections in Ecuador and the work is sustainable. And so they decided we're going to break off on our own and start this Safe Water in Ecuador group connected with Michigan AWWA. So that's the way it's been for I don't know how long 10, 12 years probably and so that's kind of where we're at now is. I'm staying connected to the work in Ecuador through Bruce Rydbeck and now more so through me. But, yeah, just really cool to see Michigan AWWA's continued commitment to the work in Ecuador and just the work that happens through fundraising and technical support. It's just really awesome to have a group of water professionals in Michigan that are so involved in the work that's happening here.
Speaker 3:That was a really great background history. I recognize a lot of great names in that list that you listed and we're excited to have both of you and the others that have joined that long list of legacy. Could you tell us a little bit about what some of the work is that is done? What are the projects that happen in Ecuador?
Speaker 4:Yeah, again being on the ground, I'll answer that question. A lot of the work that we do is focused on full system construction, and so what that looks like is a community that is interested in either having a brand new water system they might not have any sort of water system before drinking water system or they want to replace an aging water system. What they'll do is they'll come to our offices or the offices of our national partner, codiinse, the Ecuadorian partner, and they'll say, hey, we're interested in doing a water system, can you help? And so essentially what we do is we do system assessment. We'll visit wells that the community might have, springs that the community might have, and just assess what it would look like to protect those wells or springs, depending on the condition, capture the water and move it into a distribution system, whether that's via gravity or via pump system. We will do that assessment. We'll do spring protection, well drilling, we'll do distribution system design and construction.
Speaker 4:And a lot of that construction is on the community themselves. It's the community members themselves that are digging the trenches that are, with the help of a couple of field staff that Codeense has putting the pipe together. So it helps us keep costs low, it empowers the local community. It gives them an understanding of the work that's required to build a water system, and it really it allows them to understand all the work that's required to build a water system, and it really it allows them to understand all the work that's going into it, and so they'll be more likely to maintain the system and just really feel ownership for those systems. And so that's essentially what we're doing. We're also doing some workshops in order to improve understanding of systems design for communities. So really, capacity building is, I think, what they would call it in this business, so just helping local administrative boards and water system operators better understand their systems and how to operate and maintain.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of really intense and great work. Colin, I think you wanted to hop in there Really intense and great work.
Speaker 1:Colin, I think you wanted to hop in there. Yeah, I just wanted to hop in as somebody who came from a background of doing things like this and then saw how Safe Water in Ecuador did it. I really think the model, that Safe Water in Ecuador value of the project is given by the community. As Mark said, most of the time that's through work and you get local knowledge of how to fix the water system, how to maintain it. You know these guys. They go out to the community, they try to help them establish water boards. I mean, they never leave a project which is not the way it's always done, right. You know there's a lot of NGOs who will we call them helicopter in and drop in something and then in a year it doesn't work and nobody, nobody uses it. I saw just oodles of examples of that. You know my time overseas. I just think it's an incredible thing.
Speaker 1:I think the money that is raised goes directly to the project. We're not. You know if you, if you donate to a large national organization, you got to know maybe 30, 40% of that is going to actual work here. No, Mark is working off all donations and you know, whatever money we raise. We literally know what we're buying, as we know, hey, we're buying the pumps for this project, or we're buying this stretch of water, man, or you know. I mean we're this money is going directly to the communities that it's going to service, which is which is rare, and definitely, uh, feather in the cap or kudos to mark and the people working down there. I mean, mark was talking about how incredible it is that michigan awwa, you know, does this stuff for equator. Well, he's living there. So maybe burying the lead a little bit, Mark, I think what you're doing is much more of a sacrifice than any of us do, and anything we can do to support you, you know, is great, because it's humbling how much you've devoted yourself to this work.
Speaker 3:So I love that you're actually down living in the amongst. You know the communities that you're working with. Tell me a little bit about how Safe Water and Record War approaches the work that you do and the projects that you undertake in a culturally sensitive kind of way. Respecting the cultures that we're working with is a really important part of anything that we would do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for sure. Most of the way that we approach this work is, again, empowering local communities by getting them involved from the very start of the project. Again, it's the communities that are initiating the contact. When we're visiting communities, and the beauty of the culture that we're working in is that it is so community driven, that it is so community driven. I don't know hot culture, cold culture is often the way that you know. You talk about individualist being the cold culture versus community-based being the hot culture, and so most of the indigenous communities were working in the Quechua communities, very, very hot culture in that sense, and that they're very community focused. So when we go visit a community and Colin can maybe talk about this community visit we did in Chinjin, centro Civico when we're going to visit a community, it's not just one or two people from the community that go along on these visits with us. It can sometimes be 50 people, 100 people. You're going up this hike, up the mountain and you've got 100 community members that are with you because the community itself is just so involved in any sort of communal decision that happens when we're doing work in these communities and we are Cotein, say again, the national partner, they're the ones that are coming into agreements with the Junta de Agua, the water board, the administrative water board, and so it's the water board that has to come to an agreement with the entire community that this project is going to happen.
Speaker 4:So, during the design of the project, the community is involved. You know, when we get a design done, we say, hey, this is, this is the design, these are where the pipes are going to go. And at that time, you know, community members are saying, yes, no, I'll let you put pipe through my property. It's very handshake. Nothing's near as formal as it is in the US. You know, we're not getting easements or anything like that. It's, you know what this is for the benefit of the community. Yes, you can put this pipe through my field or however it might go.
Speaker 4:And so, yeah, from start to finish, the community is involved, through the topographic survey, through design, and then obviously, then obviously again through construction, implementation, and so, um, again, just kind of another I'll say professional term in this type of business is asset-based community development, abcd.
Speaker 4:And so you know, we're using the skills and the abilities that these community members have, many of them being farmers. They're used to working with tools in their hands, and so once we get into a community and we're doing construction work that's where they're accustomed to being you know they're digging, they're using picks and hoes and shovels to dig these trenches, and it's really quite fun if we have groups visiting from outside, especially in these communities at 10, so to speak, their ability to to dig trenches at speeds that we just can't fathom, because they are just so good at that kind of thing, and so, yeah, keeping communities involved from start to finish, using the skills and the abilities that these communities have in order to help them help themselves. So it's, it's really just a really cool opportunity to empower the local communities to to be part of their own solution talk a little bit more about the makeup of these communities calum, do you have anything to based on your experience?
Speaker 4:sorry, I was.
Speaker 1:I was going to add to the previous question. I apologize, matt, I keep trying doing a bad job hopping in. That's okay, go for it. Yeah, I think the other thing that Mark maybe didn't mention is so critical to ours that it didn't even cross his mind. But we partner with Cody Yensei, who's a local NGO, and they are almost entirely consisted of Kichwa people. So the people that we're building the systems are, we have people who grew up in these communities that are a local NGO, that are driving all this. I mean, when Mark says the initial contact, that's often through Cody Ince and there are sort of cultural slash, construction, slash everything, consultants and they, you know, they just they understand the culture more than you know they grew up in it. Right, they understand it more than we ever could. And while Mark and Chris are definitely very, very fluent and very, very tied in with the culture, you know when you grow up there it's different.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thanks for adding that, colin. That's such an important part of the work that we do and having that cultural connection. A lot of the times that does determine the success of a project. When we can go, we can go into a community and we can think, oh, you know what this community? They're excited, they want to do the project. And then the director of Corince Efrain, who his community I'll mention Mira Flores, cochapamba community he grew up in worked with Michigan Water for People to build a water system. Michigan Water for People was a big, big reason. The project in his community was a success. So just a cool connection there. But again, efrain, he can go in there and he can be like, nope, I'm not seeing it. These people aren't motivated. They're saying the right words but they're not ready to do what we require of them. And so again, yeah, thanks Colin for mentioning that. It's just so important to have that cultural connection. Without that this ministry wouldn't be a success.
Speaker 2:So we're talking mostly rural areas, right, and we're not. This isn't urban, this is rural. You mentioned farmers. Describe that a little bit. What's the scope of the projects that you're doing?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so a lot of the times it's again. We're in central Ecuador, in the Andes Mountains. The city that I'm in right now, rio Bamba that's where our office is based is at 9,000 feet. A lot of these communities that we're working in anywhere from 9,000 feet up to sometimes 14,000 feet in areas that we can be working, and so rural areas, farming areas, sometimes very, very steep slopes Colin can attest to that. We did a visit to Gingin, centro Civico, and I think we ended up getting up to 13,700 feet maybe, but steep slopes.
Speaker 1:We were told it was a short, short hike. That was a short hike. Seven miles straight. That was real short yeah.
Speaker 4:So just incredible vertical relief.
Speaker 4:I mean, obviously you're in the mountains and so from I'll just talk about a design that I did a couple of years ago, or, yeah, about a year and a half ago, in the community of Pujol, San Jose, and in that community there was from a community of 205 homes.
Speaker 4:From the house at the highest elevation to the house at the lowest elevation, there was more than 700 feet of vertical relief, and so we're talking about five or six pressure zones within this community of 205 homes. The total of distribution system that was constructed was, I think it was, 22 kilometers, so 15 miles, just under 15 miles of pipe that was constructed by this community in three months. We're not talking about small areas or any sort of lack of effort here. These people are putting in incredible amounts of effort to dig that trench, to install the pipe, to fill the trench back in. So over a two, three month period is typically how long these construction projects take. Just an incredible amount of effort expensed by the people to get themselves access to clean water, which is just really, really cool to see.
Speaker 2:What's the source water for this?
Speaker 4:Yeah, source can be a couple of different sources. Yeah, source can be a couple of different sources. So one of the things that we require of these communities when they come into our office and say we want a water project, is they have to have legal rights to source water, whether that be a spring up in the mountains or a well that they've drilled, they have to have legal rights, through the Ministry of Water here in Ecuador, to be able to consume that water. Typically kind of our bread and butter has always been springs, and so that can be a spring that's higher up in the mountains than the community, and so it flows entirely by gravity from that spring to the communities. It could also be a spring that's located below the community, and in those cases we install pump systems to get that spring water up to a top reservoir and then distributed by gravity from there. We do do some work with with wells, and those can be hand dug wells. It can be drilled wells either of those, but those. Those are the sources that we deal with this organization over the years Again, bruce Rydbeck I'll mention that name in the decades that he worked in this work, from the late 80s up until 2019.
Speaker 4:When he left, he saw just so many treatment systems that get installed and then, a year later, aren't in use because they just weren't maintained, you know. Just not sustainable, especially in these rural contexts where you don't have trained individuals to maintain these filter systems, treatment systems. We found that making sure the water is clean directly from the source is the best way to provide clean water for these communities, and so the way that we found that it's best to do that is through spring capture. Sometimes we do a little bit of chlorine treatment just to kill any sort of bacterias that could potentially grow, but that's mostly what we're dealing with is clean spring water straight from the source. That's typically what gets delivered to the community and the community members' homes.
Speaker 3:Colin, I'm going to come straight to you for a question. So I hear you recently went on a trip and went down and worked on a project. Was this your first trip?
Speaker 1:No, this is my second trip. Well, the first trip was when Mark and I were still both in three mark hadn't moved down there yet and we went down there in 2019, late 2019, right before things kind of kicked off covid wise. So this last trip, um, in april, has been our first since covid. But yep, um, it was myself and two others, uh, mitchell Feria and Fiona Miller. Fiona works at Friday New Hop and Mitchell works at GMB. I hope I get that right, mark. Yeah, we were down there for about a week and I was Mark saw some projects, you know, provided some engineering expertise. Mitchell brought his, brought his drone, uh, and got a lot of really nice shots. So he's making a little video that I think we're going to have on display at the chance auction, the annual conference. But yeah, it was. It was fantastic.
Speaker 1:We spent, we stayed, in Rio Bamba most of the time and then did little day trips out to different things and and then a lot of them were just seeing existing systems. Then we went to see a potential spring and that was the seven mile hike uphill. Uh, mitchell and Fiona got horses there. I don't think there was enough horses for me on the way up, but I got one on the way back down, uh, but that was, it was pretty intense but um, but yeah, it was fantastic. It was really good to see mark again. It's good to see all the stuff progressing. Talk to you know, talk to the code and say talk to every community. There's a big celebration, like the first or second day we were there, that went for I don't know five, six hours, I don't know how long was. That was a really long celebration. It was very nice but it was very long.
Speaker 4:Yeah that that community, san Martin Bajo, is a community that Safe Water in Ecuador provided funds for almost fifteen thousand dollars for pump house, pump equipment, electrical controls, pumps, motors, that kind of thing. So it was wonderful to have Colin and the rest of the group down just to recognize Safe Water in Ecuador for that donation and for just the way that Safe Water in Ecuador has provided funds for many communities like it in the past.
Speaker 2:Colin, you mentioned the chance auction. Can you talk about the funding for this program?
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people know, but every year at annual conferences really one of our probably our biggest, if not one of our only fundraising big events. One of those is the Chance Auction, the other is the golf outing. So the golf outing will be on Tuesday, september 10th, and I don't actually know the course offhand. I'll talk to Rebecca about that. But you know we have some holes sponsored. We'll be doing drinks a little differently this year. We've got to figure that out yet, but we will let people know once we know. And then, yeah, chance Auction will be the next day, on Wednesday. So Mark will be bringing lots of goodies from Ecuador and then we'll have some other donations as well and folks can buy tickets and put them in and see what they can win.
Speaker 1:It's usually pretty fun. It ends up being a pretty fun reveal time. So, yeah, those are two really big, funny events. We really appreciate everybody who sponsors holes, who comes to the golf outing, people who donate to the Chance Auction, people who buy tickets for the chance auction. You know we we guilt them pretty hard there near the end, but you know it's, it's all in the, it's all in the name of, of the greater good, right. So yeah, well, that that's kind of what we got going. You know, we've been like I said, the golf outing will be a little different this year, but we'll, we'll be sure to let.
Speaker 3:So I am a longtime donator to the Chance Auction. I'm running out of unique ideas for you know themed baskets, but we'll come up with something good this year. So I would love to challenge anybody that's listening to this If you attend the annual conference, just show up with something. They'd be happy to have it in the auction. But also you can get involved in other ways. You know donations can be taken throughout the year, but, mark and Colin, why don't you tell us a little bit about how anybody else could get involved with SWE?
Speaker 1:Yeah, just email me or call me Mostly. But you know, at annual conference, if anybody wants to come up with what we got, we'll have somebody at the chance auction booth all day. We'll absolutely take a contact each. On the next meeting, you know we there's a lot um that's involved and we're looking to kind of, uh, delegate a little more and have a little more um of roles for people, you know, rather than the chair trying to do everything.
Speaker 1:Um, you know we're going to try to have trip coordinators. If you want to go on the trip, talk to us. That's um, we're looking at dates. Yet I think we got to look on mark's end, but usually it's around march, april, may and there, um it it is uh, you would have to pay your own way on it, but I think this last year market kind of fell around maybe 1200 bucks all altogether with the plane ticket staying there and then paying other things. Yeah, I mean, literally just find me, find Mark, find someone on the committee. I can share my contact info through here at the end if you guys want or somehow, if we can get that out there, I'm more than more than happy to talk to whoever wants to be involved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we could always use more help. I'm curious do you guys have like a favorite project that you've completed?
Speaker 4:yeah, I guess I'll go back into the into the annals and talk about this meter, florida, scotia, pamba project that I that I mentioned. That was one of the original projects that at that time Water for People worked on with the organization that's down here and it just it required some, just some significant thinking. The springs were located on the other side of a valley from this community and it required just some ingenuity from the engineers here and then some assistance from Water for People, and it was again. They had to cross this valley, they had to go underneath a river and a road and saw I can't remember how I wanted to say like 350 meters plus of pressure, which is 500 PSI, 450 PSI, so significant pressures.
Speaker 4:And so what ended up happening is there had been a situation in a nearby community where they tried to use iron pipe, and when you're trying to carry lengths of iron pipe on steep hillsides, some bad things happen, and some people in this nearby community ended up getting hurt trying to do that. And so what happened was Bruce Rydback at the time. He said, hey, water for People, what do you think? What kind of options do we have for pipe materials? And somebody from Water for People said, hey, why not fiberglass? You know it's lightweight. I think they had it in lengths of six meters or something like that 18 to 20 feet and it can withstand just very high pressures, and so that's what that's. What ended up happening is they had a container or a partial container of fiberglass pipes sent from the US to Ecuador to use for, I want to say, more than a kilometer's length of this feed line, and so, yeah, it ended up working great.
Speaker 4:Just last year, last September I think, I came back to Ecuador with some fiberglass unions so that they still have some fiberglass in their bodega, in their storage room, and so, if they ever need to fix anything, I came down with some unions so that they still have some fiberglass in their bodega, in their storage room, and so, if they ever need to fix anything, I came down with some unions so that they could keep using that fiberglass pipe. Yeah, that's a success story 25 years running. And again, that's helped shape the ministry. From that community came the current members of Codeense.
Speaker 4:Members from that community formed this organization, this national organization, to help administer projects and help other communities, and so it's. It's been just a multiplication situation with that community, with that project which Water for People helped fund, and so that's really just kind of a just a model for for other communities and it's, it's just been a wonderful project here. Obviously, and you know, we hope that maybe, maybe some of these projects that we're continuing to work on, that that could happen in other places. What about you, colin?
Speaker 1:I'd probably say Martín Bajo, that was. I mean, we just had the big present, the big celebration for it. But you know, there was some things that tied me very personally to that one um, and so it was really good to see that pump station. It's nice to have a nice. This is exactly what we funded and you can go look at it, take pictures of it and send it back to people help on that. So, um, yeah, that was, that was probably my, my favorite. But, mark, he's right, that's the seminal project, sort of. That is the big one. If SWE were to have a favorite right.
Speaker 2:For those of us who don't know what you're talking about, explain that project, the pump station project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was San Martín Bajo, I believe they have a couple. They had an existing well right, mark, and then we drilled a new well, um, and trying to remember the number of communities now, mark has all these things around a lot in his head and I don't necessarily have them but they drilled a new well in a new pump house, um, and they pumped up to a reservoir up top. So we were sort of there's an existing system, wasn't working very well, um, you know, hydrodeology is inexact at best, and I think in this case was there an earthquake or something, or was that another one, mark, where they had a seismic event and then it wasn't producing the way it had before?
Speaker 4:Yeah, with San Martin, baja the situation a community of 112 homes they had previously had a spring source that just wasn't sufficient for the growth of the community, and so they were supplementing that spring source with river water, which untreated river water, and so whenever it would rain, their system would fill with dirt and contaminants and all that kind of thing, and so, yeah, the new wells were certainly an upgrade on that.
Speaker 2:Are there challenges with getting power to these pump stations?
Speaker 4:In some very remote areas it can be difficult, but there's been a huge electrification of rural areas in Ecuador in the last 30 years, 40, 30, 40 years, and so sometimes we have issues where we have to get power connected from 500 feet away. Or we did a project in 2014 in Achuyay and that one required, yeah, probably close to a kilometer of new poles and wiring to connect that pump house to the electrical grid. So that can happen from project to project. But the Ecuadorian government that's one of the things that they've greatly improved on in the last 30, 40 years has been electrification of rural areas.
Speaker 1:I will note, though, that the cities are interesting in the way they do electrical. They have electrified, everyone has electricity, but they have not worked on the efficiency portion of it. There was literally some poles that were seemingly getting pulled out of the ground or over by the amount of wire on them. It was simply incredible. So so if we have any electrical folks electricians, just for like a, you know, to go see it's, it's amazing. It's amazing how some of this stuff even works. I can't even the rat's nest on top of the pole. It's almost pulling it down. It's incredible.
Speaker 1:But yeah, mark, right, I mean I kept remarking out the whole trip, mark. I probably probably, like colin, stopped mentioning it, but it is amazing how much they've run electricity throughout the country. I mean every. You can go 12 500 feet in this remote community, and they got poles going all the way out there. They don't have water, sanitary or any of those other things, but they certainly got electrical. So it's actually that's one of the things that they've really done a nice job on so I do know.
Speaker 3:um, on website there are lots of pictures from past projects and trips which might be really helpful to those who are trying to, you know, put an image with what we're talking about today. So I encourage you to hop over there and check that out when you can, and I think as we wrap up, it sounds like you could use people with all kinds of backgrounds to join in, attend a trip, lend their expertise. So maybe one of you give me a little bit of a rundown of the kinds of people you would love to work with.
Speaker 1:Someone who is hands on. We get a lot of engineers down here and we're really good at drawing stuff. When it comes to fixing a pump, we really don't quite know what we're doing. So we've been. As Mark mentioned, there's a lot of pump station, there's well pumps and there's a lot of pumps that we put in. But we don't really have a good O&M sort of plan or SOP with those sort of plan or SOP with those. But we could get somebody who works on and they're mostly kind of submersible well pumps, I guess is what I'd call them. Even if they're being used in a pump station, it's still a submersible well pump that's being used, and somebody with that background would be incredible.
Speaker 1:We've been trying to sort of find somebody to come down and I think you know we'd even be as willing to, you know sort of uh, supplement some of the, the pay for it. You know, if somebody's saying, okay, it costs too much, you know we can find a way to get, get them down there and let's establish a nice sop and keep these pumps running forever. Um, if we can, or as long as we can, that'd be it. That'd be a big one, um, but but anybody really, I mean all sorts of backgrounds. You know mitchell brought down the drone and it was awesome to get all that drone footage. I mean anybody, or just bring yourself down, even if you aren't got some sort of special skill, still we still love having people down there.
Speaker 1:Jeannie loves seeing people who are donating and love seeing I mean it's just, it's great and when you go there you feel so much more connected. You know, it's like you're meeting the people and, um, everyone's like five foot two, uh, because they're all in the mountain. So it is kind of interesting. There you feel kind of like a giant. I'm five foot 10.
Speaker 1:I felt like I was too big, um, so that's an interesting experience that, if anybody wants that, um, I guess the other thing that Mark and I haven't mentioned is this is absolutely beautiful. Like you can just close your eyes and snap a picture and it's so mountainous and gorgeous and it's got these rolling mountainous hills and the farms are on the built on the side of the side of the hill and it's just beautiful. And we also try to put a little bit of sight in with every trip too. You know we're there to kind of do work, but we usually take a day or two to you know, doing something fun either a good hike or going in the keel, going to the market, things like that but um, but yeah, the big one we're really pushing for is the pump person. So if anybody you know of, like, say, peerless midwest or or they're pumping well wants to come down and show us how to work on a submersible well pump, we would very, very much appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll just add to that the work that we're doing, that Life-Giving Water does, that Codinze does. Obviously we try to use appropriate technology, but at the same time, we're trying to push forward on new ways of doing things, trying to find better ways that we can be setting up pumps, setting up controls, setting up our chlorine dosing, and so it's good for us to have people that are in an industry that is much further along than what we have here in Ecuador. Just to provide a little bit of context, in my opinion, I would say that Ecuador is 50 to 60 years behind the US just as far as infrastructure is concerned, and so I live in Rio Bamba. It's a city of almost 200,000. I can't drink the tap water here. The water is not treated sufficiently for local Ecuadorians to be drinking tap water, and so there's just to provide a little bit of context of where the country is, and so, yeah, just to have people that are in the thick of engineering in the US to come down to provide just a different perspective on how we can be doing work, ways that we can be improving all those sorts of things is really beneficial for our work.
Speaker 4:It lends credence to our work, too that we have current professionals that are reviewing our work and saying you're doing great or here are ways you can improve, because that just lends so much credence to our work and it helps us become better too. The engineers that are down here full time. It helps us become better engineers and we are down here full-time. It helps us become better engineers and we, we want that and we want we want these projects to be as sustainable as possible. And, yeah, this partnership with michigan awwa, with swi that's, it just provides so much of that for the ministry. That's that's happening here. So it's just beneficial for us and, and hopefully in the long term, not only for these communities but also but also for the for Ecuador as a whole.
Speaker 1:And then one more small thing. Someone's probably thinking, oh, I need to know Spanish. I don't know Spanish Like I barely, just barely. Mark can do a lot of. You know a lot of playing around, that you'll learn some words while you're there and people are generally very nice and usually somebody knows a little bit of English, so you don't have to come down and be fluent or even know much at all, like me. So just mentioning that, Well, great, Jamie.
Speaker 2:any other questions?
Speaker 3:No, this has been a really good opportunity to hear more about the organization. I've been with the Michigan section for 20 years now and you know have known a little bit about SWE over the years, but I really like the deep dive that we did today.
Speaker 2:Are there any upcoming projects that you want to plug in Ecuador?
Speaker 4:We don't have anything identified at the moment as far as next projects go, so nothing there. One thing I would like to mention is we do have a presentation at Michigan Ace, september 11th, I believe. It's at 4.05 pm, I believe. I think it's the last slot right before the happy hour on Wednesday. What we're going to have there is I'm listed as the principal presenter, but that's not really the case.
Speaker 4:I've got some friends from both Calvin University and Hope College that are going to be helping me out. Some students and professors at those institutions have been down in Ecuador in the last six months helping us with some water quality studies and then some health surveys to help us better understand the impact of the work that we do, both on the spring protection front, the chlorine treatment front, and then just as a whole, how the work we're doing impacts health in communities, and so I think it's going to be a really interesting presentation from folks at both of those institutions just to share how, yeah, the type of impact this work is having and how they're getting involved in the work here. So if you're at Michigan ACE, I think, show up Wednesday afternoon to the general session and you can hear more about that work, definitely going to have to check that out.
Speaker 2:Is there anything else that you want to say? Any any final thoughts for from either of you?
Speaker 4:I've got one more thing just on a cost perspective, when you think about what a water project might cost in the us, the way that we're doing work here again utilizing the work of the communities and just doing things, I mean the work that we're doing is very basic from a technical perspective it's not that difficult but it's effective, it's efficient In most cases when we're building these water systems it costs roughly 350 dollars per home to get water to these, to these homes. So just just from a donation perspective, you know, to get to get a family water for hopefully 20 years for 350 dollars. It's really, think, just an effective use of funds and obviously, again, just the work that the community puts in is just so important to that. But just to give you an idea for what costs are and how just not a lot of money can make a huge impact in the lives of these communities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess I'd echo what Mark said there. I mean, if you give $10 to United Way, if you give $10 to one of these large organizations, $2, $3, $4 of your money is going to people and there's a lot of add-ins and things like that, not to say any of those are bad. But I think we have a unique sort of I guess bespoke little organization here. You've got Mark Chris Fisher down there, you've got all the guys in Cody and say they've devoted their lives to doing this work Right, and they have set it up so that every dollar you give them goes to the community, which is which is really incredible and, frankly, rare, especially the size we're talking about, especially the size we're talking about.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know that to me, whenever I give my time or money to SWE, I just think you know I'm just giving a drop in the bucket, you know, versus what Mark and some of those guys are doing down there. It's, it's incredible. So we're we're just happy to be able to support them and we'd be more happy, you know, if Michigan A's AWDA can, can support SWE going forward. And we appreciate all the support over all the years. We know everybody's been really supportive and we really, really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:That means a lot so well, thank you for all your work and mark, thanks for joining us from ecuador today. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Yeah it's been wonderful to be with you guys and, yeah, thank you for the opportunity to share. Again, I echo what Colin said Michigan AWWA has been a wonderful supporter of the work here. Dozens of communities, thousands of families that Michigan AWWA has impacted and hopefully it can be the same for decades to come.
Speaker 2:Any, last words, Jamie.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no. I would like to again thank you both for being with us today. That was a really great overview of what SWE is, and hopefully the people that are listening will get involved in some sort of way. Of course, always donations, because it can impact a lot of people, but also your time and your energy would be welcome as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Also, join us September 10th through the 13th for for my ACE it's there's a lot of interesting things going on there and it's going to be a lot of fun. So well, thank you guys. Thank you, I appreciate it. There's a lot of interesting things going on there and it's going to be a lot of fun. Well, thank you guys. Thank you, I appreciate it. From the east side to the west side and statewide.
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