Posted on Jan 16, 1998
It may not seem like the ideal winter break – touring slums and
sewage treatment plants – but for 11 Union students who participated in “Water
Resources of Sao Paulo, Brazil,” it was, in the words of one, “way better than
working retail.”
The three-week inter-term program last month teamed students from
engineering with others from the liberal arts and sciences to study the engineering and
sociological aspects of drinking water, domestic wastewater, industrial and solid wastes,
watersheds and river pollution and hydroelectric power.
Professors Martha Huggins, sociology, and Phillip Snow, civil
engineering, led the program. President Roger Hull joined the program for a few days in
early December.
Among the challenges to Sao Paulo — at about 17 million, the third
largest city in the world – are the conditions found in favelas, or squatters
villages, that consist of shacks of wood , cardboard and metal scraps. The villages often
are located on steep slopes that are prone to massive erosion, usually with no municipal
water, sewage or solid waste service. Water-borne disease is common.
About 60 percent of Sao Paulo's fast-growing population live in
poverty with no access to municipal water or sewage, Huggins said. Not helping matters,
elected officials are more apt to promote highly visible engineering projects – roads
and bridges, for example – than underground water and sewer lines that could improve
conditions for Sao Paulo's most desperate, she added.
Sao Paulo is playing “catch up” with a number of water
engineering projects, Snow said. While hydroelectric power is relatively advanced –
the city has seen staggering growth since 1927 when large hydro projects began producing
inexpensive power — wastewater treatment, for example, is about 50 years behind
current U.S. standards, he said.
Erika Migliaccio, a junior sociology major, said engineering and liberal
arts/sciences students learned about the other's approach to issues. “Engineers
were interested in how the reservoir worked. Sociology majors were interested in how many
people had to be displaced in building the dam. I learned where our electricity comes
from, or where sewage goes,” she said. “You don't think about that stuff
unless you're an engineer.”
Greg Skalaski, a senior majoring in civil engineering, said,
“Whereas I'm only used to doing calculations on the whole, we actually had to
think about the sociological repercussions of our actions. Down there, the slogan is
'economic development at any cost.' Now, they're really paying for
it.”
The program, which served as a Union pilot for interdisciplinary
international education for teams of liberal arts and technology students, was funded by a
grant of $50,000 from the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation.
Read More
