Gaia Desert

1.      Go explore the crowdsourcing website   for previous washspots identified around San Bernardino. The site was built by previous ENVH 509 students for the San Bernardino area and is available here: washspot.crowdmap.com. Try to get an idea of previous entries and what these types of entries typically are. 2.      Travel   to San Bernardino or around your local community and find   two potential sites where homeless can access sanitation. You can also post sites where toilets were not used, but I suggest finding the improved sanitation sites . The sites should meet the following criteria: The site is not reported on by previous participants of washspot.crowdmap.com in the same way. You should not simply repeat an earlier entry; instead, you can validate the entry or update a change. The site can be geotagged and photographed.  Look at the previous entries for ideas of what to add. Remember that not all previous entries are

How to make the humanitarian system more accountable ow.ly/QhJPk   More of this discussion about the role of NGOs in the US Global Health Response: http://kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/data-note-role-of-ngos-u-s-global-health-response/

Our Environmental Sampling class students setup the bucket sand filters to evaluate these simple low cost solutions for water filtration.  This is a model filter that can be completely built from items supplied from a big box hardware store like Home Depot or Lowe's. A previous blog details this.  http://gaiadesert.blogspot.com/2015/05/simple-sand-filter-construction.html   I've made some videos detailing the setup and construction process. Video 1 Overall setup.   Bottom has a perforated 1/2" pvc pipe with an elbow up to top bottom 2 inces has 3/4" gravel above that is 2 inches of 1/4" gravel 10" above that is 0.3mm sand Type of sand to use:  We sourced our sand and gravel from sepulveda building materials on Waterman street in San Bernardino.  The staff there are helpful in selecting the correct grain size of sand and gravel. . Videos to detail the actual experiments will come in a later vlog / blog. 

I brought the ENVH 569 students to the Ground Water Replenishment System GWRS in Orange County. Its an impressive facility and would have turned me into a full fledged Civil Engineer if I was any younger. It is refreshing to visit such an advanced approach to our drought in California.     The lab was also impressive. Those folks are progressive with their approach to testing all potential contaminants. The lab was designed with tours in mind and we could easily peer into windows with the lab techs hard at work.  Everything is setup with tours in mind.  We were all invited to taste the final product. Most students had the overwhelmingly surprising response: "It tastes like water".  It is a clean facility that is designed for visitors to nose around on tours. Our requisite blue helmet shot!

My water quality students in ENVH 568 built these sand  filters for a class requirement. They are now up and running in the LLU Environmental Microbiology Research Laboratory. We will use them for some class activities in the ENVH 569 sampling class.  We started with a design and then a trip to the hardware store We dry-fit the pieces together in the hardware store. This is where the students realized that there are many possible combinations. Students discovered that there were a few possible combinations of diffuser pipes and spout exit styles. Our class built five filters with varying construction. All filters had about 2 inches of 3/4" gravel around the pipes with another 2 inches of pea gravel on top of that (1/4" gravel). Those were separated by a cloth to minimize sand going into the gravel and then the bottom diffuser pipe. Sand was added on top of that until it was about 2" below the spout. Our filters tested varying height