HEALTH AND SANITATION
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and universities that seeks to engage with the next
generation of environmental professionals, foster a
dialogue about the need for innovative stormwater
management techniques, and showcase the
environmental, economic, and social benefits of
green infrastructure practices.”
More than 4 000 undergraduate and graduate
students have participated in this competition,
which encourages ‘town and gown’ partnerships
and provides students with job training through
hands-on project learning. Professional
connections are made through the veteran
architects, engineers and planners who volunteer
to judge the projects.
In 2019, the winner in the master planning
category was a team from the University of
Louisiana at Lafayette, which introduced a
tiered approach to reducing stormwater run-off
on campus that encompassed everything from
small measures, like the installation of cisterns
and permeable pavement for sidewalks, to more
intensive measures calling for the creation of
underground tanks for use in chiller systems
— an innovative and sustainable practice for
storing water known as Aquifer Storage and
Recovery (ASR). ASR is the process of collecting
surplus water and injecting it into an underground
aquifer through a dual-purpose well capable of
both injection and abstraction. The source water
remains in a storage zone within the aquifer and is
available for retrieval when needed. The ASR water
could be an effective source for future irrigation.
The Demonstration Project winners from the
University of Oregon worked with a local high
school and its home district to retrofit its
campus, putting them in touch with community
stakeholders, and likely encouraging multiple
generations to consider how they can
contribute to mitigating climate change. An
EPA spokesperson says that the team “made
a long-term impact beyond the campus, but
also in the town,” and that these university
commitments are even being integrated at
the level of course work, with the competition
finding its way into curriculum.
Funding and mentorship
After graduation, young green entrepreneurs
are seeking the angel funding and mentorship
to move innovative ideas to market. From his
office adjacent to Puget Sound, PureBlue’s Ryan
Vogel has helped dozens of new businesses
move innovations from pilot to prototype to
implementation. Vogel views PureBlue, which
provides money and tools to young businesses,
as an accelerator for the big ideas in his cohorts.
“Endless growth is possible,” says Vogel, “and
there are so many more entrepreneurs
to reach.”
Among the PureBlue portfolio is Paver Guide,
which started with its first implementations in
residential driveways. While participating in the
PureBlue programme, Paver Guide has raised
USD650 000 to date to expand its operations.
PaverGuide is a permeable pavement system
which can reduce stormwater runoff. Another
PureBlue company, FRED Sense, employs a
tunable bacteria that can yield “ultra-sensitive
measurements of trace chemicals in a water
sample” in less than an hour. Previously, a field
team would need to wait as long as two weeks
to detect heavy materials, waiting for samples to
travel to and from a remote lab.
The entrepreneurs with whom Vogel works are
anywhere from 30 to 55 years old. “Through
mentorship, they take quantum leaps,” Vogel says
with unabashed giddiness over the innovations
coming to market.
He points to Emagin, which uses algorithms that
study incoming data from water plants to provide
more efficient predictors for water treatment plant
operations, including which pumps to service or
which to temporarily shut down. “It’s the cutting
edge of machine learning,” Vogel says, “applying
software and big data to more intelligently manage
water and wastewater.”
Another group in the PureBlue portfolio is using
anaerobic microbes to actually eat the contamination
out of wastewater. Vogel says that 20% of a city’s
energy is invested in wastewater clean-up, but that
the bugs in this new process actually breathe and
generate electricity, evolving wastewater treatment
toward a net zero energy process.
If the rush of youth to engage in stormwater
indicates a trend, other signals show that it is
one with staying power. In 2016, Ford Motor
Company announced a billion-dollar greening of
a 60-year old campus in Dearborn, Michigan,
that includes better stormwater management,
limiting run-off. PA
August 2020 Volume 26 I Number 06
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