El Cristal, Ecuador

The Ecuador project is now in its final stage. Students Brittany Wright, Julia Green and Amy Piscopo traveled with Tufts EWB alumnus Jonathan Crocker to El Cristal, Ecuador in January 2008 in order to perform water quality tests on two of the main water systems and provide the results to the community. While in El Cristal, the travel team learned that in the fall of 2007 the local water board had used the water quality data from the August trip to apply to the municipal government of Cotacachi for funding to install a slow-sand filter in the main system. They successfully secured grants to convert existing tanks of the main water system to a slow-sand filter during the fall. The tanks have been resurfaced, new piping connections added and valves replaced. Due to poor road conditions, the filters will not be completed until the rainy season ends. With the news of the slow-sand filter, the January travel team focused on testing the two smaller water systems. Community members hope to use January water test results to apply for additional funding. The Ecuador project team is hoping to do a final trip within the next year, once the slow-sand filters are running, in order to perform water quality tests to verify that the filters function properly.