Transition in Leadership for the OU WaTER Center

“Please join me in holding up your glass filled with water”, he would often say at banquets and formal events. “Let us remind ourselves that over 1 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water such as you and I have in front of us.” For Dr. David Sabatini, the mission of the OU WaTER Center was never just academic. It was personal. It was also spiritual. If God created us all equal in His eyes, then we should all have equal access to the basic necessities in life, including clean water and sanitation.

Dr. David Sabatini is the Founding Director of the OU WaTER Center
and has been its vision and inspiration for 14 years. 

In 2006, Dr. Sabatini founded the Water Technologies for Emerging Regions (WaTER) Center at the University of Oklahoma (OU). The Center is a grassroots, faculty-led effort whose mission is to promote peace by advancing health, education, and economic development through sustainable water, sanitation, and health (WaSH) solutions for impoverished regions. Since its inception, the leadership team of the WaTER Center has worked hard to tackle both the technical and non-technical issues associated with WaSH for peoples in need.

After 14 years of leadership, David has decided to step down as Director for the remainder of his professorship at OU. (He will continue in a Founding Director role.) Those 14 years have been packed full of research, education and outreach activities! David has directed graduate student research in Cambodia (arsenic mitigation), Ethiopia (fluoride mitigation), Ghana (sustainable water provision) and Thailand (ground water remediation and protection) and has mentored scores of undergraduate students through his teaching and kind support. He spearheaded the development of the WaTER Minor, which includes a curriculum designed to provide the knowledge and experience that students need to succeed in the important work of sustainable development. Both graduate and undergraduate students are being formed as people who are culturally aware and technically proficient. These students have gone on to leadership roles in NGOs, churches, and government agencies and to serve in Peace Corps.

 

Drinking water in Cambodia is scooped from a protective ceramic vessel.

Early on, Dr. Sabatini and the other five Co-Directors felt the need to acknowledge in a special way the people who were doing the hard and often unrecognized work in developing nations. Modeled after the OU Neustadt Prize for world literature, the OU International Water Prize is awarded on a biennial basis to recognize and honor an individual who has made significant international contributions, either through research or teaching or service activities, in the field of water supply and sanitation, with a focus on the world's poorest living in developing countries. Since its founding the Center has awarded six Water Prizes and held six International Conferences with participants from all parts of the globe. Through these outreach and research activities, “Dr. Dave” has acquired scores of colleagues and collaborations which continue to this day.

In 2010, the student organization “Engineers Without Borders” was changed to “Sooners Without Borders”. The move was made to develop the organization into a campus-wide group and invite involvement of all disciplines. With the support of the WaTER Center, undergraduate students have worked in El Salvador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Cambodia, Uganda, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Pine Ridge, South Dakota. In 2011, the Directors hired Dr. Jim Chamberlain as the first full-time staff member. Jim is now serving as the Interim Director of the OU WaTER Center.

Dr. Sabatini is joined by colleagues, Drs. Teshome Lemma and Jim Chamberlain,

on a trip to the Rift Valley in Ethiopia

David Sabatini is a David Ross Boyd Professor and Sun Oil Company Endowed Chair of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science at the University of Oklahoma.  After earning a PhD at Iowa State University in Civil Engineering, he joined the University of Oklahoma in 1989.  He is former Editor-in-Chief and current Associate Editor of the Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Associate Editor of Journal of Surfactants and Detergents and an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development.  He has coauthored or coedited four books and over 200 refereed journal publications. His research funding has totaled $12.8 M (individual credit of $4.3 M) and has included funding from agencies such as NSF, EPA, DoE, DOD, DoEd. He is currently teaching in OU’s new online MS program in Hydrology and Water Security, and is writing a textbook on water security. Among his many honors, he was recently inducted into the 2020 Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame.

In 2019, Dr. Sabatini toured the NEWater wastewater reuse plant

and operations in Singapore.

 

 

Thank you, Dr. David Sabatini for your knowledge, experience, and extremely hard work in setting the WaTER Center on its course and steering it to its current success and fruition.

 

But most of all, thank you for your passion for water and for those who are in need!

We life our glasses to you!

WaTER Minor graduate tells of her Peace Corps experience

The OU WaTER Center recently had the chance to visit with Alexis Medina, a recent Environmental Engineering graduate who just spent 18 months serving as a Water Resources Engineer with Peace Corps Panama. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, Alexis’ stay in Panama was cut short with rushed goodbyes and a mandated evacuation. However, during her time in Panama, Alexis was able to provide the small village of San Isidro, Panama with clean water – using the techniques that she learned through completion of the OU WaTER Minor, her fellow Panamanian community members, and the 10-week Peace Corps training.

Coffee was a local crop that was mostly of two varieties - a higher grade Arabica bean, and a lower grade bean grown in the lowlands. 

The community to which Alexis was assigned, San Isidro, had outdated spring boxes and leaking pipes which led to the infiltration of sediments and parasites in their water collection system. If there was a big storm coming, the community had learned over time to gather water in advance in an effort to avoid the “chocolate water” that would come with the rain. With the help of her community, Alexis was able to redesign and update five spring boxes, all of which fed a chlorinated storage tank that distributed water to each home in a tightly knit community of about 150 people. The new spring boxes were constructed using brick and mortar and included concrete lids which could easily be removed for washing out the stones that filtered the spring water.

Spring boxes were built to collect and distribute spring water from a higher elevation.

Besides having the adequate technical skills to manage the project, Alexis understood the social dynamics that must be accounted for to ensure the sustainability of the updated water network. For example, she organized professional WASH seminars for her “Water Committee” composed of villagers in charge of caring for and repairing the water system. At the end of each seminar, she awarded them with certificates and a party for having completed their training. She also made sure to share the important educational materials with the entire community so that everyone understood the importance of the project.

There were two large rivers between the village and the closest town, rivers that had no bridges and were often too high to cross safely in a vehicle. 

Alexis had the fortune of working closely with the landowner who maintains all of the spring boxes, conveniently located on his property. Despite his ability to manage the project independently, Alexis encouraged him to involve younger community members and women in the design/maintenance process because she knew how important it was for more than one person to be responsible and understand the technical details. She understood that they trusted him, a trust that only grew once she and her team consistently produced clean water to their homes and villages.

In addition to her BS degree in Environmental Engineering, Alexis earned the Minor in “Water and Sanitation for Health and Sustainable Development” at OU, which gave her additional coursework and practical experience in these skills - manual and hydraulic well drilling, concrete and sand construction, field surveying, water quality analysis and sampling, and biosand filter construction. As part of her Minor curriculum she spent 4 weeks in Cambodia where she helped to construct ferrocement rainwater harvesting tanks.

Erik and Alexis have a new "family" in Panama.

Overall, Alexis was able to accomplish the work that she set out to do – establishing and ensuring the longevity of the San Isidro water supply. Despite her rushed departure, the community members now have the tools and knowledge that they need to properly maintain their water supply and fix any errors that arise. In return, Alexis has a new-found love for the Panamanian people, their ease of life, their endless kindness, and their abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables. Alexis and her husband, Erik, will soon be moving to the Seattle area where she hopes to work in river and stream restoration.

To Alexis and Erik – Buena suerte y que Dios los bendiga!

Recovery of phosphate from animal wastewater

An OU graduate student, Nusrat Sharmin, is conducting research regarding the ability of calcium silicate hydrate, synthesized from silica-rich rice husks, to remove phosphorous from ruminal wastewater. The phosphorous can then be used as a fertilizer in place of the typical diammonium phosphate (DAP) which is of vital importance for food production.

The research work of Nusrat Sharmin seeks to recover phosphate from an animal manure waste stream.

Her advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Butler says that "This research is part of a larger project that aims to make phosphorus use more sustainable by recovering it from wastewater using low cost materials made from agricultural wastes such as rice husks.  The project accomplishes several things:

• recovery of phosphate from concentrated animal wastes for use as an alternative to expensive commercial fertilizers;
• recycling and reuse of a limited resource (phosphorus) that is essential for food production; and
• finding a beneficial use for a waste material (rice husks) that can be difficult to treat."

Sharmin’s studies so far have shown promising results with up to 99% removal of phosphorous in low-alkalinity water.  However, the cost of one ton of phosphate recovered from silica-rich rice husks was 6.7-10x more expensive than the standard DAP fertilizer. Therefore, Sharmin is exploring different alternatives to synthesize the calcium silicate hydrate, such as lime, which has an expected cost reduction of 84% from the previous rice husk method. 

Rice husks are the outer hull that protect the interior rice kernel that is the staple food for 3.5 billion people who get 20% of their calories from rice.

If Sharmin’s studies prove to be successful, this could have huge implications for developing countries where farmers often lack the resources to afford adequate fertilizer. Since lime can be extracted from limestone and/or dolomite rather simply, the ability to recycle wastewater and produce fertilizer is both low-cost, environmentally friendly, and would provide small-scale farmers the resource to improve their crop yield. This method would also remove the excess phosphorous from municipal and/or ruminal wastewater, effectively minimizing the occurrence of eutrophication which can be particularly harmful to plant life and aquatic species.

Excess nutrients - nitrogen and phosphorus - that make their way into lake or pond will cause eutrophication, low oxygen levels, and fish die-offs. 

Regarding the application of her work in developing nations, Sharmin says "Disposal of rice residues like husk and straw is a big problem for rice-producing countries as often they are burned in open fields causing smoke and breathable dust containing crystalline silica, that leads to diseases related to lungs and eyes. So utilizing this waste as a water treatment material and generating a high value product (phosphorus fertilizer) would be very beneficial to agriculture industry."

There may be some challenges however. She continues: "One challenge of using rice residues in water treatment is that the potential of arsenic contamination. Arsenic tends to accumulate in rice crops, particularly if the paddy soil and irrigation water (groundwater) is high in arsenic content. It also depends on the nature of rice species. So it is necessary to examine the arsenic content of rice husk/straw samples before applying it in water treatment."

Join Water4 in their "Walk4Water 2020"

For millions around the world, today began with a long walk to collect water.
Mile after mile… hour after hour… 40 pounds at a time…

... to and from watering holes, lakes, and streams riddled with disease.
Every day, they fill their buckets over and over again with unsafe water that brings

sickness and pain. 
Every hour they spend walking for water is one less hour for school, work, or time

with loved ones.

This clean water kiosk was established by Water4 and its local partners in Ghana.

How can I participate in Walk4Water?

Walk With Us (In-person): Join us at Scissortail Park (OKC) on September 19!

Walk Where You Are (Virtual): Rally your family and friends to walk where you are – your neighborhood, a local park or around your church building.

 

When: Saturday, September 19, 2020

Where: Scissortail Park in Oklahoma City

(300 SW 7th St., OKC 73109)

The annual 'Walk4Water' brings local awareness of a global hardship for many people.

Water4 is an Oklahoma City-based international nonprofit using faith, innovation and empowerment to reimagine a world

where all people have access to safe water.

Water4 equips local entrepreneurs in developing countries to provide sustainable safe water access to every home, school and clinic in their communities. This approach puts the solution to local water problems in the hands of local people ensuring safe water access is sustained by local resources.

Since 2008, Water4 and our partners have impacted the lives of over 1.4 million people in more than 30 countries through the power of safe and living water.

Villagers in Kenya practice social distancing while waiting in line at the water point.

Watch the video.