Putting the "Civil" in Civil Engineer
Is This What Retirement Looks Like?
by Phil Burgi
Since retiring from the Bureau of Reclamation in 1999, Phil Burgi and his wife, Kay, travel to Ecuador every year for periods of three months to several weeks. This former EWRI GB member has a desire to share his good fortune of being born in a land of freedom and opportunity with less fortunate people around the globe. This is nothing new for Phil and Kay who served as Peace Corps volunteers in Chile in the mid 1960s, worked on small and medium sized irrigation projects in Peru in the early 1980s and have volunteered their service in many church and community endeavors in the Denver, Colorado, area over their 40 years of marriage.
Phil suffered what he calls a "Slight Bump in the Road" this past March while leading a team of eleven volunteers to a remote community in the Ecuadorian jungle. They were in Ecuador working with engineer, Bruce Rydbeck and technicians from HCJB World Radio on a clean water project. HCJB has worked in Ecuador for the past seventy years and more recently has been involved in development of water projects for small communities as an outgrowth of their medical work. In the past 20 years they have brought clean water to over 3000 homes in 35 rural communities. We live in a world where over 50% of the people have no access to clean drinking water and in the time it takes to read this article 15 children will die from water related diseases. Phil would say, "We can't solve the world's water problems, but we can target an area or a community and solve their water problems". The past two years he has helped on short-term trips lending his hydraulic engineering experience to the clean water effort in Ecuador.
If engineers can find a spring delivering as littleas 1 liter/second near a community, it is sufficient to supply the water needs for 150 households. Rural communities in Ecuador use approximately 25 liters/day/person compared to over 300 liters/day/ person here in the US. With "sweat equity" from the community (approximately 35% of total costs), outside assistance of approximately $15,000, and engineering assistance from HCJB engineers, a clean water supply system can be built for a community in approximately 6 months. The outside donations come from churches, Rotary Clubs, and NGOs such as Water for People, and are used to purchase in country all of the PVC pipe, valves, meters, and other supplies to built a working system. The community ownership in the project is key to the success of the effort. They are asked to: form a water committee responsible to construct and maintain the system, obtain legal right to the water, provide the manual labor to dig the ditches and build the tanks, account for community monies spent, and commit to an overall plan to improve community health.
The process of planning and constructing a community water system, often seen as the most critical community need, can be the catalyst to develop community leadership for future needs. The community effort can go far beyond drinking water, igniting a transformation in the lives of the people inspiring them to address other basic community needs.
Although many systems have been built in cooperation with HCJB in the mountainous regions of Ecuador, the effort this year was the first to enter a jungle community where the only access, other than walking, was use of a single engine Cessna. Phil's "bump in the road" occurred in the remote village of Makuma, Ecuador. The villagers were not ready the first day and instead of starting without their involvement, the team set about working on several other projects around the compound where they were housed. While working on an old roof, Phil fell some 12 feet when the roof gave way. He was flown from the work site to a jungle base hospital where they determined he had several breaks in the right femur. He was stabilized and then flown to the Vozandes Hospital in Quito the next day. Thirty hours after the fall he had a ten-inch plate and eleven screws placed in his right femur.
Fortunately, the team was able to stay on site to work with Bruce Rydbeck and up to 120 community members to develop several springs in the area. Since then, the community has installed a hydraulic ram to pump the water approximately one kilometer from the developed springs to a tank that will provide clean drinking water for the community school. Clean water delivery to the houses will be added in a future phase.
So Phil, "Was it worth the pain and effort?" YES! In today's world when people are looking for significance and a sense of giving to their fellow man, I can't think of an effort that has more lasting benefit than to provide the basic need and human right of clean water.
In "retirement" Phil is a consultant 30 or so days a year to support his volunteer habits. He is editor for a Bureau of Reclamation manual entitled Fish Protection at Water Diversions to be released early in 2005. He also consults on various water resource projects.
Phil Burgi Catching a Ride to the Hospital
Phil Burgi in the hospital in Quito, Ecuador