Las Pampas is a small colonia outside of Presidio, TX, where mostly elderly residents rely on hauled water. CERM proposed rainwater harvesting as a means of reducing the amount of hauling by residents. In collaboration with the ESW Chapter at UTEP, we installed rainwater harvesting demonstrations at two residences. Coca-Cola Bottling Company in El Paso donated 27 275-gallon tanks. ESW donated labor as a service project. We installed each of the two systems on a weekend, the first one on April 28-29, 2017, and the second on November 10-12, 2017.
The residents will use the water for gardening, landscaping, and small livestock. We estimated that the amount of hauled water was reduced by about half, or reducing the number of trips from 2-3 per week to one per week. We installed each of these systems for a total “out of pocket” cost of about $1,000. Based on our estimated cost savings, it would take about 4 years for the system to pay for itself at a cost of $1000. We estimate the life of the system to be a minimum of 10 years and as much as 50 years. The primary environmental benefit of the rainwater harvesting system is the reduction of roof runoff that contributes to localized flooding. These systems could be replicated in other colonias or low-resource communities. As a result of this demonstration, one resident and one local business (the municipal airport) have contacted us with interest in installing their own systems. The systems not only have educational value in the community, but also have value in providing opportunities for engineering students to learn how to install the systems. The result is a high impact installation at minimal cost.
We also recently installed tanks at the home of an elderly woman whose tanks had been stolen. She uses the water tanks for her indoor water use. We placed the tanks in cages and put the cage legs in cement to secure the water tanks from being stolen again. This project was done on March 8-9, 2019.
Engineers for a Sustainable World
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