(Summer ’12) Zsuzsa Megyery ’12

PSC Intern. The Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI) in Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies has agreed to host Zsuzsa Megyery this summer. Her project approaches water security, as the problem is aggravated with global climate change, to remedy their shortage of healthful, available water year-round. This project is the development of pilot rainwater harvesting systems that will contribute to the foundation of the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR) taking place in St. Lucia this summer. A rainfall-climate analysis will be completed in the context of Hurricane Tomas. Together, her work will complement the current infrastructure in national development planning for both the water system infrastructure and an improved disaster preparedness strategy. Zsuzsa will be using her work this summer to complete her undergraduate thesis project for the MIT EAPS Department. Be sure to keep up with her updates!

Blog 07 – 2012.07.06: Happy Birthday to Me!

I will safely say that the unbridled optimism of youth combined with the allure of a degree from MIT is a dangerous combination.

In 2005 I came to MIT after seventeen years of reinforcement of bad behaviors.

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The challenges that ensued were not just about trying to separate the past from the present but about severing whatever fictitious tie was keeping me anchored to a chaotic family environment, continually reminding me that no matter what I attempted I couldn’t measure up, handicapped by a y-chromosome. Confronting the demands of the scholastic environment at MIT, I did the only thing that I knew how to do at that point… I ran.

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In 2008 I left MIT.

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After several months of a kinesthetically-focused education,  with everything from kayaking, surfing and mountaineering, I reevaluated my situation.

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With the help of older, and what I am sure are wiser, eyes, I established a set of goals that are both worthy and achievable in improving the future, not only for myself, but, also for the world we live in. In furtherance of that goal, I attended the University of Washington and targeted employment, to challenge and improve myself and to apply the discipline that I achieved to teach and train others.

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In 2011 I returned to MIT with focus, equilibrium, anticipation and integrity.

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In 2012 I found the most amazing and fulfilling place I had ever been. Because of a sheet of recycled paper scotch-taped to an elevator wall I signed up to join a team of geophysicists from the MIT Earth Resources Laboratory on a groundwater project in the West Indies on the island of St. Lucia.

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The alignment that ensued within myself was rapid and extraordinary. I found center, purpose and home.

For once I got the feeling I was right where I belonged. I absolutely knew I had to be here.
This spring I was selected to intern with CEHI and was honored with funding from the MIT Public Service Center.

This experience has been one of the most rewarding of my life – as I prepare for my future work in the Caribbean I feel like someone who has been away from home for 20years… the place would have changed a lot, but the feelings inside wouldn’t have.

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I want you to know that I am very, very fortunate.

I have gone through many different experiences to come to this new journey. I fully believe with all my heart and soul that life finds me even more equipped to take this next leap. I believe I will glean so much more out of it because there’s a more complete Suz.

Life’s successes are not measured on how many times we fall… but how we get back up.

I know I have some amazing adventures ahead of me… some of these I could have missed if I were my younger self.

 

The greatest gift I have ever received has been this experience – and I owe it all to MIT.

 

My wish for all who read this is that you are content with you. Many people spend their whole lives looking for that contenment only to have missed it inside themselves. The world is at your fingertips. It’s all in how you see it, and I hope you see it.

Please know that fulfillment will not be found in all the materials, school and high expectations others have put out there for you.

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I have always told myself I can pass any test a man can pass. I plan to prove it.

The person who says it cannot be done should not get in the way of the person doing it.

I am Real Intellectual Firepower, I have incredible friends and I have experienced the corporate world long enough to know that there is a different way to live.

A toast to MIT, the MIT Public Service Center, the MIT EAPS Department, CEHI, all of my professors and mentors who have encouraged me in this journey.

A thank you to my brother, his wife, and my adoptive parents.

Extra hugs for my beagle, Benjamin Franklin.

I’m especially thankful for my friends — at MIT, in St Lucia, the entire crew of Project Breakaway — thank you for supporting me no matter what journey I choose to embark on and in supporting my efforts to extend my life to this place more permanently.

Happy Birthday to Me. 🙂

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Blog 06 – 2012.07.03: Project Momentum

Hello Fans! After a great charity ride over the weekend I was excited to be out of the office for a Monday with my first trip to the field to see what’s going on with RWH in St Lucia. 🙂

Are we leaving yet? 🙂

Throughout the month the technicians in the Lab make their rounds and sample the water at different sites around the island to test for water quality – this includes treated water, pipe-born water, wastewater and off-shore. This meant I was going to see a few places today that, well, even though they don’t do RWH at their facility, they are still some fantastic sites for tired eyes — and leg muscles.

Morning Coffee at Hotel Chocolat – with a side of ‘beautiful view of the Pitons,’ please.

I was told that Hotel Chocolat is one of the only sites the technicians visit that caters them with coffee/beverages – they treat their water treatment people nicely.

We were down along the West side of the Island today in and around the area of Soufriere.

Map of St Lucia depicting the watershed and town of Soufriere

The place I was visiting today is an Estate called Mourne Coubaril. What a neat place! From their website:

Experience a real St. Lucia Plantation with a working mill and see key steps in the making of sugar cane syrup, producing cocoa and coffee and processing coconuts for food products. Also visit historical features of the estate and take a look inside authentic huts within a traditional village setting.

Enjoy a creole lunch at our restaurant within the grounds of the original Plantation House and browse in our gift shop.

Take a stroll around our beautiful botanical gardens, or hike to the Plat Pays. Finish with breathtaking views of the volcano.

For the more adventurous, Soufriere Hotwire Rides now offer ziplining in full view of the Pitons and historical town of Soufriere. Coconut tree climbing also on offer.

Okay, great. Now we know what this St Lucian Estate has to offer. The absolute, most awesome, coolest, part about the place?? .. especially for an Earth sciences nerd?? (other than the obvious beauty and botany of the place….) The Mourne Coubaril Estate does their own rain-water harvesting, contains it in a 10,000gallon cistern under their main building and doesn’t rely on plumbed-in water at all for 6-8months out of the year! WHOA AWESOME!

Central building on the Mourne Coubaril Estate – RWH guttering and down-pipes installed on 90% of the building

So, before I was involved in the RWH project at CEHI, one of the Lab Technicians had a nice chat with the owner of the Estate to inform him of first-flush diverters and how essential they are to increased water cleanliness and quality in the cistern. The owner, Mr. David Lum-Kong, was very receptive and installed them around the building. He exclaimed what a great installation they were and how much he has saved in water-purifying efforts.

First-Flush Diverter installed along a down-pipe

Close-up view here: Left pipe is the down-pipe directing rainwater into the cistern and the one on the right is the base of the FF Diverter

10,000gallon cistern at the base of the main building at Mourne Coubaril Estate

This ended up being my favorite site to visit for RWH in St Lucia. My project led me to a variety of locations – commercial, residential, and in-between like the Mourne Coubaril Estate.

The Estate takes first place – a beautiful example of what a (not-so-large-sized) facility can do with a bit of investment, a well-designed system, maintaining it well, and saving the water supply all in a day’s work – every day.

While on-site, Mr. Lum-Kong was kind enough to give us a tour of the rest of the property to show us a bit more.

Me taking notes as Mr. Lum-Kong (owner of Mourne Coubaril Estate) explains the Estate’s water resources and how they have improved it through RWH

He took us to the far end of the property and showed us a leg of the Soufriere River which he had dredged even deeper. The water is not currently used for anything at the facility and is currently rather murky. Before the RWH system this water was treated and used on-property for irrigation.

Off-shoot of the Soufriere River – this water was once used for irrigation on the property

Fun Fact: One of the Estate’s zip-lines runs above this water – we even got to see someone ride over it — cool! 🙂

Well, that was about it for the visit to Mourne Coubaril. A sterling example of how RWH can be utilized in St Lucia and this will be well-detailed in my final report for CEHI. 🙂

Another Fun Fact: Oh, and we also were invited to come zip-lining at any time. You know, my birthday is coming up, right? 🙂

As a final stop in the Soufriere area, the technicians and I visited the world-famous Jade Mountain Resort in St Lucia. This place is an architectural wonder. I feel so priveleged to have seen it. In fact, asking kindly, one of the staff even gave us a quick 5-minute tour inside so that I could have a sample of what it’s like to stay in a place so remarkable.

Zsuzsa at Jade Mountain

Blog 05 – 2012.06.25: St Lucian Celebrity

Hello Fans! Well, what can I say, it’s been a really interesting few weeks since the charity ride with Project Breakaway both on and off the bike.

Okay, let’s talk about what’s exciting around CEHI these days.

Part 1: CEHI Celebrities

We haven’t been able to make a whole lot of progress on the St Lucian draft building codes because we’re still waiting on the OECS Draft Codes to work with, but that’s okay. We can move on to other project sections here while we wait for that.

So, this week started off with CEHI being graced with a visit from the Secretary General of CARICOM (the CARIbbean COMmunity), Ambassador Irwin LaRocque. His visit was a part of a series of consultations with stakeholders in Member States  which forms part of his advocacy for the Community and his thrust to engage stakeholders in the decision-making process.

My fellow intern from MIT, Elise McKenna, and I were lucky enough to get a photo with him:

Zsuzsa Megyery, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, Elise McKenna at CEHI Headquarters in St Lucia.

Now for the coolest parts of this meeting:

1. We were invited to sit in on part of the meeting he had with the Directors and Managers here at CEHI – what an opportunity to hear about the goals and forthcoming developments in Environmental Health both in St Lucia and across the Caribbean.
2. Our photo, the very one shown above, was featured on local television news when they spoke of the Ambassador’s visit to St Lucia.

Yessss! How cool is that?! Way cool. Indeed. Absolutely. Yes. 🙂

The end of June had brought us our very first celebrity status in St Lucia.

Part 2: Bicycling Celebrity

Sunday, June 24th marked the St Lucian National Cycling Championship Race. This was an individual race but riders were asked to represent their teams by wearing team uniforms, so you’ll be able to recognize the Project Breakaway riders.

The womens race was 22miles with a few really strenuous hills. Early in the race I made my breakaway from the pack and from my competition:

Zsuzsa making her breakaway from the pack

I had a strong lead. I had climbed hard and finally passed my competition on the last major uphill climb just a few miles from the finish line.
1mile from the finish line I was moving a little too fast after coming off of a long steep dowhhill and ended up being thrown off of the road and thrown sideways into the side of a large box truck.

It could have been much worse.

I broke six knuckles in my hand, really hurt my entire left arm and my hip but managed to stay upright on the bicycle. This incident not only knocked the wind out of me but also knocked my gears out of alignment on my carbon steed. This cost me quite a bit of time to cycle through each of my gears to reset and then try to sprint the finish. As all of this went on the second place rider passed me. With the wind having all escaped from my lungs so rapidly I tried to push as hard as I could as we braved through town on the last leg. I ended up flying over the finish line 2seconds behind last year’s Female Natl Champion, my hand and arm covered in blood which had gotten all over my white bicycle. Completely out of wind, I could barely see straight or remain vertical on the bike. I pulled over and collapsed on the side of the road in some grass for nearly 15minutes to catch my breath.

When I finally realized how the race had ended and what had transpired since colliding with the truck, I knew I needed to clean up my hand and get it looked at. I walked my bicycle over to the compound where the spectators and judges were all convened. Some friends quickly rushed over to help. Most important. Elise went immediately to the grocery store next door to get some ice for my hand/arm.

Elise helping to ice my ailments after taking 2nd place in the Natl Race

My story was featured on television news a few days later when they were announcing the results of the National Cycling Championship Race. Project Breakaway riders were represented in every category of the races and for the Womens race, we represented first and second place:

Zsuzsa (left): 2nd place in the Women’s race of the St Lucian National Cycling Championships

This was my first cycling race in St Lucia – I can’t complain about a second place finish, no matter the circumstances.

A big thank you to Project Breakaway and all of my supporters here and abroad who were rooting for me and supported me in my recovery from the crash. 🙂

Blog 04 – 2012.06.12: Riding with a Purpose

Hello Fans! So, at the end of my last update I introduced you guys to the most wonderful cycling team in St. Lucia, Project Breakaway.

I also reminded the MIT and World communities that working hard requires playing hard. Well, let me share with you how exactly I’ve been spending my time outside of the CEHI office hours.

• Tuesdays at 4:50a: Training ride with the group – usually laps around the City at pace.
• Thursdays at 4:50a: Training ride with the group – usually laps around the City at pace.
• Sundays at 6:30a: Long group rides for harder training but, awesomely, Sundays often include charity rides.

::eyebrows raised:: Did you say charity rides? — Why, yes, yes I did. I did say charity rides.

The slogan of the Project Breakaway group is ‘Riding with a Purpose’… so, let’s check their website to find out what that means:

In the world of cycling a breakaway is a group of riders who push ahead leaving the main group of riders (peloton) behind. Often the breakaway does not result in winning the race but the move to push ahead often serves the double purpose of being a strategy and an ambition. It is the concepts of strategy and ambition with which Project Breakaway is concerned and finds its grounding. Thus Project Breakaway is a strategy to promote health and fitness, serve charity and other causes as well as develop cycling.

The ambitions coincide with the strategies and include an attempt to contribute significantly to the wellness of the society, to bring relief to as many charities as possible through cycling, to raise awareness of worthy causes and to develop cycling to national prominence with a well established following of all categories of cyclists and provide a ready pool of potential for world class cycling excellence.

…

The launch of Project Breakaway on the 11^th of December, 2011 and The Ride Newsletter, signal the dawn of a new era in the consistent use of cycling for decidedly purposeful social causes.

Membership for Project Breakaway, is available on several levels, core, associate, support and corporate. Core members are those who wish to be closely attached in a quasi club structure and ride consistently with the group, are uniformed and have a measure of input to group affairs. Associate membership is a looser arrangement in which riders can join rides and activities at will and on invitation. Support members are non-riders who wish to support the work of the organization with their time talent and resources. Corporate members are businesses and other organizations who wish to make consistent finance or resource inputs to the organization.

Become part of Project Breakaway and ride with a purpose!

As you can see, this is an excellent group! We ride together and help the community together, too! So, on the 18th of June I joined the group on my first Charity Ride:

Zsuzsa at the beginning of the Charity Ride.

So how does a cycling charity ride work? Well, It means that we have members of the community ride with us to promote the sport of cycling, for one! That meant we had St Lucians of all-ages hop on bicycles and ride for about an hour with us and see what a great sport this is!

Project Breakaway riders and local community riders joined in, too!

Okay, but all that does is promote cycling and try to get more people involved. Yes, now for the charity part of it.

This particular ride was to support the Cornerstone Society for Homeless People here in St Lucia. In particular, they asked for a donation of cleaning supplies. So, every rider – Project Breakaway riders as well as community riders along for the event – were asked to donate a gallon of bleach and a gallon of disinfectant to the cause.

After the ride we had a nice ceremony in Castries where we presented the donation of cleaning supplies to the Director of the Society:

Project Breakaway fearless leader presenting our donations to the Cornerstone Society.

So, you might be wondering why I decided to make a post about cycling with Project Breakaway on the MIT PSC Blog when I’m supposed to be writing about my Rainwater Harvesting work here. Well, I will now take the liberty to air my thoughts on this matter.

I applied, interviewed and worked extremely hard to earn a sponsorship from the MIT Public Service Center. Like everything at  MIT, the PSC has the highest of standards and expectations of their work and the students who are foreign ambassadors as they reach out to make the world a better place.
I am a scientist and I have a lot of knowledge that I can share and collaborate with the scientists at CEHI to make a great contribution, but let me put it this way:
I am so honored to not only be doing good environmental work in St Lucia but to also have found a great group to not only ride with but that does wonderful, charitable things on the island each week.

I’m living and working in St Lucia for 12 weeks this summer – so, my thought has been, how can I make the most profound contribution during my time here? To me, that didn’t mean just completing a project and fulfilling expectations that others – say the PSC, CEHI and other stakeholders – have set out there for me. That means involving myself in the community and helping that, well, in every way I can.

How fortunate of me to have found a group of cyclists that do just that. 🙂

So, I will continue to keep this blog updated on the workings of the Project Breakaway community this summer as well as my RWH work with CEHI – Public service is public service – so, I thought you might like to know. 🙂

Blog 03 – 2012.06.12: Harvesting Tables

Hello Fans! So, it’s Monday morning again and we’re finally back at updating the blog. I know that it’s been a few weeks, but trust me, you’ll very soon learn exactly WHY there has been such a massive delay in updating.

So, it seems that the last we spoke I was telling you about some fun facts I’d learned about Caribbean nations in my  hunt for RWH legislations — so I can get an idea of exactly what the other SIDS (Small Island Developing States) are thinking. That included some maps and pretty pictures and a fun fact about each place that I have yet to actually visit.

I noticed a few trends and trends mean equations which mean discrete mathematics which means… since I’m a scientist: I like order and structure… which in this case, means that I like, yup, you guessed it, tables. 🙂

So, here’s a table:

Notice a trend here???

Okay, so all of these Caribbean locales have government regulations for rainwater harvesting systems…. but you have to remember that, well, it also matters how much rain is falling.

• So, Antigua – what gives? 28 gallons per unit area — really?!
  Antigua is a relatively dry island compared to the rest of the Caribbean…
• Uhh… Barbados..? Just 1 gallon per unit area for residences??
  This one is of particular interest to me and my work here in St Lucia, because, well, we’re neighbors!

Map showing St Lucia and Barbados – neighbors! 🙂

Now, to discover what it is that neighbors do in the world of residential living, I asked google:

• According to Yahoo! Answers:
  “Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor.” — okay, that’s a bit abrasive and demanding, but perhaps we aren’t the best of neighbors.
• According to the Experience Project:
  “Howdy, Neighbor, You think I could possibly borrow a cup of sugar?”
  The replies were really quite lovely to this one:
  “Sorry, we zebras take our coffee unsweetened.”, “NO. Bog off.”, and finally, “Take it ALL – please – I’m diabetic!”

Alright, so following these examples that the internet provided me with, which means they are all true and factual and that this is real science here:

So, Barbados..? Just 1 gallon per unit area for residences you say? It seems that the industry standard trends around 10 gallons per unit area, or more if you feel like Antigua.

Well, we haven’t really settled on a good answer for this question of what St. Lucia’s proposed standard should be. This is going to involve some fieldwork so we can get a good understanding of Rainwater Harvesting in St Lucia as it is currently in place, and, how much rain we have here. What’s the best answer going to be? Over the next weeks… we’ll have an answer to that. 🙂

Oh, and there’s on more little, tiny thing that complicates the matter. The OECS (Organization of Eastern Caribbean States) has a set of Draft Building Codes that they came up with. If we’re going to make a proposed standard of RWH Legislation codes for St Lucia, we need to get a copy of those Draft Building Codes — aka, I’m on it. 🙂

So while I’ve been busy pondering life, the universe and St Lucia’s role in Caribbean RWH, this would be a good time to share what else I’ve been doing in St. Lucia since I’ve been here:

–> Click this: Standing Start <–

the power of heaven the light of the sun the brightness of the moon the splendor of fire the flashing of lighting the swiftness of wind the depth of sea the stability of earth the compactness of rocks

because beyond a horizon there may be defeat some men stay

…

I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’ll go.

yes, Yes, YES — I just compared RainWater Harvesting Science to the sport of Cycling to the nearly ineffable tale of Odysseus.

Zsuzsa in Project Breakaway uniform with her bicycle.

As you’ll recall from my first post in St Lucia you saw a giant cardboard box, all duct-taped together, which contained my bicycle. About a week after arriving in St Lucia, I found a wonderful group of cyclists to train with and ride with this summer — they’re called Project Breakaway.

As an legit MIT student knows – you have to play hard when you work hard. In my case, I train hard, I cycle hard, and that clears my mind outside of the office in order to think clearly and concisely about my challenges inside the office. 🙂

Blog 02 – 2012.06.10: Welcome to CEHI

Hello Fans! So, it’s Monday morning and I arrived early to the office… perhaps I need to get myself on a more Caribbean schedule.

CEHI was all ready to receive me – they greeted me with a thorough outline, sort of a task-list, for the RWH work to be done here… oh, and  a great view:

View from my office at CEHI – Please note: This photo does no justice.

So the first part of my work here was spent doing a lot of reading. It’s funny, sometimes, being an MIT student who particularly, exactly, quite possibly, maybe doesn’t care for reading. 🙂
Not only did this mean familiarizing myself with all of the available materials in the CEHI Rainwater Harvesting Toolbox but then taking it further and scrounging up tons of material available through MIT on the matter. I figured while I was on the hunt that I would find and collect the relevant materials for all sections of my task list – I wouldn’t want to ignore something good now and go scrounging around for it later.

Okay, so what exactly is the action plan here? Yea, perhaps we should talk about that.

So a little background here first, CEHI has been involved over the past six years in the promotion of RWH as a viable water augmentation measure to enhance water security in Caribbean countries. In many of the islands, there are issues in particular communities in respect of the reliability of potable water supplies both in terms of quality and availability. This is due to many factors but mainly to the fact that water supply infrastructure in these communities is often aged and sometimes under-capacity, given present demands from the populations that they serve.

The added dimensions of climate change and climate variability is anticipated to place additional stresses on water supply, with challenges associated with extreme events such as hurricanes and droughts. RWH can therefore play an important role in meeting demands at critical times of need. Cool!

So, the Institute, CEHI that is, in collaboration with support partners has developed a suite of resources to assist persons wishing to install rainwater harvesting systems. The next step in the process is to determine ways to popularize RWH through development of codes of practicies, instructional tools, formulation of incentives for home and business owners to assist with adoption. There will be emphasis placed on development of tailored solutions for the Caribbean for specific RWH applications supported by engineering and architectural designs that can be incorporated into planning and building development codes.

RWH Handbook developed by CEHI

Okay….. great. 🙂

Soooo, but, uhm… I’m not from the Caribbean. That complicates the matter a bit more, but, nothing we can’t handle.
I spent a bit of time doing a lot of digging – researching building codes in other countries regarding requirements for RWH. Having an understanding of Caribbean climate and rainfall would have been helpful – but, that’s how we learn, right?

What I can tell you now is pretty neat:

USVI:  

The US Virgin Islands has a really thorough set of building codes, requirements and incentives for RWH both in the home and on commercial buildings.

Fun fact: The USVI is the only place in the modern world where citizens are required by law to be directly responsible for their own domestic water supply. How cool!!

Buildings in the USVI are built with cisterns that must have a specific capacity based on the square roof area and how many storeys the building is. Oh, and you can’t just build your roof out of anything – they’re specific on that, too. Way to go, USVI!

Antigua:

Antigua is a little more relaxed in their code – they basically just state that dwellings must be built with facilities to store at least 3 to 4 days water requirements based on the house size — so that’s about 4,000 imperial gallons for every bedroom. Let’s hope they’re not cramming a dozen people into one bedroom, though… really.

Funny that they would be more relaxed, though – because here it is:

Fun Fact: Antigua has no public water supply.

Barbados:

Oh hey Barbados –

Fun Fact: 79% of the total fresh water resources come from groundwater.

That’s awesome! … you know, for a sub-tropical island. 🙂

In 1996 they enacted their planning development amendment that required rainwater storage tanks of a certain capacity based on the gross floor area of the home/commercial building.

What’s great about the system in Barbados is that these regulations are actually enforced by the Town and Country Planning Office (TCPO) (doesn’t always happen with these places and these types of regulations….). The TCPO requires that the rainwater storage provisions be included in the development plans submitted to them for permission to build. TCPO inspectors also certify that such storage exists before rebates are given — yes, you get a rebate of $0.50 per imperial gallon of installed tank capacity as an incentive by the Barbados Water Authority.

Okay, so sources (J. Mwansa. pers. comm. 2006) tell me that admistration of the regime has been weak with regard to ensuring that the storage provided is used for the intended purpose… but at least they have an office for that! Movin’ on up…

Bermuda:

Welcome to Bermuda!! – we have relatively well distributed average annual rainfall through the year!

Uhhh…. what?

Welcome to Bermuda!! – we have no wet or dry seasons.

What a great slogan – eh eh?? I thought so. 🙂

Okay Bermuda, you’re kind of by yourself in the middle of … uhhh… nowhere. How do you get your potable water?

• 19% of dwelling units in Bermuda supplement their supply of harvested rainfall with raw water from private wells. More than one-third of these wells produce “fresh” (low salinity) water because they are located within fresh groundwater lenses, the remainder are “brackish” (high salinity).
• Another 19% of dwelling units are connected to water mains (pipelines) which are fed from reservoirs containing a blend of treated water from low salinity groundwater wells and from coastal sea-water wells. The method of treatment is almost exclusively reverse osmosis.
• 64% of dwelling units have neither a well nor a mains connection and, therefore, rely on harvest rainfall supplemented only by ‘trucked’ water as necessary. There are 41 water trucks (tankers) in Bermuda, many of which are individually owner-operated.

Fun Fact: 64% of dwelling units in Bermuda have neither a well nor a mains connection and, therefore, rely on harvested rainfall supplemented only by ‘trucked’ water as necessary. There are 41 water trucks (tankers) in Bermuda, many of which are individually owner-operated.

the British Virgin Islands:

Fun Fact: the BVI have had rainwater catchment regulations since 1972.

Yup… in 1972 Land Development Control Guidelines stated that each building intended for human habitation must be constructed with a rainwater catchment or cistern having a capacity based on roof catchment area.

Even cooler – in the 1960s and 70s the BVI government constructed public rainwater catchments for domestic and agricultural purposes. Other than rainwater, the BVI relies on desalination for their water.

Turks & Caicos:  

Last but not least, even the Turks & Caicos government regulations make it mandatory for all homes to have storage capacity of at least 400 litres per each square meter of roof area.

Yup. That’s it. They’ve got a ways to go on developing that, but hey, it’s a good start!

Okay, so all of these Caribbean locales have government regulations for rainwater harvesting systems…. but you have to remember that, well, it also matters how much rain is falling.

The following is a list of the cistern specifications by country:

• Antigua – at least 28 gallons per unit area
• Barbados – at least 1 gallon per unit area
• Bermuda – at least 10 gallons per unit area
• BVI – at least 10 gallons per unit area
• Turks & Caicos – at least 10 gallons per unit area
• USVI – at least 10 gallons per unit area

Okay — weren’t we talking about the action plan way back when before I told you about the current status of RWH regulations in a bunch of places?

Yeah, okay, great. So, now that we know what other countries are doing in terms of RWH – we can draft up some codes that would work for St Lucia and hopefully get some legislation going so that we can enhance St Lucia’s water security in response to a changing climate. As the climate is changing so are the frequency and intensity of rainfall, tropical storms and hurricanes —

Increasing trend in Caribbean annual rainfall since 1900.

So, let’s harvest the rain!! Fix the infrastructure — change the public perception of rain water and let’s make it happen!

Sweet. 🙂

Blog 01 – 2012.06.05: Launching St. Lucia

Hello Fans! Welcome to my first PSC blog post from the beautiful island of St. Lucia in the West Indies where I’m doing work on rain-water harvesting (RWH) and climate resilience while here. Sorry it’s taken so long, so I’ll make a few posts and get you all caught up – I hope you enjoy it. 🙂

On 31st May, a Thursday, I arrived to St. Lucia with two bags and a bicycle that ended up looking somewhat like this:

Equipment & Luggage arriving in Vieux Fort, St Lucia for the summer.

The Bike box basically exploded on the flight down and it had to be duct-taped together, oh boy. At least all the geologic survey equipment made it through TSA and nothing was lost that would hinder my work for the summer.

Upon arriving we went straight to my home for the next three months and, like any good, hard-working MIT student would do, I inspected the facilities. To my pleasant surprise, I found a very appropriate coffee mug in the cabinet to be put to extensive use this summer – “Courage Best Bitter.”

Coffee: Courage Best Bitter

Okay, so we’ve arrived, we have luggage, we have a means to stay caffeinated through the months lying ahead. It was time to spend the weekend getting settled. This was not my first trip to St Lucia, so I had friends and contacts on island as well as a good understanding of my way around.

The weekened was spent getting my bicycle put together – let’s be honest here, at MIT we work hard and we play hard… and fitness has to happen – getting unpacked/organized and going to the beach. Oh right, there was also going to the grocery to get the house set up to be lived in – which, includes eating on a semi-regular basis. St. Lucia has great markets to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables – the local produce is fantastic. But, much to my amazement when stopping at the supermarket was this:

St. Lucia: We sell Idaho Potatoes. Orly??

Well, that’s surprising. Especially for me – I grew up in Washington state where Idaho potatoes are the only ones to buy. Good thing I can keep my potato consumption in style while working in the Caribbean. 🙂

So, after a busy and fun first weekend on-island, I was all set to face my first day at the office at the Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI):

Zsuzsa Megyery’s Ready Face. 🙂

Okay, so I was a bit sunburned, but hey, we’re in some pretty intense sunshine down here… it’ll turn into a tan soon enough. 🙂

Alright, CEHI, LET’S DO THIS.

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