Patel School of Global Sustainability

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

The Lab is housed in Goodwill at the Waste Water Treatment Facility

The Lab is extremely compact and efficiently managed.  There is a great effort to conserve and reuse materials and get maximum mileage from limited resources while maintaining the highest integrity of testing.

Lab 1

Lab 2

Lab 3

And the folks here couldn’t [...]

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

As I’ve mentioned throughout my posts, there are no easy routes to anywhere in Dominica.  Perhaps one of the most difficult testing routes is the one that runs to the northeast of the island.  Where some of the standpipes and villages we visited on other routes were steep and in high elevations, almost every [...]

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

I was able to tour the waste water treatment plant today.  It is the only facility of its kind in all of Dominica.  The system serves 12,000 households in the greater Roseau area.  Prior to its construction, most of the raw sewerage went directly to Dominica’s waterways.

Roseau

Laboratory and Waste Water Treatment Plant, [...]

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

Roseau is the nation’s capital and its largest city.  It has one of the oldest existing systems and also the country’s newest drinking water treatment plant.

The new drinking water facility is located in the city’s heights at the existing holding tanks.

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

On Tuesday and Thursday of this week I had two of most challenging days.  I accompanied Water Service Technician, Sherbert Riviere, into the field to observe the monitoring of rivers.

Hampstead River 3

This project is mostly DOWASCO but is working in conjunction with the Ministry of Forestry and DOMLEC (the Dominican power company).  The [...]

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

Environmental Health Fair

When I arrived at work on Friday morning I learned that we were participating in a environmental health fair sponsored by the Ministry of the Environment.  We took most of the lab equipment and transported it only a few blocks away to the Independence Pavilion where we set up displays on [...]

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

The Dominica Water and Sewerage Company, DOWASCO, is headquartered in Roseau.  It is government run.  There are a few water bottling companies and a number of households in the high peaks that are not on the DOWASCO system but, otherwise, potable water is supplied by DOWASCO.  There is only one waste water treatment plant [...]

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

The following morning and everything is looking a lot brighter!

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

On those rare days I am not working at DOWASCO, I have been trying to get around the island to see how things are done in different towns and businesses.  I happened upon the Manicou River Resort in my web searches prior to arrival and was very interested in their efforts to be low-impact [...]

Maryhelen Shuman-Groh

I feel a lot like this truck making its way through the capital city of Roseau (pronounced row-zo).  There are four guys on top of the truck to hold up the electrical wires in order for the truck to pass.  I took this photo after I’d climbed off the mini-bus for my third of [...]