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College of Engineering: Students bring big improvements to a small village

In a small village called Tortuga in Nicaragua, 80-year-old Patrosiño Valle lives with his wife in a house that does not have running water. He travels half a mile to collect water from the closest well, which likely contains high levels of bacteria and calcium. Valle’s house is one of 18 in the village not connected to the primary water system due to lack of water pressure. But that’s about to change, thanks to a group of students involved in the UW chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB), which helps meet human needs through engineering projects that focus on clean water, energy, sanitation, agriculture and structures.“We can live without power and with washed-out roads, but without water there is no life,” Valle said. Read more from Civil & Environmental Engineering.