| description:
|
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Village Safe Water Program has announced Phase 3 of the Alaska Water and Sewer Challenge, a research and development effort to find better and more affordable methods for delivering drinking water and sewage disposal services to rural Alaska. The project, which began in 2013, is designed to leverage public funding with resources from the private sector and academia to produce innovative, cost-effective water and sewer technologies that can be constructed and operated in an Arctic climate.
Phase 1 of the project began in fall 2013 and involved an international effort to encourage the formation of joint venture teams of engineers, social scientists, innovators, and people with rural Alaska experience. Phase 2 began the following year with six teams being awarded funding by DEC to develop competing proposals for researching and building new and more cost effective in-home water and sewer systems. Now, Phase 3 includes the prototype development and pilot testing in a lab for the top three proposals submitted during Phase 2. DOWL Alaska, Summit Consulting, and the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) are the three teams with proposals selected for the development of working prototypes in Phase 3.
Teams will be evaluated on a series of performance targets. While an ideal system would be capable of meeting all targets, a suitable system may meet most targets but not all, and exceed others. Proposed systems should be capable of providing a minimum of 15 gallons of useable water per person per day, comprised of water for drinking and cooking, washing and flushing. Systems with a lower capital and operating costs are preferable. Factors such as extreme temperatures, permafrost, remote locations, off road systems, willingness of end users to accept and use the water and sewer systems, and the requirements of federal and state agencies who will be funding the systems for installation in rural Alaska must be taken into account.
For more information on the Water and Sewer Challenge, visit: http://watersewerchallenge.alaska.gov/. To download the slides from the December 8th presentation, which includes descriptions of the proposed prototypes, visit: http://watersewerchallenge.alaska.gov/docs/PublicPresentation_AllSlides.pdf. |