MBGS MEETING
February 8, 2006 (WEDNESDAY)
New Venue and Schedule
Room 116, Natural Science Bldg, MSU
Schedule: 4:15-5:30pm Executive Committee Dinner at Peanut Barrel
5:30-6:30pm Executive Committee Meeting, Room 207, NSB, MSU
6:30-7:00pm Refreshments in Room 207, NSB, MSU
7:00pm Presentation in Room 116, NSB, MSU
No Charge for This Meeting
Topic: “How I Spend My Summer Vacations, A Michigan Geologist Volunteers to Help Provide Clean Water in Africa.”
by
John Esch
MBGS Dinner Meeting Reservation
Name______________________
Number attending _____
Even though there is no charge for this meeting please advise Leonard Espinosa
by February 7, 2006, to help plan the logistics. Send reservations to:
Leonard Espinosa
P.O. Box 18074
Lansing, MI 48901-8074
Ph: Bus Ph: 517-335-3248, Fax 517-373-2443
E-mail: espinosl@michigan.gov
How I Spend My Summer Vacations,
A Michigan Geologist Volunteers to Help Provide Clean Water in Africa
By John Esch
Lack of access to fresh potable water is one of the leading causes of death in developing nations. The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF have estimated 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe clean drinking water. Every 8 seconds a child dies due to water related diseases. Access to clean fresh water, basic hygiene and sanitation knowledge are fundamental things we take for granted here in the western world. These things are a matter of life and death in the third world if you don’t have access to them.
This lack of access and to fresh water is difficult to appreciate in our generally water abundant Michigan which is surrounded by 20% of the world’s fresh water. In much of Africa, life expectancy is only 40 years. Most of the surface water is contaminated and unsafe to drink. Women and children commonly walk 2-3 hours daily one-way to the nearest polluted stream or water hole, or dug well and fill buckets and then walk back.
This talk will present some of the experiences, challenges, and adventures from five trips
I have had the opportunity to take to Zambia and Ethiopia over the last 3 years. The trips involved at different times, geological/drilling surveys to determine appropriate drilling techniques, repairing water well hand pumps, and providing them the tools, spare parts and training for local teams to repair them. In addition, basic sanitation, hygiene and field water quality analysis training were given. Later trips involved overseeing UNICEF and USAID funded drilling projects and working with a local host agency hydrogeologist on well siting to minimize the number of dry holes which are common in hard rock territory. The well siting involved the use of GIS software and GPS equipment, as well as the use of local geological data and free satellite imagery and free GIS data to aid in lineament determination and performing low cost geophysical techniques.
The trips have been with Lifewater International ( www.lifewater.org ) which is a Christian non-profit non-denominational organization that uses volunteers who are specialists in the water resource-health fields, who go around the world drilling wells and training people how to drill wells, repair of hand pumps, and provide knowledge of basic hygiene and sanitation.
A number of experiences will be presented including, a poisonous green momba snake crawling over my boot while trying to lift 30 feet of pipe and a pump into a well, and trying to determine the bedrock lithology at depth from the color and texture of 15 feet tall termite mounds.
Despite the diesel smoked filled long drives in the back of a truck over bad, dusty and dangerous roads, drinking nothing but Coke for a week and bouts of sickness, these trips have been the most challenging, exciting and rewarding thing I have ever done. It is a wonderful to be able to use your technical skills as a geologist in helping provide such a basic need in everyone’s life - such as access to clean safe drinking water.
Biography For John Esch
John is a senior geologist/hydrogeologist with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Remediation and Redevelopment Division, Superfund Section, Geological Support Unit. For the last 8 years he has been a project geologist (geodog) on 12 Superfund sites here in Michigan. He Chairs the DEQ GIS Committee.
John started out his career in 1984 as a geologist with Aangstrom Precision Corporation. He led a geophysical survey crew for one year and later worked as a “computer geologist” mapping the structure and isopach maps of every Paleozoic formation in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. John constructed the first ever comprehensive glacial drift isopach and bedrock topography maps of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan as well as mapping the major faults in the basin. In 1990, John left the oil patch and took a job with the DNR (later DEQ) conducting hydrogeologic investigations at contamination sites across the state.
John’s interests include studying the structural geology of the Michigan Basin, use of unconventional geophysical techniques, groundwater surface water interactions, and the use of GIS and 3D visualization techniques to help understand subsurface geology.
MSU Campus Map
Refreshments and presentation will be held in the Natural Science Building. Prior to 6:00pm parking will be available in Lot 9. After 6:00pm parking is open, Lot 7 is the closest to the Natural Science Building.
