UTEP students, companies aid Haiti water access.
Six University of Texas at El Paso civil engineering students will travel to Haiti to install a water filtration system that they designed.
The group, with their professor Ivonne Santiago, partnered with Solar Smart Living and Industrial Water Services on the humanitarian mission.
"People don’t understand how amazing it is to have tap water at a moment’s notice to people that have to spend two hours traveling across a lake to get the same thing," he added.
The students adapted a design suggested by the partner companies that specialize in reverse osmosis and solar power.
Paul Diaz, vice president of Industrial Water Services, said it was hard to view the project as another industrial project.
The system will be installed at a site in Haiti in six to eight weeks and will serve residents of Po Ploom.
The students have been working on the water system since August and recently tested the system in El Paso before it heads to Haiti in a large metal shipping container.
The students, company representatives and Santiago will leave in June to help install the system.
Locals in Po Ploom will be responsible for day-to-day maintenance of the system, but once installed, both the water treatment unit and solar system will be monitored remotely by Santiago.