Purdue News

April 2, 1999 Civil engineering team to 'waste away' in New Mexico NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Students participating in the competition will give a classroom presentation on their projects from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Thursday (4/8) in Room 3153 Civil Engineering Building. For information, contact Inez Hua, assistant professor of civil engineering, (765) 494-2409; hua@ecn.purdue.edu. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- A team of civil engineering students who are majoring in environmental hydraulics at Purdue University will travel to New Mexico April 12-16 to compete for a $5,000 prize in an International Environmental Design Contest. The contest brings approximately 300 students to the New Mexico State University campus in Las Cruces for a competition that asks students to find creative solutions to real-world waste management problems. It is sponsored by the Waste-management Education & Research Consortium, which is based at New Mexico State. The Purdue team, consisting of 28 seniors, will tackle four tasks: developing a pipeline waste removal process; creating an innovative landfill closure cap; developing an in-situ soil decontamination method; and designing a decontamination process for waste reduction. Purdue's team will compete against teams from California/Riverside, the University of Idaho, Oregon State University, New Mexico State University, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Missouri/Columbia, West Virginia University, and two international teams. Throughout the competition week, students will operate a bench-scale model of their environmental solutions and deliver a formal presentation to a team of judges. At the end of the contest, experts will test the resulting samples from each bench-scale model to determine a winner. The first-place team will receive a $5,000 cash prize; the second-place team will receive a $2,000 cash prize. Teams such as Purdue that compete in more than one task are eligible to receive an overall grand prize award of $2,500 in addition to other prizes. CONTACT: Inez Hua, assistant professor, School of Civil Engineering, (765) 494-2409; hua@ecn.purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu To the Purdue News and Photos Page