Purdue News

April 23, 1999 Environmental engineering team takes first place WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Purdue University students are national winners of the Ninth Annual Environmental Design Competition, a contest designed to encourage students to solve real-world waste management and remediation problems. The contest, sponsored by the Waste-management Education and Research Consortium at New Mexico State University, is the only one of its kind in the world where university students solve an environmental challenge in a competitive format, said Ron Bhada, consortium director. This year's competition, held April 12-15 at New Mexico State in Las Cruces, included contestants from 24 colleges and universities. A team of 28 senior students from Purdue's School of Civil Engineering competed in the following events: Innovative landfill closure: Develop an innovative cap system for solid waste landfills to meet the regulatory permeability standards for 30 years. Transuranic waste reduction: Develop a decontamination and destruction process to economically reduce radioactive waste. Pipeline waste removal: Develop a process for removing a gelated plug in a waste pipeline. In-situ soil decontamination: Develop bioremediation techniques for contaminated soil. Purdue took first-place overall honors and tied for first place in two of the four areas in which it competed, receiving $11,500 in prize money and the Rust Geotech traveling trophy. The Purdue group also placed second in one of the events. The winners were determined by judges' ratings based on a written report, oral and poster presentations, and a working bench-scale model. The teams had to address regulatory, economic, health and public relations issues and incorporate them into their reports. Experts tested the samples generated by the bench-scale designs to determine how successful the students were with their cleanup efforts. The Purdue team was directed by Inez Hua and Larry Nies, assistant professors of civil engineering, and Ron Wukasch, professor of civil engineering. CONTACT: Hua, (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