Water Quality Protection Program
CEA is being inundated with requests from developers wishing to construct wetland treatment systems. A new government housing development to be located immediately west of the Akumal Poblado has been started. Surveyors have been at work on the site where two thousand-five hundred new homes for 10,000 people are planned. It is hoped that CEA will be able to provide advanced waste treatment expertise to CAPA, the potable water commission.

A construction company that has been contracted to build 840 homes in Playa del Carmen has expressed interest in collaborating with CEA on wetland designs for the project. CEA staff met with the developer and they are developing a proposal.

All this is good news and means we are getting our message out. The bad news is there are not enough well-trained designers or constructors who can respond to the demand. With this in mind, CEA has written a proposal for additional funding to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Eco ‘03
We are preparing for a daylong seminar on wetland technology in the Municipal Department of Ecology’s Eco ’03 Seminar to be held the first 2 weeks in June in Playa del Carmen. CEA’s wetland engineer will be presenting information on wetlands for remediation of liquid waste and another presentation on sludge treatment. Gonzalo Arcila will present wetland designs by Planetary Coral Reef Foundation.

The Akumal School Baño Project
The bathrooms for the kinder is nearing completion. We are waiting for the arrival of an aeration system for the wetland from Draker Solar. The system will arrive mid-June and the wetland will be completed within a day or two.

The Primary School composting toilets have been on hold until Dinah Drago was able to participate. A meeting was held on Wednesday, May 14, among Dinah, Margarita Erosa and Jaimie Medina and the construction schedule was finalized. The deadline for the banos is the 25th of June. An opening ceremony of the baños is planned.

The CEMIR Project
The CEMIR Project to construct a waste management center in the North Akumal quarry is on hold. Our relationship with Luis Sanchez, the federal delegado for SEMARNAT (Mexican environmental protection agency) in this State, ended with his departure from that organization and we must begin again developing a relationship with the new delegado. Public service projects such as the CEMIR have been known to take as long as 10 years to come to fruition. CEA must make this project happen much sooner, because the problem of what to do with sewage sludge is growing ever more dangerous. A case in point is SARS, one of an increasing number of new diseases that public health professionals call ‘emerging water-borne infectious diseases’.

David Whitney and several doctoral candidates from the University of Vermont are developing a proposal to continue research on existing wetlands. Dr. Rebecca Farrell is coming to CEA this summer to study the composting toilets and their level of treatment. We hope that she and Dinah Drago will be able to collaborate on a regional survey of existing systems to determine how well they are working.

Claudia Tolentino, an Akumal resident and plant expert, is researching and propagating plants to use in the renovations of existing systems. It has been proposed that the grass used in palapa thatch roofing would work well for the uptake of nutrients. This is an exciting possibility.

Kate Robinhawk met with Rosa Rodriguez, a researcher at the Mexican National University and an officer in Luum Kanaab, an NGO in Puerto Morelos, to discuss collaboration in a grass-roots movement at Puerto Morelos to promote the use of wetland technology and composting of organics. The university has constructed a wetland system for new dorms at the Puerto Morelos research station and will test their level of treatment. NAWE donated the design and the construction supervision.

To learn more please click here for related links.
Click here to find related Research Papers.
To learn more about CEA's Program please visit our Programs Section.