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Strange
links in the real world: Sara Hillegas
surveys a farm in Pennsylvania to save the
fish in the Chesapeake bay.
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Saving the World, or at least her part of it
When Sara was in her first year as
a student at Penn State's Altoona campus, she took a
course that really made her stop and think. And she
came to the conclusion that she didn't want to stay
in her major any longer. Funny how things that sound
good in theory don't work out very well in practice.
She attended a career information
fair as part of looking for a different course of study.
She picked up a brochure that touted geo-environmental
engineering, and, having no idea what that was, asked
the man at the table about it. He told her that a geo-environmental
engineer was someone who in their own small way is trying
to save the world. Intrigued, Sara probed deeper and
learned of the many, many innovative ways that engineers
are working to clean up sources of pollution and create
waste-management systems. What she heard convinced her
to switch her area of study to geo-environmental engineering.
She did well in her studies and began
looking around for an internship in her field. She managed
to get a summer position with the federal Department
of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service
(NRCS) regional field office in Somerset, PA - just
miles from her home.
As an intern, she participated in
the design of several projects that prevent "agricultural
waste" from entering the streams that feed the
Chesapeake Bay. When animal waste is enters the bay,
it provides the nutrients for massive algae "blooms",
which cloud the water and eventually sink into the depths
and die. The ensuing decay process robs the water of
dissolved oxygen, and asphyxiates the Chesapeake clams,
fish and other aquatic life in the process. Part of
restoring the bay to health involves building systems
to keep the "nutrients" on the farm.
Stepping up from her summer intership,
Sara expects to begin working full time with the NRCS
after her graduation in December 2002. She'll be designing
and overseeing the construction of onsite agricultural
waste treatment systems, acid mine drainage treatment
systems and other projects. In her own way, she'll be
helping to save the world.
Sara
Hillegas is an undergraduate student in the Department
of Energy and GeoEvironmental Engineering in the
College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State.
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