Safe Drinking Water: A Case for Service

Roy H. Koerner, SPE Foundation President

My good friend Lyn Arscott, a former SPE President and an SPE Foundation Trustee, introduced the subject of engineer volunteerism last month. Our 2007 SPE President, Abdul-Jaleel Al-Khalifa, encouraged us to write these guest editorials because we have before us a magnificent opportunity to help change the world for the better. We can help provide safe drinking water to millions around the globe and help save lives in a world where waterborne diseases kill a child every 15 seconds.

Why do people serve?

We empathize with others in distress and have since birth. Psychological experiments prove this through the observations of newborn babies in nurseries. When one baby cries out in suffering, it results in a ca-cophony of wailing infants. Noise is not the causal factor. A recording of a baby’s cry, played back, does not result in more crying. The baby recognizes its own cry and also empathizes with another human in distress. Why? A logical reason is found in the evolutionary study of early humans. Ancestral Homo sapiens survived by relying on and cooperating with others. Even those Neanderthals who suffered severe injuries, such as loss of limbs, had to be nurtured.

Why should we serve?

Psychologists have demonstrated that helping others less fortunate in a personal, hands-on way results in a sense of well-being and improves our self-image by showing us that we lead a purposeful life. Thus, we enrich our lives through service. Serving others helps us succeed by improving our relationships with family, friends, acquaintances, work associates, and many other people.

Managers who are sensitive to their employees’ needs and act on them are more successful. And at least two comprehensive studies prove that companies that have written ethical value statements and operate by those standards make more money and provide higher returns to investors, on average, than other companies.

A recent article in Business Week (29 January 2007, page 50) illustrates the point that companies that do good things for their communities often do well financially. Individuals also prosper by doing good things for their fellow human beings. Engineers serve by solving problems. For example, engineers at Colorado State University developed a cook stove with a thermoelectric generator that provides sufficient electricity to power a room light, a small TV, or a radio for hours. This connects many people to the outside world for the first time. Engineers Without Borders provides technical assistance to areas that have needs and has worked to bring safe drinking water to developing areas. Another engineering marvel is the “Lifestraw,” a device that uses filters and other components to purify water as someone sucks water through a tube. It provides about a year of safe water from surface sources. SPE members have many natural and learned skills that could benefit others around the world.

Why serve this particular need?

Jaleel, Lyn, and I have a mutual friend, Lon Stuebinger, a 35-year SPE member and a graduate of Colorado School of Mines. He can answer that question better than anyone because he lives it. Stuebinger teaches local people in rural villages and schools how to repair water wells and pumps, as well as teaching basic hygiene and sanitation. He has traveled to Tibet, Ethiopia, and Uganda to equip and teach native teams, performing this great service through the auspices of Lifewater International. He believes the petroleum industry has engineers with the unique skills to support this urgent need.

Children in an Ethiopian village get clean water made available by volunteer efforts.

And the needs are staggering. One-third of the world lacks safe drinking water. One-half of the world lacks sufficient food. We must solve the water problem first. That is why the “Millennium Development Goal” is to reduce by half the number of people without safe water by the year 2015. Many countries support this goal. Waterborne illnesses often reduce cognitive abilities in addition to causing lengthy absences from school. And education leads to employment, which helps to reduce hunger, improve facilities, and boost travel and trade. It has a positive ripple effect through society.

How can we serve?

Many agencies do good work and have the knowledge base to sustain the effort. Teaching teachers works best. Volunteers need to learn how to teach local people how to, in turn, teach others how to drill wells, repair equipment, practice good hygiene, and provide sanitation facilities. It is important for locals to invest in the projects to encourage ownership. When people own the wells and facilities, have the knowledge to sustain them, and know how to pass that knowledge on to others, then volunteers only need to conduct periodic follow-up visits. The petroleum industry would benefit greatly from improved world opinion and future business opportunities by investing money, time, and skills to provide safe drinking water to developing countries. What is your company doing to support these efforts?

Whom do we contact?

Several organizations, such as the Millennium Water Alliance, have websites with more information about volunteering. In addition, any SPE members who are interested in learning more about this type of opportunity may contact me at safewater@spemail.org.

Roy H. Koerner was 1995 SPE President and 1998 AIME President, and he is currently President of the SPE Foundation. He is also Board Chair of the Colorado Ethics in Business Alliance. Koerner retired from Texaco Exploration in 1996. He was inducted into the University of Tulsa College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Hall of Fame in 1995 and has served as a member of its Petroleum Engineering Department Industry Advisory Board. Koerner earned a BS degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Tulsa and an MS degree in petroleum engineer-ing from Louisiana Tech University.