Working for Clean and Healthy Communities in Costa Rica

Feb 18, 2019

Global Water Stewardship (GWS) is a subcommittee of Central States Water Environment Association (CSWEA), an organization of wastewater treatment professionals.  GWS works to educate people and engineer sustainable centralized solutions that keep waterways clean and communities healthy. Volunteers include members of CSWEA, engineers from across the U.S., students, and business and marketing professionals.


Global Water Stewardship is currently working with AyA, the Costa Rican governing water authority, to identify a community served by an ASADA – or local drinking water utility – that would benefit from a centralized sanitation facility.  This is a critical concern as outside of the city of San Jose in Costa Rica, septic systems are typically used to collect black water only in densely populated communities. This creates the risk of accumulating pollutants in the groundwater, where they source their drinking water.

GWS volunteers visit throughout the year to provide education to school children and community members on the impact humans have on the water cycle, the implications of water pollution, and the benefits of centralized sanitation. The group also engages American university students through an annual engineering student design competition, which results in the design of a centralized facility to meet the needs of the identified community.

Liz Heise, a Process Engineer for Trotter and Associates, Inc. has been involved with GWS since 2016, serving as marketing chair, and now as 2nd vice chair. She is very passionate about cleaning up our water systems and loves getting to use her knowledge to help improve not only local communities, but communities across the globe. To find out more about Global Water Stewardship and the current Costa Rican projects click on the following link:  https://www.wef.org/wef-waterblog/2019-waterblogs/working-for-clean-water-and-healthy-communities-in-costa-rica/

Share by: