Ron Bhada, Executive Director and Abbas Ghassemi, Director of Research
New Mexico State University
Waste-management Education & Research Consortium (WERC)
PO Box 30001, MSC WERC
Las Cruces, NM 88003

Waste-management Education & Research Consortium (WERC) sponsors an Environmental Design Contest for the past seven years. Participating sites provide funds to help sponsor the event. These real world problems are presented as a task to be addressed by the participating teams. For their investment, they receive a number of outstanding research solutions from universities across America. As acknowledged by the sponsoring sites, the benefits received are several orders of magnitude the investment amount.

The design statement asks students to form a multi-disciplinary team to design and construct a bench scale working model and demonstrate their remediation process. Their demonstration is to include the following: the process design and a detailed total plant design; the engineering and economics of the process; a discussion of the legal and health implications; and a plan for presentation to the community for public acceptance so that problems are minimized after construction.

This presentation will address the economics of past Design Contests, recount the potential payback for sponsoring the contest, and demonstrate the growth of the contest.

The Design Contest has been a vehicle to bring students from various universities together for discussions and solutions of major environmental issues. The contest is co-sponsored by industrial organizations, DOE and other government agencies. The contest is structured to give university student groups an opportunity to exchange information and participate in an international contest for design, development, and testing of a realistic environmental process.

WERC was created in 1990 by the U.S. Department of Energy as a partnership between New Mexico State University, the University of New Mexico, and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. Diné College joined as an affiliate in 1991. The mission of the consortium is to expand the nation’s capability to address issues related to the management of all forms of wastes, via education, technology development/deployment, and public outreach.

Currently, there are undergraduate and graduate educational programs throughout the world on environmental management and engineering. However, there has been no vehicle to bring students from various universities together for solutions and discussions of major environmental issues. Consequently, for the eighth year, a unique and innovative environmental design contest for universities throughout the Americas is being conducted by WERC. The design contest is co-sponsored by industrial organizations, DOE and other government agencies.

The WERC Environmental Design Contest is in its 8^th year. The program has expanded each year from seven teams participating in the first year to over 35 teams attending this year’s competition. The "tasks" given to the students have progressively increased in difficulty and the proposed solutions have also improved exponentially. The first few years, each participating school would work on one realistic environmental challenge. In the past three years, the contest has expanded to a number of separate "tasks" from which the participating schools may select to provide their proposed engineering solution(s).

The 1998 contest includes four tasks. Many of the participating schools, in fact, select to address more than one "task". The additional tasks, as well as the diversification in the tasks, have provided an opportunity for participation from different disciplines and fields of studies available at the participating schools. For example, a ground water remediation problem attracts students from a number of Engineering disciplines (Civil, Chemical, etc), as well as hard sciences (biology, chemistry, etc), English and social sciences. A problem that involves designing and testing of sensors for in-tank settling measurements, might see participation of students from a number of engineering disciplines (Mechanical, Electrical, etc.) as well as hard sciences (chemistry, physics), English and social sciences.

The contest is a unique tool which prepares the team members for addressing challenges they will face upon graduation. The team members learn project management, personnel interactions, conflict resolution, team-work, the importance of interaction with other disciplines, communication, and application of technology to solve realistic problems. In addition, the participating team members are provided an opportunity to interact with contest sponsors, and other industrial and government agencies for potential job opportunities. Specifically, for the past two years, a Job Fair has been held on the final day of the competition, prior to the award ceremony. The representatives from different organizations attending the Job Fair interview with students and exchange information regarding their specific needs.

The problem statements are given out early in the Fall semester and their bench-scale demonstrated results, must be presented in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the following April. Each university builds their team, based on the disciplines required to effectively address the environmental challenge. Inter-disciplinary teams are recommended and tend to produce the best results. The student team members, with help from their faculty advisors, research a number of possible solutions and proceed to refine their solution through developing and testing the bench scale process. The teams design and construct a bench scale working model to demonstrate their process during the competition. During the competition, each team must address the following:

1. A written report to include: the process design and a detailed total plant design; the engineering and economics of the process; a discussion of the legal and health implications; and a plan for presentation to the community for public acceptance so that problems are minimized after construction;
2. A practical bench-scale working model of the process to demonstrate functionality of the process;
3. A brief oral presentation of the design including economics, health, business development, regulatory, and other related issues; and
4. A poster presentation containing highlights of the design, economics and other issues.

The Design Contest began in 1990 with seven schools participating. In 1997 there were 20 schools represented making up the 29 teams working on three tasks. Thirty-six teams from 25 different schools have registered for the 1998 contest.

In 1997, first place prizes went to the University of Maryland (Task I - Deployment of Surface Sampling Equipment in Large Tanks), Montana Tech (Task II - Groundwater Treatment and Remediation), University of Idaho (Task III - Filter Media Decontamination), with the Overall Winner being Montana Tech. Prize money totaling more than $45,000 was awarded to the attending schools. Additionally, to help defray some of the expenses incurred by the attending schools, WERC provided the participating school traveling costs, mileage money in excess of $15,000.

Contest judging is performed by experts from academia, government, and industry. The judging is based on technical, as well as other criteria such as economics, risk analysis, health regulations, public policy and communication that are important in today's world.

The following is a partial list of agencies, industries and academic institutions that have been represented by judges: AFCEE, INEEL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, Oakridge National Lab, State of New Mexico, US EPA, US DOE, US Dept. of the Interior, White Sands Missile Range, EG&G, Fluor Daniel, Beta Corporation, GeoSyntec, Allied Signal, SM Stoller, Westinghouse, SAIC, Ch2M Hill, WPI, PNL, Rust Federal Services, Roy F. Weston, Colorado School of Mines, New Mexico Tech, Univ. TX - El Paso, Univ. of MO, and Xavier Univ.

The judging group for the contest consists of people representing all areas: government, industry and academia. This allows for balanced and equitable judging from different perspectives. The judges spend long hours evaluating the presentations, as well as, evaluating the papers prior to arriving in Las Cruces. During the competition, the judges’ twelve-hour day includes attending oral presentations, evaluating bench-scale and poster presentations and final discussions that are completed by approximately 9:00 PM. Their greatest reward comes from interaction with the participating students from across the United States (and beyond) and is considered to be a "natural high" for every judge.

The ‘98 Environmental Design Contest is scheduled to be held April 14 - 17, 1998. We expect to have a number of "first-time" schools to the contest. The following is the list of the school participating in the 1998 competition:

The following is a list of the tasks that will be addressed.

By participating in the Environmental Design Contest, there are three categories of "winners":

1. The sponsoring sites benefit through receiving a series of creative and innovative solutions that have been extensively researched, bench-scale tested and demonstrated. The return on investment for these sites are several orders of magnitude.
2. The participating students, universities and faculty benefit from the educational experience, networking, and opportunities of employment. It specifically benefits the faculty members since it provides them an opportunity to secure additional research funding.
3. The judges benefit from attending and evaluating a broad number of ideas that have been through a bench-scale demonstration. They also have the opportunity to hire the "best-of-the-best" and develop additional networking for business development.

From 1991 to 1998, the WERC Design Contest has been, gratefully, sponsored by many organizations and agencies. We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to our sponsors for the many years of support, providing both manpower and monetary support.

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