![\"A](\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dominica_cistern.jpg\")
<\/a>A worker uses a net to scoop leaves out of a cistern that provides drinking water to about 5,000 residents in southern Dominica. Students in Engage Dominica are making plans to cap the cistern.<\/p><\/div>
\nAbout 5,000 residents near the southern tip of Dominica learned just how precarious their water supply was when Tropical Storm Erika\u2019s torrential rains caused a creek to breach the cistern that holds their treated drinking water.
\nWith their usual supply contaminated, drinking water had to be shipped to the Caribbean island. But a landslide caused by heavy rains blocked the only road into the area. There was no dock, so large boats couldn\u2019t access the area, and the smaller fishing boats weren\u2019t seaworthy in stormy weather.
\nThe drinking water eventually recovered from the August 2015 storm, but it remains vulnerable. For a group of Clemson students, it\u2019s among the first challenges in a new global engagement program,\u00a0Engage Dominica. Eight of the program\u2019s 20 students went to the island nation over spring break to begin gathering information on 10 separate projects, including upgrades to the water treatment system.
\nThey returned to Clemson with reams of data and are compiling a presentation they will use to start building support with the Dominican government, the Cardinal Felix Foundation and other groups that might want to collaborate.
\nJared Delk, a sophomore civil engineering student, said he liked having the chance to create a project from scratch, helping design it, build it and make final adjustments at the end. \u201cJust knowing all that, it was one of the best trips I\u2019ve taken,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was amazing to know that the ideas that are coming from me could help people.\u201d
\n