Engineering students win EWRI competition

A team of Civil and Environmental Engineering students has won the ASCE Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) WSP Student Design Competition. 

Eprhaim Salvan, Kori Chun, Ari Dean and Johnny Esteban (above, l. to r.) worked with the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks on a project at the White Center Regional Retention/Detention Facility. The team was charged with developing retrofit designs to improve the flow control and water quality through three storm water detention cells in White Center, while providing aesthetic enhancements of the cells in order to increase public use of the area. The project was one of 35 featured at this year’s Projects Day. Mike Marsolek, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, served as faculty advisor for the team, and Jon Polka and Wes Kameda were their liaisons with King County.

The national award, which was presented at EWRI’s national conference in Pittsburgh last month, continues a long string of success for Seattle University engineering students who have earned seven first-place finishes in the design competition over the past decade. 

This year’s winning team has company as SU engineering students have also received recent awards from the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying and the Washington Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. 

Created in 1999, the Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) is the recognized leader within ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) for the integration of technical expertise and public policy in the planning, design, construction and operation of environmentally sound and sustainable infrastructure impacting air, land and water resources.