ECO-EXCHANGE -- A decade ago, the residents of Puerto Viejo, a village near the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, ran out of potable water.  The rivers the community had always used for drinking water had become polluted with sewage and trash.  Luckily, they found a clean source of water just outside the forested reserve of a biological research station called La Selva, which is managed by the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS).

It was the villagers' search for clean water that encouraged a biologist studying the composition and hydrology of La Selva's streams to include community outreach in her project.  Catherine Pringle, a professor at the University of Georgia's Institute of Ecology, has been studying the waterways of La Selva, for nearly 15 years.  Her research, which is principally funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, has revealed that the streams are heavily laden with phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, and sulfate, whose sources she has traced to underground water emanating from volcanoes of neighboring Braulio Carrillo National Park.  She then began to study the ecological effects of these particulates.

"Like fertilizer put in a corn field, the phosphorus stimulates growth of algae and bacteria in the streams," Pringle explains.  "These are the foundations of the streams' food chain.  Insects eat the algae and bacteria, fishes eat the insects, and are in turn eaten by caiman and otters."  Freshwater shrimps, "some as large as lobsters," also eat the insects and algae, says the biologist.

The parched predicament of the Puerto Viejo community, whose population has swelled in recent years, inspired Pringle to expand her work outside La Selva, with the help of University of Georgia graduate students.  The outreach program they developed, called "Water for Life," was first launched by Costa Rican Rodney Vargas, who worked with students in Puerto Viejo to monitor the water from the Quebrada Grande river that runs by their high school.

Vargas notes that the project was well received by students and other residents, who now make an effort to keep trash out of their rivers.  Pringle adds that it's important for villagers to understand the connection between a forested watershed and clean drinking water.

To help promote that concept, subsequent graduate students developed educational posters and designed an "Adopt a Stream" voluntary water monitoring campaign in Puerto Viejo.  A similar campaign was launched in southern Costa Rica, near the OTS-managed Wilson Botanical Garden.  The "Adopt a Stream" manual is available on a "Water for Life" Web site developed by graduate student Doug Parsons, who, with biologist Raúl Rojas, led the outreach activities in the towns near Wilson Garden.

Pringle says that yet another graduate student is now working with Puerto Viejo residents, providing them with information about how 17 planned and current hydroprojects will affect their drinking-water supplies.

While the community is benefiting from the outreach work, Pringle believes participating graduate students also gain valuable experience.  "It's really important to teach graduate students how to work in inter‑disciplinary partnerships," she says.  "All the University of Georgia students involved in this project are now much better equipped to go out and work with the public than those who just get their degrees in basic science."