Typical Day
Normally, at 7:30AM, Enrique Energisia would be walking into his office at the local public works department. Instead, he's tramping through soggy soil in a nearby forest reserve, taking measurements.
Enrique joined his city's public works department straight out of college. Without a clear focus for his engineering interests (but a definite interest in doing something with the environment) he'd opted to major in biosystems engineering. After a summer internship with the public works department, he realized this kind of work was exactly what he wanted to do.
In the four years since graduating, he's assisted with more than forty projects. His most recent one? Designing a new system for erosion and sediment control for the damp, muddy forest he's currently sloshing through. Until two weeks ago, everything was going to plan. That's when the earthquake struck.
Thankfully, no one in the nearby town was injured, and only two houses suffered any remarkable damage. The earthquake, however, triggered a landslide in what was already a water-saturated region. Like all good biosystems engineers, Enrique knows that increased groundwater can be the kiss of death for unstable slide areas.
After such a large ecological change to the area, Enrique is obliged to collect new data sets. It's not his favorite part of the job, but that's why he's brought Kate, a college freshman and his (admittedly underpaid) assistant, to do some of the dirty work with him.
"Woah, check this out!" says Kate, squatting to peer closely at something on the ground.
Enrique runs over to assist, worried she's found an instance of dramatic sliding. He stops when he realizes it's a used hypodermic needle.
"Look at the size of that thing!" she exclaims. "How many diseases do you think I'd get if I pricked my finger with it?"
Enrique rolls his eyes, smiles, and tries to remember that he, too, was once a college student.
"Let's not find out, okay?" he says. "Just get the gloves and put it in one of the bags."
While his assistant trots off to fetch a bag from the truck, Enrique returns to surveying the land. He notes a change in the elevation of one particular spot on his clipboard, and then slides his pen behind his ear.
A couple of hours later, the pair breaks for lunch—whole-grain, free-range egg salad sandwiches. Enrique, aware of how much energy it takes to feed large animals like cows, felt morally obligated to become a vegetarian about ten years ago. He would be a vegan, but his wife wasn't so keen on that. She insists on eating more "well-rounded" meals. So he compromises by buying things like free-range eggs.
Around 2:00PM, Enrique and Kate climb back into the truck and drive to the office. Kate runs off to class and Enrique changes into cleaner clothes, doing his best to pry the wet rubber galoshes off his ankles without making that terrible suction sound he's always hated. Finally in a proper button-down and khakis, Enrique sits behind the small wooden desk where he spends most of his days.
He assembles the information he gathered in the forest and begins to brainstorm possible solutions. While he thinks, he scrolls through some design spreadsheets from an online database: Milking Center Waste Volume…no. Roof Gutter, Simple…no. Roof Gutter, Complex…also no. Seeding mixes…still no. Soil and Water Resource Development? Now that sounds a little more interesting.
He double-clicks the document and is shocked at the size of the file when it opens. Realizing the download will take a while, he heads to the hallway vending machine for a pick-me-up. Nothing makes the Soil and Water Resource Development research go down like something chocolatey.
Hershey's in hand, he returns to his office and begins research into the area's rainfall. For reference, he consults the "Peak Runoff Calculation" and the National Engineering Manual. For sureties' sake, he consults the National Engineering Handbook, too (which, for some reason, isn't the same thing).
He finally looks up from his calculations and spreadsheets just in time to see that the clock has struck 5:15PM. Enrique looks down at his work from the day. It's definitely not a solution to the massive soil erosion—and he'll probably never undo the damage of the earthquake—but it's a start. And a start is good enough for now.