Maggie Seeley, Sustainability Program lecturer, is an expert in third world community development and working with small organizations in India, Nigeria and Brazil. She also worked with the United Nations and as a lobbyist in Washington D.C. to promote low-income housing plans.
Daily Lobo: How did you get involved with sustainability work?
Maggie Seeley: I was working in a village in Nigeria and I noticed that the villagers were collecting rain water in clay pots on top of their roofs and I thought, “They live in the desert like New Mexico, why don’t we catch water on our roofs?” They have been doing this in Nigeria for centuries. A lot of my lessons came from the third world and permaculture.
DL: Could you explain permaculture?
MS: Permaculture has been around for 30 or 40 years before my discovery. It is putting together an interdependent discipline of what’s already happening. You’ll notice how some plants grow together. For instance, if you see poison ivy in the woods you often see the antidote close by.
DL: How can someone living in an urban area practice permaculture?
MS: Harvesting and cleaning your own water is one way. I’ve built a constructive wet plan and I take rain water from my roof and I take gray water from my house and run it through a series of filters and it comes out as good as drinking water. Working with 1,000 square feet area and an inch of rain, you can collect 630 gallons of water.
DL: What is the cost of collecting and cleaning your own water?
MS: I paid $750 to construct the system to get the rain off my roof and built a whole gray water system for $2,400.
DL: What accomplishments, in terms of sustainability, have you been a part of on campus?
MS: We built a bio-diesel processor, a small water catchment system at the Department of Education and brought the first farmers’ market on campus.
DL: Where do you see the Sustainability Program going?
MS: I see it turning into a major where students can be prepared for viable ‘green jobs.’ Next semester, I am teaching a course called Practicum for Campus and Community, where students will build something very practical like making green dorms or bringing back the farmers’ market.
