...would coming up with a plan to fix drainage issues on farmland fall under? My wife runs a non profit farm sanctuary. The land is nice but it has serious drainage issues. Since its a charity and money is tight, I thought we could ask the local college (UF) if they had students in X area of study if they wanted a project and maybe come with a plan. I just don't know what that falls under. Any advice or suggestions?
I wouldn't call a farm sanctuary a redneck problem...the opposite really. Its like saying you have a too many women problem.
Army Corps of Engineers...free services in every area if you call and say "Little Jimmy fell in a well"....now if you can train your dog to act that out, they always offer free services.
Look for Geology students. Particularly, students who concentrate in hydrology and GIS (Geographic Information Systems). I focused a bit of my study on water and the movement of water and these students should be able to help you.
Why do you want to come up with a study? If you're going to do anything you should first contact your local municipality or Marion County to make sure that you follow the right steps. College students can come up with all kinds of creative ideas, but they have to be consistent with the master plan for your area. If you get some airhead who doesn't know anything, the local environmental agency would be the one to talk to. In Miami, it would be DERM's jurisdiction. It could very well be that you won't be able to drain the land i.e., that it's supposed to flood.
I didn't think the government would come out and come up with a plan to solve the problems that we could then use to raise money and make happen overtime.
I would think part of the planning would be to research and follow local laws and guidelines. This probably sounds weird, but since we're charity we always try to find a way to accomplish a goal by helping someone/thing else, first. So, if some students can use our situation to learn and it will help us solve our problem then that's a better avenue for us to take then just solve our problem.
If it's a civil engineering or hydrology dept, they wouldn't deal with legal research. That would involve an interdisciplinary approach and it may end up being very expensive.
As a former employee at Miami-Dade County, I take exception to the stererotype that all government workers are incompetent and/or lazy.
It's not all. But it's the nature of public work. But with that, I'll leave POFO out of it! Could I quote this whole thread in pofo? Just saying. Good luck Fin D. I'm with Miamian though. The very first place I'd' check would be your state and local and fed govts.
I've seen laziness/incompetence in the private sector. For example, working for a private e-learning company, I've had students tell me that some teachers wouldn't correct them and say "yes, that's correct and that's correct."
Totally unrelated but I just want to chime in that I am so jealous you live in Jerusalem. I just visited Israel 2 weeks ago for the first time and fell in love. Jerusalem was possibly the most incredible city I have ever been in my life. What an amazing country.
Have several bikini car washes, raise money, call a contractor and tell them to regrade your land.... Boom done...
Stop crying you sniveling ***. Draaaaaaaainage. Draaainage. [video=youtube;s_hFTR6qyEo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_hFTR6qyEo&feature=fvwrel[/video]
It'd depend how the land was set up though. You'd obv want to steer the water to lower ground if possible.