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CELS senior working on well-rounded resume

      By RUDI HEMPE, CELS News Editor

Approaching her senior year as a student in environmental sciences, Chelsea Blatchley is spending the summer making sure her resume will be well rounded by the time she accepts her diploma next May.

The 22-year-old East Providence native is spending the summer as an intern in the Providence office of Woodard & Curran Inc., a firm that specializes in environmental engineering consulting services.

And in the process she has to learn all about hydro-electric facilities.

It appears that somewhere in Rhode Island (she is not allowed to say exactly where) is an old hydro-electric facility that was built in the 1920s but taken out of service in the 1960s.

Blatchley’s job this summer is to help with a study to determine whether it is feasible to bring the hydro-electric facility back on line.

Chelsea Blatchley

Chelsea Blatchley

"What is interesting," she says, "is that the project would involve some temporary wetlands disturbance" so that the penstocks can be retrieved from underground and restored. Penstocks are devices that spin when hit with flowing water, thus turning electric generators.

The study will also cover what permitting is needed and render a cost estimate.

Other field work she did this summer was groundwater monitoring on an established pig farm.

Blatchley says she gets out of the office to do field work about once a week.

She landed the internship by sending out scores of letters and Woodard & Curran was the only one that replied, she said.

By getting this internship, she said she feels she has rounded out her resume.

In previous internships she worked for the state Department of Environmental Management and the Audubon Society. For the latter she helped with a survey of landowners to gauge summer water usage in the Hunt River area.

"I did a government internship and a non-profit one," she said "and so I wanted to do one in the private sector."

Woodard & Curran is headquartered in Portland, ME, but has offices scattered across the Northeast. The Providence office has about 40 people "and they are all very nice," she said.

What’s more, her place of work is right off Federal Hill and that’s not a bad location for some quality places to eat lunch.

Published: July 7, 2009