Perhaps it’s a sign of how dire the drought has gotten in California: Water-saving projects long on the drawing board, despite being cheap and easy, are finally coming to campuses. Last month at the University of California at Davis, workers rerouted recycled sewer water to the chiller plant, which supplies air conditioning. The project will save 61 million gallons annually, or almost 10 percent of the campus’s potable-water supply.
The investment? $20,000 in materials and two weeks of staff time.
“We never really did it because our water was relatively inexpensive, so there was never a need to make better use of it,” says David Phillips, director of utilities. “The drought was the prompt for us.”
California is in the fourth year of one of the worst droughts the state has ever seen. The mountain snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which supplies much of the Golden State’s water, was at record lows in April. People in some parts of the state have had to bathe with bottled water. Agricultural losses may amount to $2.7 billion this year, and biologists predict the die-off of some animals. The big worry is what happens if California drains its aquifers.
Many colleges are acting under new state and local mandates, which call for big cuts in water use. In April, Gov. Jerry Brown issued restrictions requiring residents and organizations to reduce their water consumption by as much as 25 percent. Cities and water districts have in many cases imposed higher restrictions, up to 35 percent.
The burdens of the drought vary widely on campuses, depending on their sources of water, how they use that water, and what they’ve done so far to conserve.
Some colleges have access to wells or sources of nonpotable water, which can offset restrictions on use. Others rely on municipal water, which can cause tensions with the local community
The challenges certainly won’t be limited to California in the years to come: Given predictions for climate change — hotter weather, longer and more-intense periods of dry conditions — institutions across the country may also have to deal with drought.
But colleges can have a particularly hard time putting water-saving policies and technology in place, says Michelle Maddaus, a civil engineer and water-efficiency consultant in California. As decentralized organizations in which money is often tight, they can struggle to coordinate efforts to conserve a resource that flows across the campus.
What’s more, Ms. Maddaus says, water is not like energy, a resource with high, standardized costs that colleges have successfully conserved in recent years. Even on a single campus, sources and types of water can vary: potable and nonpotable; drawn from a well, reservoir, or municipal system. Often colleges haven’t set up meters to monitor where water is going.
Relative to other countries, like Australia, in the United States people pay hardly anything for water, even in historically dry places like California. That discourages investment in efficiency programs, says Ms. Maddaus. “It’s all about money,” she says. “People aren’t willing to pay for water.”
But running a campus demands a lot of it, mostly for trees, shrubs, and lawns. Colleges everywhere are known for their leafy walkways and verdant quads. But is that image sustainable? Irrigation is often by far the biggest use of water, and in California, some grassy spaces have dried out. Trying to promote their conservation, colleges have put up signs on lawns: “Brown is the new green.”
Campus Cacti
With the landscape often the thirstiest part of campus, college officials commonly consider two solutions: use recycled water, or set up systems to recycle it on campus; and plant more native and drought-tolerant species. Each strategy comes with long-term benefits and short-term challenges.
At the University of California at Santa Barbara, despite the drought, much of the campus still looks green. In the 1990s, the university made an agreement with its water district to purchase recycled water for irrigation. At less than $1 per 100 cubic feet (compared with $8 for potable water), it has turned out to be quite a bargain. The university is now trying to figure out how to use recycled water in toilets and urinals.
But the low cost of recycled water can actually discourage conservation. And many campuses don’t have access to recycled water. Replumbing buildings to conserve “gray water” — the relatively clean water that comes from sinks, showers, and dishwashers — is often cost-prohibitive.
Where recycled water isn’t readily available, desert plants are a key way to adapt. California harbors a range of beautiful, drought-tolerant species, like bougainvillea, deergrass, yucca, rosemary, and California fuchsia. At UC-Davis, officials have identified 35 acres where they will reduce watering and, in time, replace much of the vegetation with such native plants, along with efficient subsurface and drip-irrigation systems.
Once the new plants go in, maintenance on those areas will decrease drastically — from mowing about once a week to trimming once a year — and labor costs, too, says Andrew Fulks, assistant director of the campus arboretum. The arboretum has always focused on Mediterranean and drought-tolerant species, he says, but for many years, general landscaping fell under a different department, one that preferred more of a traditional campus appearance.
The catch is that even drought-tolerant plants can require significant amounts of water in the first few years, while they are getting established. The sometimes thorny, inhospitable-looking plants might also need some help in the way of marketing and signage for prospective students and parents who expect a campus to look like one in Vermont.
By comparison, vegetation on some other campuses hasn’t suffered much. Near San Bernardino, the water district has imposed a 35-percent reduction on water use, but Loma Linda University draws water from its own well, which is not yet subject to restrictions.
Much of the campus is still green — especially in areas frequently seen by the public, students, and patients of the medical center, where the greenery is considered part of the “healing environment.”
The university will nevertheless try to cut its water use by 35 percent “because of public relations,” says Gerhard Steudel, director of landscape services. “We want to be good neighbors, and we want to protect our resources.”
Loma Linda has already spent $30,000 on water-saving technology like drip irrigation and has stopped watering behind some of its buildings.
“It hurts,” says Mr. Steudel, who has overseen the campus landscape for 35 years. “Areas that used to be nice and green are now ugly-looking, and that bothers me.”
He’ll soon find out if his cuts are getting anywhere close to 35 percent. If they fall short, or if the drought goes on, he worries about tough choices between saving water and keeping prominent areas of the campus landscape alive.
“We create the first impression,” he says. “If you go out to the medical center, and everything in front is brown and dead, does that give you confidence that the care inside the hospital will be good?”
Down to Ice Machines
A persistent drought in California — and pressure from climate change on water sources nationwide — could make the situation even more dire. Not only will the state impose new charges and penalties for the profligate use of water, experts say, but as people use less, water agencies will still need to cover their costs, probably charging more.
In time, “water will probably be as closely managed as electricity in the Enron days,” says Kevin Doyle, interim director of facilities management and services at California State University at Chico.
Around there, things are moving in that direction. The local water district has imposed a 32-percent reduction in the 65 million gallons of municipal water the university uses each year, and campus officials are scrambling to conserve. “We are looking at the impact on water down to the individual ice machines,” Mr. Doyle says.
Chico is spending $100,000 to switch 230 old urinals and toilets to new, water-conserving versions, which will save 900,000 gallons. Mr. Doyle’s staff is promoting two-minute “Navy showers” in the rec center and repairing small leaks in the sprinkler system. Workers might cover the pool to stop evaporation. At best, those efforts will save about 240,000 gallons each. Facilities staff members now wash cars and windows by hand, and they’ve stopped power-washing buildings and sidewalks, which might save another 74,000 gallons.
“There is gum on the sidewalks,” Mr. Doyle says, “and it doesn’t look good.”
As with most campuses, irrigation sucks up most of the water use at Chico. By reducing watering from five days a week to two, and stopping irrigation completely on seven acres of turf, the university will save some 18 million gallons a year. But the campus’s beloved trees are at risk, says Mr. Doyle. “We have huge old trees of a variety of species that are showing signs of stress already.”
Relief appears to be on the horizon, but experts worry that that may well discourage conservation. Warmer-than-usual Pacific waters are supposed to build into a very rainy El Niño weather pattern this winter.
In wet years, Californians tend to go back to normal water use. But El Niño probably won’t make up for four years of drought.
“Our commitment to this is long term,” says Mr. Fulks, of UC-Davis. “My concern about this is that the public has a short-term memory.”
Scott Carlson is a senior writer who covers the cost and value of college. Email him at scott.carlson@chronicle.com.
