Strategies for Water Use Reduction

Many areas of the U.S. are experiencing drought conditions. Many other areas receive little rainfall. As the cost of providing water grows for our growing population, schools are experiencing rising costs with only one guarantee: rates will continue to rise.

What are some strategies to reduce the use of water? A local school district researched ways to save water. In a recently-completed new school, they chose to use waterless urinals. (Most people, when they hear “waterless urinal”, say “ewwww”.) But waterless urinals don’t necessarily smell. The ones this district selected have a one-way valve that works to trap odors so there are no smells. There is also a cartridge that gets changed out after every 300 flushes. They did the math and the cartridges only need to be replaced every couple of months. The replacement involves turning and twisting the old cartridge out with a built-in lever, popping a new one into the holder, turning and twisting it back in.

Low-water usage faucets and showerheads are now commonplace, and are code-required in many municipalities. Low-flow toilets have been around for quite a few years now, and are getting better all the time. Some work better than others. Check out the link to see which ones work best. (If you still have the old tank toilets, the old trick of putting a brick in the tank, or filling up a milk jug with water, capping it and putting it in the tank will work to obtain flushing with less water.)

The same district also decided to try a pilot project to see if rainwater harvesting would provide sufficient water for use in irrigating ball fields. This is a big issue for schools – if you offer sports opportunities for students, you really need irrigation. If you don’t irrigate fields, when they dry out, they get hard and lead to injuries. This is especially true for the clay soils we have here in North Texas. At this school the rainwater is gathered from gutters and downspouts from the buildings on the campus, and also from catch basins in parking lots. All runoff is piped to an irrigation pond, which is aerated to keep the water quality high. It’s a fairly simple system, with a pump providing the means to distribute the water. Several cities are interested the project and are studying the practicality of reproducing this system, and are also interested in the benefit of less runoff in the river.

Another school district was piping runoff from one of their schools to a stream that ran fairly close to the school. The method used to harvest rainwater was a clever one. Since the piping ran several hundred yards before the outfall into the stream, a valve was installed in the large-diamter pipe. This means the water is stored in the pipe until it needs to be used for irrigation. If your school has a scenario similar to this, you could upsize your pipe to store a lot of water.

Look at every aspect of water use in your school. Commercial dishwashers use minimal amounts of water while washing dishes in two minutes or less. Other ways to save water in the kitchen can be researched, for instance, low flow heads in the dish rinsing area.

Is there a way your school could do something other than have large amounts of lawn? Lawns are preferred by many school districts as their optimal surface for many reasons, but it’s possible to reduce the amount of sod, replacing with other surfaces. A few possibilities would be bark chips, crushed limestone or crushed granite, decorative river rock or other decorative rock, or ground covers that don’t use as much water (or fertilizers) as lawn.

Xeriscaping could be the subject of another blog because it’s a big subject. Xeriscaping is the art and science of using drought-tolerant plants, and perhaps more specifically native plants, in landscaping. After watching many trees, shrubs, and other plants die this summer from record high temperatures and record drought, xeriscaping is a strategy that can help reduce water needs while still maintaining attractive and functional outdoor spaces.

Drip irrigation can be effectively used to target areas that need water. Instead of using sprinkler heads to water shrubs and trees, use drip irrigation.

One area that is little utilized but is more under discussion is that of gray water re-use. Gray water means water that’s used for washing gets re-used. (Black water is a term for the re-use of sewage water.) Many municipalities don’t allow gray water re-use, or only allow it under certain conditions. We will be seeing more and more use of gray water, especially water from showers or hand-washing being filtered, treated, and re-used, especially for landscape irrigation. Municipalities will continue educating plan review and code compliance departments in successful gray-water reuse methods.

There are many ways to save your district money on water usage. Your district may want to adopt water saving strategies for cost-savings measures or because there is insufficient water supply.

http://www.consumersearch.com/toilets/reviews
http://www.facilitiesnet.com/plumbingrestrooms/article/Making-Waterless-Work--2442
http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopExt/4dmg/Xeris/xeris1.htm
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/04702.html
http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/hortcult/homegard/graywate.htm