Winter 2000 Environmental Audit

Winter 2000 - Environmental Audit

H₂ Uh-Oh!
by Kimberly Colleran

The Bellingham Public Works Department compiles an annual list of its 12 largest water consumers. Between 1989 and 1998, Western topped this list four times. Of the dirty dozen compilation, Western consistently ranks in the top third.

During the past nine years, Western consistently used the most potable water out of all Bellingham Public Works’ customers. Top competitors for water resources in Bellingham include Water Districts number 10, 2 and 7, which include St. Joseph’s Hospital and the Bellingham School District.

In 1998, Western’s third top year in a row, it consumed 250,500 gallons of water per day, or roughly the equivalent of twenty-five Carver Gym pools full.

"Western Washington University has no water conservation plan and there is no emphasis at the Physical Plant to promote a conservation program," said Tom Thorp, utilities services manager for Western. Potential benefits exist from lowering water use on campus, but Thorp doesn’t know if the costs associated with these benefits will balance out.

"In talking about water conservation and the economics of it, you reach a point of diminishing returns," Thorp said.

Water in Washington is cheap, and even cheaper in Bellingham, which has a basic flat rate of $18.00 per month compared to $19.10 per month for the rest of Washington. But the efforts involved with water conservation, such as installing water- saving plumbing fixtures and education programs, cost money. Maybe this is one of the fundamental problems with water conservation, contends Western professor Steve Henson, who teaches a class on energy economics.

"When costs exceed benefits, it makes sense to conserve," Henson said. "Retrofitting fixtures isn’t cost effective, but maybe that just means water is underpriced. If the individual unit of water costs more, then more and better conservation efforts would be ensured.

Past efforts at water conservation on campus have, however, shown it is possible to save water and reduce costs at the same time. During the 1992-93 academic year, the Physical Plant installed low-flow showerheads in several residence halls as part of a pilot program for the city’s water-conservation plan. The new showerheads reduced water consumption by 13.5 percent in Higginson, Edens, Nash and Mathes halls. Not only did the low-flow showerheads reduce water consumption in the dorms, but they also saved the university $10,434 over two years. Despite these savings, water conservation on campus is still not considered cost effective.

Campus water is divided into three types of use: academic, housing-and-dining and irrigation. Individual meters on campus monitor water use.

"If there was going to be a major emphasis on conservation, it would be on housing," Thorp said, "because it’s on an individual basis." The installation of the low-flow showerheads may have saved some water and money, but housing-and-dining water use still accounted for 62.9 percent of Western’s total water use during the fiscal year of 1998-99. Academic use was less than half of that, and irrigation less than one-third.

Education efforts at other universities and in the city of Bellingham have proven effective in reducing water consumption, but so far no efforts have been undertaken at Western.

California State University at Northridge implemented a water conservation program in 1986 that included the distribution of educational materials, placement of stickers in bathrooms and retrofitting plumbing with water saving devices. A 24 percent reduction in water use resulted from the efforts. Brown University has undertaken similar efforts with a savings projection of 34 percent. This would save the university $300,000 annually.

Bellingham Public Works Superintendent of Utilities, Tony Seman, also heads the city’s water conservation program. The program includes extensive educational efforts such as placing a daily water fact in the Bellingham Herald during the summer months, holding public forums and workshops and distributing conservation pamphlets to Bellingham citizens. In indoor water conservation during the winter months, these efforts showed a savings trend between 10 percent and 13 percent in 1998.

"No coordination or emphasis has been given to the university – I can’t say what the reason is," Seman said. Bellingham Public Works coordinates educational conservation programs with Bellingham Public Schools, but has not deemed such efforts necessary with its number one potable water consumer. A few of Western’s faculty members have been involved in meetings concerning water conservation in the city, but the cooperation between the two entities has gone no further.

In areas such as the Pacific Northwest, where water seems to be running abundant, some people question whether water conservation is necessary. Bellingham receives an above-average amount of rain each year, and the streams and rivers are filled with water in the spring.

"In general, people are careless with water," said Cori Schlender, of the Outdoor Experiential Learning Site, part of the Outback farm in Fairhaven College. "The United States used to have the largest aquifers in the world, but they are quickly being depleted due to irrigation, farming and contamination. We’re abusing our water rights and depleting our fresh water supply." Perhaps Bellingham seems to have more than enough water for its residents. And perhaps the tuition of students at Western pays for the water used on campus, but Schlender is not alone in thinking that a wider ecological perspective than what lies in our own backyard is needed.

Western’s water comes from Lake Whatcom and its watershed. The middle fork of the Nooksack River has been diverted to funnel water into Lake Whatcom to supplement our water use. When the diversion is kept open, it lowers the levels of streams that the middle fork normally feeds, widely affecting its ecosystem, including the highly political salmon among other flora and fauna.

Joan Vandersypen, laboratory manager for the Institute for Watershed Studies acknowledges that we have to keep in mind how our use of water affects the ecosystem.

"It’s not like we’re going to run out of water," Vandersypen said, "but the more we open the diversion, the lower the stream levels are for the salmon."

"Water use and conservation is not an exciting subject here because we don’t live in the desert," Thorp said. This one-dimensional perspective may be right. But attitudes like this don’t fully weigh the costs and benefits of water conservation, and keep Western at the top of the dirty dozen list.

Winter 2000 - Environmental Audit

H2 Uh-Oh! by Kimberly Colleran

H₂ Uh-Oh!
by Kimberly Colleran