Caltech Water Conservation and the "New Normal"

At Caltech, as is true elsewhere in Pasadena and throughout California, water—and how to use it conservatively, conscientiously, and effectively—is a top priority.

Governor Jerry Brown's recent executive order to reduce water consumption and the Pasadena's City Council's subsequent regulations for limiting use have brought heightened attention to California's drought. At Caltech, which has been working to reduce water consumption since long before the drought, water use is directly tied to research. Indeed, technical equipment and infrastructure can only operate safely and well when cooled. But here as elsewhere, the recent legislation has prompted renewed discussion about how to respond appropriately in the face of stricter conservation standards.

On Tuesday, June 9, Caltech's Sustainability Office led two campus town hall meetings and a water conservation resource fair to engage the community in a conversation about Caltech's continuing water conservation efforts. A copy of the town hall presentation is available on the Caltech Sustainability Office website.

To help us to better understand this issue, as well as Caltech's approach to water conservation and overall sustainable practices, we recently sat down with John Onderdonk, the director of sustainability programs at Caltech. Onderdonk joined the Institute eight years ago to lead its sustainability efforts.

What is Caltech's current water challenge?

The city and state have asked us to significantly cut back on water use. On June 1, the Pasadena City Council declared a local water emergency, establishing a 28 percent water conservation goal that should be reached between now and January 2016. That's a very short timeline and a very significant water reduction.

Annually, Caltech uses about 200 million gallons of water, and we have been fairly consistent in that use over the last couple years, with a steady decrease from our peak use in 2006. Our industrial plants—the central and satellite plants—use more than half of that water in the process of providing electricity, heating, and cooling to the buildings on campus. The remaining water consumption is distributed between irrigation at about 16 percent—or 32 million gallons—and domestic building use at about 34 percent—or 68 million gallons.

The city and state's conservation efforts are focused on making immediate reductions. The way we are able to work toward their reduction goals right away is through our irrigation and other visible conservation efforts—on top of what we have already done up to this point.

Some of the ways in which we are currently working toward the conservation goal are:

• Maintaining a two-days-per-week watering schedule
• Draining all of the campus water features that are not used to support biological life or recreational activities. These include:

• Millikan Reflecting Pool
• Beckman Institute Gene Pool
• Watson Laboratory fountain
• Beckman Auditorium fountains
• Beckman Institute Courtyard fountain

• South Undergraduate Courtyard fountain
• Linde + Robinson Perception fountain
• Moore Laboratory fountain
• And smaller water features outside Parsons Gates, Dabney Garden, and The Athenaeum

We are also continuing to look for opportunities to phase out turf, re-landscaping with climate-adaptive species and native plants. And in areas where we plan to keep turf, we are looking at replacement with species that require less water.

What are some of the changes people might see or experience because of these cutbacks?

We are definitely going to see a physical change in the look of campus. As we stick to two days of watering per week across campus, and as we progress into the high summer heat, grasses will start going golden. That will be one of the most noticeable changes.

We are also already seeing a lot of the trees, particularly the redwood trees near Watson [Laboratory], that are drought stressed. In fact, we removed five redwoods this month because they had died.

Our trees are irrigated with the sprinkler system in our grass, so as we reduce the amount of watering that we can do, they in turn get a lot less water. To change that, we would need to retrofit our irrigation system for the trees. That would be costly.

We may have to take more trees down if they die and as they pose safety hazards and risks. To help minimize that impact as best we can, we are already doing some supplemental watering for the trees, and we are testing a pilot project with an atmospheric air condenser to see if we can generate water for the trees and plants in alternative but still cost-effective ways.

What measures does Caltech already have in place to conserve water?

Since 2006, the Institute has reduced total water use by about 40 percent as part of its overall sustainability plan and efforts. We have made some significant gains, a lot by making changes to our system and everyday operation that you can't really see. That has included installing recirculating water systems in fountains and water features; installing low-flow fixtures in our buildings; plumbing our new buildings with purple pipes, which means that they are compatible with recycled water and could use recycled water in the future for flushing; and evaluating water-saving measures in the central and satellite plant cooling towers. One of the largest factors in this decrease is the energy-conservation efforts we have implemented across campus that have reduced the cooling load on the central plant.

We have also done a lot of great things in our new buildings, and we are building them with the future in mind. Today, 10 percent of our buildings on campus are LEED certified, and all of those buildings are at least 30 percent more water efficient than the code requires. The newest building on campus, the modernized Gates–Thomas Laboratory, is 35 percent more water efficient than code requires. And the outdoor irrigation in Gates–Thomas is 50 percent more efficient than the code requires, in part, because we have it set up with a drip-only irrigation system.

Also, we have a cistern in the Linde + Robinson Laboratory that catches rainwater and runoff.

What are you hoping to achieve with the town hall?

We certainly want to tackle our water conservation efforts holistically and strategically—that's the Caltech way of doing it. It is going to take time because a lot of what we are looking at are engineering challenges with capital costs and requiring an investment of time.

We will tackle these over the long term, but in the meantime, we also have to find a way to be compliant, be a good neighbor, and be tactical and meet the short-term guidelines and restrictions that the city has in place. I'm hoping that our community can rise to that challenge and that we can have a conversation about the issue, what we are doing, and what we might do to address this problem now and for the future.

The current drought and the city's water-reduction goals may be a short-term issue, but carrying out our work using less water is the new normal.

For more information about Caltech water conservation and sustainability efforts, visit Caltech's Sustainability Office website. You can also email questions to sustainability@caltech.edu.