“Part of my job is to spin things positively,” said Elliot, the campus’s associate director of energy, utilities and sustainability. “A green lawn is bad; brown is good. Besides, if we don’t cut back our water usage, we’ll have to explain to (Cal Poly’s) president why we failed. I ask our critics how we should otherwise meet the president’s cutback goals, and that generally quiets them down.”
Elliot’s remarks came during the annual California Higher Education Sustainability Conference last week. Hosted by San Francisco State University, the gathering brought together campus green officers, educators and industry experts. Because California’s drought has resulted in mandatory cuts in water usage statewide, Elliot and his peers shared best practices and protocols that have helped their institutions.
Even if campuses outside the Golden State don’t have restrictions in water usage, they said, their efforts can be adapted elsewhere to trim utility bills.
Cal Poly, the University of California, Santa Cruz and California State University, Long Beach are now saving a combined 90 million gallons of water annually.
In recent years, each institution installed low-flow shower heads, toilets and faucet aerators. They drastically reduced irrigation to campus grounds, such as by switching from spray to drip irrigation. Previously, about half the water used among their institutions went to landscape, sports fields and agriculture operations.
UC Santa Cruz improved its water metering, which revealed numerous leaks needing fixes. “It’s not whether you have leaks, it’s where you have them, because everyone has them,” said campus energy manager Patrick Testoni.
