 |
||||||
April 2011 |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
A Media Resource Highlighting California State University's Commitment to Sustainability |
||||||
CSU's Water Wisdom March 28, 2011 – After a few rainstorms, it is easy to forget that California has been in a long-term drought. Given our state's climate, those dry days are likely to return. However, conserving and protecting our water resources extends beyond the immediate concerns of water reserves. Powering California's water infrastructure consumes 20 percent of the state's electricity, 30 percent of the state's natural gas and 88 billion gallons of diesel. Pollution and environmental degradation are also factors in where and how much water is pulled from existing sources. The CSU is committed to being a good steward of California's water resources. University students, faculty and staff are looking into many aspects of how water affects our lives and how we, in turn, affect the quality of the water around us. | ||||||
|
||||||
 |
||||||
| SJSU Saves Millions of Gallons of Potable Water | Cal Poly Pomona Goes Local for its Water |
|||||
|
San José State saved millions of gallons of potable water, and in the process won the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Award. For more than 10 years, SJSU has used recycled water to cool its central power plant and irrigate the athletic fields on South Campus, saving 40 million gallons of potable water and more than $100,000 in water and chemical costs annually. SJSU will soon use recycled water for landscape irrigation on the main campus. |
 Cal Poly Pomona will be pumping and filtering its own water following the construction of a $2.4 million water filtration plant on campus. The facility, funded by a Department of Public Health grant, will filter local well water into potable water, reducing the campus's reliance on imported water from Northern California and the Colorado River. Construction is expected to be completed at the end of 2012. |
|||||
| Rainwater Harvesting: Old Technology, Renewed Interest | CSUSB Students Issue a Laundry Efficiency Challenge | |||||
 Michael D. Lee, professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at CSU East Bay, is making a (not so) radical suggestion: Collect the rain falling from the sky and use it on plants. Lee writes about the age-old practice that was common in his native England and is being aggressively promoted in water-short Australia. He compares the effectiveness of systems in Oakland versus those in Melbourne in his article, ''Water Efficiency: A Tale of Two |
 CSU San Bernardino Green Campus teamed up with Housing and Residential Life to reduce energy usage in the laundry rooms. Seven campus residence halls competed to save the most energy during winter quarter. The Green Campus Program spread the word about laundry efficiency through stickers in laundry rooms, door hangers and fliers like the one shown above. |
|||||
|
||||||
