PULLMAN - Water use by WSU Pullman in 2009 dropped to the second lowest recorded level in nearly 50 years.

WSU pumped almost 479 million gallons of water to serve the Pullman campus during the 2009 calendar year. The total was roughly 2.6 percent above WSU’s 467,386,500-gallon water consumption level in 1961, which marks the last time the university’s water usage was roughly comparable historically.

Robert Corcoran, executive director of Facility Operations, said the success in reducing water consumption to a level roughly equivalent to that recorded almost half a century ago is particularly significant in light of the expansive growth in enrollment and campus facilities that has occurred since that time.

“Since 1961, our enrollment here has grown nearly 135 percent, from 7,762 students at that time to 18,234 in the fall of 2009,” he said. “Perhaps even more significantly, we’ve seen more than a 515 percent growth in the total square footage of all Pullman campus facilities, from 82 facilities totaling 1,711,281 gross square feet in 1961, to 546 facilities totaling 10,532,164 gross square feet, as of June of last year.”

The total water usage figures, above, include water for expansion of WSU's golf course from nine holes to the new 18-hole Palouse Ridge Golf Club.

WSU’s 2009 water consumption figure also represents a decline of more than 35 percent, or 263,000,000 gallons per year, from 1984, when WSU’s annual usage peaked at 742,000,000 gallons.

Corcoran attributed WSU’s success in reducing water consumption to a number of factors, including:

• A continuing effort to identify and eliminate water-wasting equipment in campus buildings; upgrades to process facilities such as the deionized water plant; construction of the new chilled water facility; and numerous replacements of equipment - such as refrigerators, portable air conditioners, heat exchangers, vacuum pumps and air compressors - with equipment employing water-recycling and conservation technologies.  (Deionized water is an "ultra-pure" water used in research.)

• 

  The 2005 closure of the old College Avenue Steam Plant and construction of the new Grimes Way Steam Plant that allowed WSU to reduce its water use by some 30 million gallons annually.

• Identification and repair of a number of broken and leaking small domestic water lines in some of the remote areas of the campus that has saved more than 11.5 million gallons annually.

• Conversion of residence hall washing machines to low-water-use, front-loading washers.

• Upgrade of approximately one-third of the campus’s irrigation controllers.

• Ongoing efforts by Facilities Operations, Capital Planning and Development, and Housing/Dining Services to install low-water-usage equipment and fixtures.