New construction projects on campus feature innovative techniques for building and landscaping to manage stormwater as Western seeks LEED certification.
Both the addition to Buchanan Towers and the renovated Miller Hall are applying for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. LEED is a system that rates environmentally friendly buildings on their water and energy efficiency, indoor air quality, carbon dioxide emission reduction and sensitivity to impacts on nearby resources. Points are assigned for each category based on how well a building does, much like a grading system.
Because Western is a public university, funding for the majority of buildings and renovations on campus comes from the state. Washington state law requires that all publicly funded new buildings or major renovations designed after July of 2005 must be certified at the LEED Silver level. This means buildings must receive at least 50 out of 100 possible points on the LEED scale.
One of the requirements for the level of certification Western is seeking is for the buildings to have specially designed landscaping.
Many of the techniques Western is implementing focus on managing stormwater. Vegetation around buildings and in parking lots may look like landscaping but is also functional in filtering runoff. These areas of vegetation contain mostly native plants and are known as rain gardens. Larger areas of vegetation that form ponds to catch water and filter it through plant roots are called bioswales.
“These rain gardens have been proven to be very effective at both slowing down the water and improving the quality of the water that leaves the site,” said Ed Simpson, assistant director of facilities design and planning administration for Facilities Management.
Western is planning on placing rain gardens around the renovated Miller Hall and the Buchanan Towers addition, Simpson said.
“It almost looks like small islands in and around the parking lot,” said Director of Facilities Management Tim Wynn of the planned rain gardens for Buchanan Towers.
Bioswales are also planned for behind Miller Hall to reduce runoff, Wynn said. The courtyard will be covered by Western’s first “green roof,” which will host a mix of short flowering plants and grasses that will absorb rainwater and be visible from the offices above. The roof does not reach all the way to the walls to allow daylight in around its edges and to let filtered water flow down.
“It’s aesthetic as well as it will reduce stormwater,” Simpson said.
The Academic Instructional Center on south campus, which is also LEED certified, handles surface water with a mix of native vegetation such as ferns, dogwoods and vine maples that need no irrigation after being established. These plants help filter water before it enters the south campus stormwater system.
Controlling stormwater during construction is also a requirement for LEED certification. Crews for the Buchanan Towers addition have installed fences to trap silt, added filters to water catch basins and put straw around areas of open excavation.
Crews must also be careful when disposing of residue from cement trucks, said Christina Maginnis, municipal stormwater specialist for the Bellingham field office of the Washington State Department of Ecology. Cement washed out of a truck and not collected can be particularly harmful if it enters the stormwater system because it can upset pH balances in creeks and harm salmon, Maginnis said.
Most of these stormwater management projects are requirements of the LEED program, but Western is also mitigating runoff in other areas of campus.
Western has dealt with stormwater for years by maintaining a brick campus instead of paving it, said Ron Bailey, manager of operations support for Facilities Management. After the bricks are laid side by side, a layer of sand is brushed over the top. The sand settles between the bricks, allowing water to soak into the ground beneath them instead of pooling on top.
“The brick pavement allows a hard surface to walk on, but water is able to go through it,” Bailey said.
As the bricks settle over time, the space between them decreases, causing slow draining. If bricks sink below storm drains, puddles continue to form and crews pull them up and re-lay them, Bailey said. Although this is an ongoing maintenance project, it is better than paving campus, which would force all water to go straight to a storm drain instead of letting some of it soak into the ground, Bailey said.
The cost of managing stormwater varies depending on the system, Simpson said. Some solutions have not been tried at Western because they are too expensive at this time, and others are not feasible because of the physical characteristics of campus.
The individual improvements with new construction will make a difference in water quality, Wynn said, even though major projects such as paving parking lots and overhauling the north campus stormwater system have not been planned yet due to cost restrictions.
“It’s definitely on everybody’s list, and my guess is that in a few years it will rise to the top of the pile,” Wynn said of the north campus upgrade.
Only registered users can post comments.
Please login or register.
Be first to comment on this article
