UNC Officials to Continue Water Conservation

UNC officials insist that aggressive water conservation measures will continue on campus, despite recent rainfall that has alleviated, at least temporarily, the area's recent water woes.

At Thursday's Orange Water and Sewer Authority board of directors meeting, where officials asked each town's mayor to reduce local water restrictions from emergency levels to Stage 2, UNC's position in the process was made clear.

"We've got good things going, and we're not going to stop," said Ray DuBose, UNC director of facility maintenance.

Dubose was referring to campuswide water conservation and drought awareness efforts, but one measure officials are indeed stopping will be seen immediately in UNC's dining halls.

Carolina Dining Services officials decided last week to stop using disposable dishes and to turn back on the dishwashers in all campus dining halls starting today.

In an e-mail to CDS managers Friday, Ira Simon, University food service director for auxiliary services, informed representatives of the change.

"The decision to turn the dish machines back on does not change the school's effort to be conscientious about the use of water and is based on making changes that will provide long-term solutions," Simon stated.

UNC's effort to save 100,000 gallons of water a week by using styrofoam dishes in Lenior and Chase dining halls became a costly burden.

Not only was CDS spending $5,000 a week to use styrofoam, it cost officials an extra $1,000 to $1,500 per month to have garbage collected twice daily instead of once.

"The decision to use disposables was correct at the time," Simon wrote. "The continued use of styrofoam was a cost, both financial and environmental, to Carolina Dining that was not proportional to the overall savings of water."

DuBose said Sunday that increased water use from washing dishes will be offset by other conservation measures.

Heating and cooling systems already are being shut off during nights and weekends in almost 25 buildings, and at least as many more will follow, DuBose said.

About 300 water-free urinals are now in stock, ready to be installed in the University's "high-use" buildings like the Student Union and Davis Library.

In potentially one of the most costly efforts yet, officials have requested about $500,000 from the University Budget Committee to convert stills that manufacture distilled water for research labs, DuBose said. Fifteen stills are slated for the updates, which will make them capable of using recycled water.

All of this is part of the University's ongoing "Every Drop Counts" campaign, a campus drought-awareness effort to reduce water use on campus by 25 percent. Dubose said UNC has nearly met that goal. Last month, the University reduced its water consumption by 21 percent. The numbers for October are not yet in, he said.

But the campaign is far from slowing down. "The urgency is that we're still in the drought -- the drought has been going on for three years now," DuBose said. "We're saving water today so we'll have enough water to make it through next summer."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.