Written by Stan Maley
Sustainability is the buzz word around town and Durack Institute of Technology is right up there with that. They have recently won an award by AWA Water Awards 2010 for sustainable water management initiatives.
I spoke to Craig Jerrard who is resources go to person and he explained to me that they have teams working in all areas of water, power (energy), waste, use of vehicles (travel) to reduce the carbon footprint and be as self sufficient as possible. They have installed a wind turbine, solar panels and are encouraging the use of bicycles by staff and students.
The focus of our talk was water management as I am particularly keen to have a broad look at water issues in the next few weeks. Durack have installed and activated an aqua storage recovery system which is a smart way of using rain water. They have re-directed the runoff from all building roofs and car parks into a big pipe which takes it into a naturally occurring sump in the sand hills just east of the College. It pours into the sand and is filtered as it seeps down to lay on top of the existing ground water because fresh water is lighter than salty water. Like a great big underground rain water tank!
By carefully drilling four bores on the perimeter of this man made aquifer, the water is taken off, put into their tanks and used for all the gardens around the college. Four years ago they used 64 million litres of water and were asked to reduce it and did so to 34 million litres, but Craig reckons with the system now in place (ASRS) they can bring it down to just 15 million litres a year! And that will be forever. A saving of $40/50 thousand a year, taking just four years to the recover initial cost.
The groups tackling the areas of savings and sustainability in water, energy and travel are keen to pass these ideas onto the students to use in their trades later on and in their homes then into the wider community. There are several initiatives in place around the college to implement this, as well as a full year Diploma of Sustainability, which will be offered to students next year.
Before ASRS they saved water by retro fitting sub-surface irrigation systems into the existing lawns. The process of installing this was invented and operated by their gardener, Ernie Slater. No run off, no evaporation. Lawn areas that weren’t being used were ripped out and planted with water wise natural species. A high traffic lawn adjacent to the cafe was ripped out, the sand replaced with a clay soil overlaid with terracotta and water absorbent crystals, sub surface irrigation and velveteen salt resistant lawn was planted. A moisture probe was installed that called for water when the lawn needed it. Now it is vivid green and a pleasant to use. Besides these water savings, they introduce flush free urinals for men which had major water use savings.
Peter Buck, a hydrologist from Perth was consulted to help design the ASRS. He also works in geo thermal systems that Durack is looking at for heating and cooling buildings using deep underground bores.