Medical Facilities Count for Half of Duke's Water Use

Disposable plates. Dying flowers. Fewer bed linen changes.

These are a few signs that indicate Duke has cut its water use by thousands of gallons a day since the beginning of the drought, and leaders are pushing innovative conservations methods for even more savings.

Across Duke, conservation efforts are in full swing, even in medical facilities that account for nearly half of Duke's overall water use. On Monday, a memo was sent to Duke Hospital leadership with conservation tips, such as less frequent bed linen changes and encouraging the use of waterless hand sanitizer.

The Drought at Duke

By 2 p.m. Wednesday, Gardens officials had collected more than .5 inches of rain, a welcome measure of rain, and the region's first significant rainfall since Sept. 14. However, regional officials say the Triangle needs about 15 inches of rain to end drought conditions.

Previous Duke Today stories on the drought

Letting Nature Take Its Course

Watering the campus in time of drought

Every drop precious

Update on water conservation efforts

Water Conservation at Duke FAQ

Nicholas School: Report Recommends New Water Policies for North Carolina

"As an institution, we are honoring our commitment to complying with the city's necessary mandates for water usage," William J. Fulkerson, Duke Hospital's Chief Executive Officer, said in the memo. "All this is being done while still honoring our commitment to sanitary, safe practices -- which always takes precedence."

Water use at the hospital and university has already been cut by discontinuing pressure washing and lawn watering during the drought, among other methods, such as an operations adjustment at the chilled water plant that saves 9,000 gallons daily.

"We're encouraging all employees to conserve water whenever they can without impacting the quality of patient care," said James Good, associate operating officer at Duke Hospital. "During the past five years, the Health System has saved a substantial amount of water that is required to operate our facilities by engineering more efficient ways to use water. Those are the type of things that we're looking into for future reductions."

Saving water is not new at Duke, which, long before the drought, developed broader initiatives designed to leave a lighter footprint on the environment.

Flow restrictor shower heads and sink faucets have been installed in some residence halls, and all new buildings are being constructed to meet national standards for energy efficiency and eco-friendly design. For example, the French Family Science Center has 50 waterless urinals and low-flow lavatories that save an estimated 2 million gallons of water annually. And, many existing buildings have been hooked up to the central chilled water plant, which is more efficient than using the cooling towers on top of individual buildings.

Daily changes to conserve water use are evident across campus.

Most irrigation systems, which only account for 8 percent of Duke facilities water use, have been turned off for weeks. Duke is among about 40 commercial water consumers that a received Stage III license, which allows for minimal watering of critical areas such as select trees at risk and some athletic fields for safety. The Stage III ordinance requires all customers to document efforts toward a goal of 30 percent water reduction.

At the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, flowers are wilting and plants are struggling. All ornamental features such as statues and fountains have been shut off, and drought-tolerant landscaping has also been installed in many areas.

"In addition, we're looking at some of these ornamental features that are older and working with facilities management to ensure we don't lose water with them," said Gardens Executive Director William LeFevre, who began work Oct. 1. "We're doing that with our entire infrastructure."

On Wednesday, several university dining eateries shelved china and silverware to save hundreds of gallons of water daily. Duke Dining Services introduced disposable laminated plates and cups in the Marketplace on East Campus and Great Hall on West Campus this week to help save water from dish washing.

Duke's primary food vendor, Bon Appetit, will transition to biodegradable ware from laminated products in the Marketplace and Great Hall but wanted begin saving water immediately.

"Everything I'm reading tells me we're going to be out of water in the Durham area in January," said Jim Wulforst, director of Duke Dining Services. "I made a personal visit to Jordan Lake on Sunday and was shocked at what I saw. That struck a chord for me, and I felt that it was critical."

Moving to disposable plates and cups in the Great Hall and Marketplace will reduce the amount of water for dish washing by approximately 60 percent every day in each of the eateries, said Michael Aquaro, Bon Appetit's district manager at Duke. A total of 800 gallons of water daily will be saved with fewer dish washing cycles at both locations, Aquaro said.

"With the current drought situation, we view it as a proactive step to do our part to conserve water," Aquaro said. "We can save water in our units, but what we really want to do is show that dining at Duke is more than just coming in for a meal."

The Refectory in Duke's Divinity School also switched this week to disposable dinner ware and is planning to bolster its sustainability methods by using eco-friendly products as soon as possible.

Using disposable products will save about 200 gallons per day at The Refectory, said Laura Hall, owner of Bon Vivant Catering, which operates the eatery.

"Since we decided to move quickly on this, we used paper products at first, but we are ordering some environmentally-friendly, biodegradable products made of Dispozo Envirofoam from a supplier in South Carolina," Hall said. "We're also researching our options and checking into things like corn-based products called GreenWare from a company in California called NatureWorks. We're doing a lot of homework and putting a lot of time and money into this because we realize that the water situation in Durham probably isn't going to get better any time soon."

John Noonan, associate vice president for Facilities, said that saving water is not new to Duke. "When you look at the water usage from last year to this year, our total consumption decreased by 30 million gallons," he said. "This was done in spite of adding additional new square footage in buildings on campus. Our commitment to design environmentally-friendly buildings has resulted in more efficient use of resources such as water."