In a rainy city like Seattle, water conservation is arguably not the most important environmental issue. As the UW begins to focus on having sustainable, or “green,” operations, the issue of water conservation comes into question. However, at a university that uses 30 million gallons of water annually for irrigation, the issue isn’t a small one.

Despite having no grade for water usage, the UW Facilities Services Web site states that the University is committed to operating its “water systems using the most efficient and environmentally friendly practices possible.”

Watering the UW’s 643-acre campus effectively requires management of several factors, explained irrigation lead Brian Davis.

There are several watering zones on the UW campus, called microclimates, which differ in time and flow amount depending on sun and wind exposure, as well as soil and plant types.

“We never want a plant to lose more than 50 percent water,” Davis said.

The focus on keeping plants alive is important because taxpayers support the university, he said.

“Why worry about plants dying? It’s taxpayers’ dollars,” he said. “We don’t want to put in a tree and then just let it die. It’s also the carbon footprint.”

Ideally, watering is done in the early-morning hours to minimize public impact and increase soil absorption.

Davis admits the UW’s irrigation isn’t perfect. With 136 automatic and 126 manual sprinkler systems with more than 1000 valves, problems are bound to arise.

Freshman Dana Hansen recalled seeing sprinklers on while it was raining recently.

“I saw them in front of the dorms, Terry-Lander,” she said. “I think we should work to conserve water.”

UW law student Jason Hardy said he saw “sprinklers shooting off in front of the law library as far as the eye could see” around noon on a 90-degree day this summer.

Concerned that the watering was a waste considering the heat, Hardy e-mailed the UW Grounds Maintenance Department. He received an e-mail immediately from Jon Hooper, the Central Maintenance Zone manager explaining that it could be a glitch. A week later, Davis contacted Hardy to clarify the issue.

“I explained to the gentleman that we had a mainline break at the exterior of the landscape,” Davis said. “We repaired it as quickly as we could but what happened [is] we had 90-degree heat and the lawn got cooked at the front of the building.”

He continued to explain that since each zone is watered concurrently, there wasn’t enough time at night to adequately water the lawn.

“We watered during the day to compensate for the lost water for a short time,” Davis said. “The law student happened to notice and contacted us.”

However, Hardy believes the UW is more concerned with its image than water conservation.

“Those who are on campus feel so uninvolved in the day-to-day maintenance or they don’t see watering in 90-degree temp as a problem,” Hardy said. “It’s troubling to me that no one else thought to rectify the situation.”

Davis said he understands there are those who don’t understand the purpose of irrigation, especially in the summer.

“Some people ask, why don’t we let the lawn get brown?” Davis said. “We do choose to let certain lawns go but if we let them go brown, it takes more water to make them green.”

Davis explained that as a public institution, the UW is often home to outdoor events. He said that keeping the grass healthy is in the community’s interest.

Freshman Dan Fiedler agreed that keeping plants healthy is important.

“Keeping plants green is a good use of water but a leaking pipe is a complete waste,” he said. “We should focus on more wasteful uses of water.”

Universities are now graded on their environmental efforts, but those rankings often do not include water conservation. As the UW continues to go green, Davis wants irrigation to be included in the efforts to become more environmentally sustainable.

He hopes to implement green irrigation projects during future landscape renewals. For now, he and two others continue in attempts to keep the irrigation processes as environmentally friendly as possible.

“The campus here is a blend of landscape and architecture,” he said. “It’s a beautiful mix. Landscape is just the most short-funded. It’s important, but we can’t print money, so we have to be creative.”

Reach reporter Erika Cederlind at news@dailyuw.edu.