Ellington

With new efforts such as UW Farm, do-it-yourself bike repair stations, and the first-annual sustainability summit sprouting up around campus, the UW is going green. The Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) is part of the process. But what goes on behind the scenes is a design meant to improve visibility on campus.

The CSF gave Husky Sustainable Storms (HSS) $9,220 to design a stormwater infrastructure project, called a bioswale, by the end of winter quarter, and they expect results.

Stefanie Young, project manager for construction and implementation of HSS, who is currently pursuing a master’s degree in urban planning, said the design phase is vital. Without it, she said the project cannot go forward.

“If we do something wrong, we could potentially have a waterfall on campus because we didn’t engineer it correctly,” she said. “That’s why you have this whole system to make sure you’re designing properly and correctly because if you fail, you could potentially cause a lot of damage.”

Young warned of a “waterfall” because the bioswale, once built, will deal with runoff from the N5 parking lot, located north of PACCAR Hall. Patrick Green, project manager for planning and outreach who is a candidate for concurrent master’s degrees in urban planning and public administration, said these structures often use a filtering system that works in sync with plants to keep pollutants out of local watersheds.

“It’s a reproduction of the natural ecosystem that water goes through, is cleaned, and then [is] flushed out into another body of water,” Green said.

If all goes as intended, HSS will complete the first phase of its project, the design, by the end of the quarter, moving on to the second phase, going over the designs with university stakeholders and reapplying to the CSF for construction funds, this spring. But HSS has more to accomplish in phase one.

HSS is bringing in a professional engineer to review the design and give it the stamp of approval. Because HSS is spending university money, it has to work with Procurement Services. This department tries to save the UW money by overseeing spending on campus. HSS went through an informal bidding process for the design work, and Green described this lengthy process as “getting several firms to say, ‘We can do this work, and this is how much we’re going to do it for.’”

HSS has talked to five firms so far, but has yet to choose one. All of them offered to do pro bono or reduced-cost work.

“Usually when you hire someone, there’s a contract, an agreement about what they do in exchange for the money you provide them,” said Peter Dewey, the assistant director of UW Transportation Services. “In this case, there’s no exchange of money, but there’s still a contract. It’s unusual in that regard.”

The CSF requires a university department to oversee use of the money it gives to students. Because HSS wants to modify the drainage system of a parking lot, the project falls under the jurisdiction of Transportation Services.

In addition to coordinating with Transportation Services and the CSF, Green and the other students involved in the project have talked to the Capital Projects Office and UW Grounds Management. They have also contacted Jim Morin, a facilities project engineer and stormwater expert.

Kristine Kenney, the university landscape architect and director of campus design and planning, is outlining the approval process for HSS, helping it figure out whom to talk to and when.

Sunni Wissmer, a freshman and the public outreach coordinator for HSS, said this has proven challenging at times.

“It’s a lot of jumping through hoops,” Wissmer said. “And not only jumping through hoops, but in an institution of this size, it’s hard to find the hoops we need to jump through.”

Jan Whittington, an assistant professor in the UW College of Built Environments serving as an academic advisor to HSS, said there are many structures and policies in place which predate the environmental movement by decades.

“When you want to take a new concept, a new scientific way of looking at things — evolving from sustainability, let’s say — and you want to apply it to a jurisdiction that has evolved in its policy over 150 years, some of the policies you’re going to encounter have not had the full benefit of evolving with the science yet.”

As Young said, there is a lot at stake if the project fails, including the money — a scarce resource on campus these days. They respect the UW’s desire to be thorough, even if it slows down the process.

“I would be worried if they said, ‘This is great, go for it,’ because that won’t be successful,” Green said. “These things are done delicately; they’re done precisely. They’re not just haphazardly thrown into the mix.”

After it has completed the design, obtained the permits, and installed the bioswale, HSS plans to document the process. Wissmer said several other students are interested in the project, and the road map would make it easier for other student-initiated infrastructure projects to follow in the group’s footsteps by laying out the procedure step-by-step.

“All these people want to help us, and they’re very helpful once we find them,” Wissmer said. “It’s just making the connection. Our project is making connections in a way that no other project has.”

Raising awareness and educating the student body about water issues are almost as important to HSS as the bioswale itself; Green said one of the reasons the group chose the N5 parking lot was its high visibility. Like the bike repair stations, the bioswale will serve as a daily reminder of the changes sweeping campus.

“We want to engage [students] in the long term,” Green said. “We want them to ask how issues of water quality influence the way they look at their professional careers.”

Reach reporter Joseph Sutton-Holcomb at features@dailyuw.com.