Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 58.99
Liaison Deborah Steinberg
Submission Date Feb. 27, 2015
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

Carnegie Mellon University
OP-27: Rainwater Management

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Martin Altschul
Director of Strategic Facilities Initiatives of FMCS
Facilities Management Services
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution use Low Impact Development (LID) practices as a matter of policy or standard practice to reduce rainwater/stormwater runoff volume and improve outgoing water quality for new construction, major renovation, and other projects?:
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s Low Impact Development (LID) practices:

Carnegie Mellon University follows all local, state and federal stormwater management regulations. http://www.3riverswetweather.org/

The Morewood Gardens Parking Lot has a dry well installed for water run-off, which drains into a vegetative swale and concrete dam.

A 10,000-gallon underground baffled stormwater cistern is used to slow down storm water from the Purnell Center roof.

A 6,000 gallon rain water collection tank is installed in the CIC building and used for flushing and irrigation.

A 10,000 gallon rain water collection tank is installed in the Gates buildings and used for flushing.


Has the institution adopted a rainwater/stormwater management policy, plan, or strategies that mitigate the rainwater runoff impacts of ongoing campus operations through the use of green infrastructure? :
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s rainwater/stormwater management policy, plan, and/or strategies for ongoing campus operations:

Carnegie Mellon University is committed to reducing rain water runoff from coming to its campus from surrounding areas and to reduce the runoff from its own buildings, to protect flooding inside its campus buildings. Since 2009 we have experienced a 100 year flood twice, and have made several infrastructure upgrades to reduce flooding.
We are also working with a surrounding community coalition to reduce water runoff.


A brief description of any rainwater harvesting employed by the institution:

A 6,000 gallon rain water collection tank is installed in the CIC building and used for flushing and irrigation.

A 10,000 gallon rain water collection tank is installed in the Gates buildings and used for flushing.


Rainwater harvested directly and stored/used by the institution, performance year:
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A brief description of any rainwater filtering systems employed by the institution to treat water prior to release:

None.


A brief description of any living or vegetated roofs on campus:

Carnegie Mellon has over 10 vegetative roofs and 41,159 sq ft of various types including extensive, intensive and tray systems. More data and photo's can be seen on the web.
http://www.cmu.edu/environment/campus-green-design/green-roofs/index.html


A brief description of any porous (i.e. permeable) paving employed by the institution:

A parking area for Facilities Management Services vehicles was designed and installed by a Civil and Environmental Senior Project. A permeable surface was chosen to capture rainwater runoff from going down the driveway during rain events.


A brief description of any downspout disconnection employed by the institution:

A project will begin in 2015 to collect rainwater from the main campus building downspouts in an underground storage area to be utilized in cooling HVAC systems.


A brief description of any rain gardens on campus:

Between the Gates Building and Doherty Hall there is a steep slope that has been engineered and landscaped to collect rainwater. At the solar decathlon house there is a small reain garden demonstration project that was build by students. It is being used as an herb garden now.


A brief description of any stormwater retention and/or detention ponds employed by the institution:

The Morewood Gardens Parking Lot has a dry well installed for water run-off, which drains into a vegetative swale with a concrete dam.

Roberts Hall and Purnell Center have 10,000 gallon storm water tanks that collect rain water and slows it down prior to it entering the combined storm water/ sewer system.


A brief description of any bioswales on campus (vegetated, compost or stone):

The Electric Garage has newly installed bioswales in its parking lot.


A brief description of any other rainwater management technologies or strategies employed by the institution:

The Gates Building landscaping is engineered to capture the maximum amount of storm water from the steep hillsides surrounding it.

The Solar Decathlon House has a Nine Mile Run Watershed Association rain barrel collection system which is used to collect water for the student vegetable garden.

Learn more about this collaboration at http://www.ninemilerun.org/


The website URL where information about the institution’s rainwater management initiatives, plan or policy is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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