Overall Rating	Silver - expired
Overall Score	46.90
Liaison	Hannes Gerhardt
Submission Date	March 30, 2018
Executive Letter	Download

STARS v2.1

University of West Georgia
OP-22: Water Use

Status

Score

Responsible Party

0.91 / 4.00

Hannes Gerhardt
Sustainability Director
Department of Geosciences

"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Level of ”Physical Risk QUANTITY” for the institution’s main campus as indicated by the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas:

Low to Medium

Part 1

Total water use (potable and non-potable combined):

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water use	---	59,331,115 Gallons

Potable water use:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use	53,002,500 Gallons	52,604,500 Gallons

Start and end dates of the performance year and baseline year (or three-year periods):

	Start Date	End Date
Performance Year	July 1, 2014	June 30, 2017
Baseline Year	July 1, 2008	June 30, 2011

If end date of the baseline year/period is 2004 or earlier, provide:

A brief description of when and why the water use baseline was adopted:

We picked a baseline as far back as possible for which we had all the needed information to perform the calculation. We used 3 year averages for the baseline and performance year to get a more accurate reading.

Figures needed to determine "Weighted Campus Users":

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Number of students resident on-site	2,875	2,659
Number of employees resident on-site	17	5
Number of other individuals resident on-site and/or staffed hospital beds	1	0
Total full-time equivalent student enrollment	11,494	10,170
Full-time equivalent of employees (staff + faculty)	1,481	1,237
Full-time equivalent of students enrolled exclusively in distance education	1,424	545
Weighted campus users	9,387.25	8,812.50

Potable water use per weighted campus user:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per weighted campus user	5,646.22 Gallons	5,969.30 Gallons

Percentage reduction in potable water use per weighted campus user from baseline:

5.41

Part 2

Gross floor area of building space:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Gross floor area	2,502,603 Gross square feet	2,107,351 Gross square feet

Potable water use per unit of floor area:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per unit of floor area	21.18 Gallons per square foot	24.96 Gallons per square foot

Percentage reduction in potable water use per unit of floor area from baseline:

15.16

Part 3

Does the institution wish to pursue Part 3 of this credit? (reductions in total water use per acre/hectare of vegetated grounds):

Area of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Vegetated grounds	512 Acres	523 Acres

Total water use (potable + non-potable) per unit of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water use per unit of vegetated grounds	0 Gallons per acre	113,443.81 Gallons per acre

Percentage reduction in total water use per unit of vegetated grounds from baseline:

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Optional Fields

A brief description of the institution's water-related behavior change initiatives, e.g. initiatives to shift individual attitudes and practices such as signage and competitions:

Water conservation information is included in UWG's sustainability handbook as well as in some passive programming across campus.

A brief description of the institution's water recovery and reuse initiatives:

The University campus maintains cisterns on 4 properties with a 150,000 gallon holding capacity. The university can irrigate the 3.5 acres of sod at the Campus Coliseum, Nursing Building, the East Commons and the Oaks Apartments with non-potable cistern water for approximately 2 irrigation cycles per full capacity

A brief description of the institution's initiatives to replace plumbing fixtures, fittings, appliances, equipment, and systems with water-efficient alternatives (e.g. building retrofits):

An effort has been made to purchase water efficient appliances. Housing Residence Life installed high pressure shower nozzles to reduce the amount of water use. There is a recent Energy/Water Management Plan in place, which states: We will develop policies to ensure that water conservation is part of the focus of new building design and construction by using the following features. ● Low flow faucets (< 1gpm) ● Low flow toilets and urinals (< 1.6gpm) ● Low flow showerheads (< 1.5gmp) ● Installing branch water valves to isolate and repair leaks more quickly ● Installing bottle filling water stations ● Utilizing well water for irrigation

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:

https://www.westga.edu/administration/business-and-finance/cpf/index.php

Additional documentation to support the submission:

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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

The weighted campus user numbers here are different than those in the institutional characteristics (IC-3) because the performance year used here includes three years, while IC-3 focuses only on the current year. Also, the on campus residents are slightly different here as we are excluding a small housing area on campus (fraternities/sororities) where we do not have access to their water use as it is not paid for by the university and each unit has separate billing. The space numbers given here vary from that offered in IC-2 because we are using a 3 year average in Op-1, whereas in IC-2 we are only using the current year. Again, the total space numbers are slightly different here as we are excluding a small housing area on campus (fraternities/sororities) where we do not have access to their water use as it is not paid for by the university and each unit has separate billing.