Crews work to protect, preserve campus trees during historic drought
Rice completes several water-conservation projects over summer

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

The calendar might say "August," but the landscape around Houston looks as if it’s the dead of winter. Record temperatures and a historic drought have the usually lush Rice campus looking dry and brown. Fortunately, the university has a dedicated grounds crew, including a skilled team of arborists, who are working round the clock to protect and preserve the greenery on campus. Their primary focus is the university’s thousands of trees, some of which are shedding limbs to stay alive.

"A series of weather events have put our landscape in real stress — Hurricane Ike in 2008, a drought in ’09, a freeze this past winter, and now this," said Richard Johnson, director of energy and sustainability at Rice. "Our grounds also took a beating with the construction over the past four to five years. All of this has left the landscape really fragile." He noted that since the beginning of summer, Rice has lost 10 trees to the drought.

Rice arborist Neville Mann explained, "When we experience prolonged, dry periods of weather, many trees, particularly rapid-growth species such as willow oak and water oak start to shed branches. Turgidity provided by the water passing through the vascular system of the tree is a fundamental part of the trees’ ability to sustain its own weight. The reason we have lost so many tree limbs lately is due to less turgidity."

All summer long, employees from Facilities, Engineering and Planning (FE&P) and even volunteers from Housing and Dining have been watering trees across campus. The city of Houston recently implemented water restrictions that limit watering to between 8 p.m. and 10 a.m. on approved days, so these crews have begun coming in early in the morning or late at night to ensure the trees get enough time under the hoses.

The lack of rainfall is evident in Rice’s water consumption. "The current drought in Texas began around November of last year and started to get very serious in the Houston area in April. I think our water-use data very clearly shows this," said Doug Wells, director of Rice’s Central Plant. "Our total water use from July through March of each of the last two fiscal years (FY10 and FY11) was within 0.2 percent of each other, and then in April through June of this last fiscal year we witnessed a 65 percent increase in water use compared with the same last three months of FY10."

Johnson noted that Rice is doing what it can to conserve water, including through several projects completed over the summer.

Project Managers Erik Knezevich and Bob Nguyen in FE&P have completed a condensate-harvesting initiative in the sciences area, including Brockman Hall, that captures cold, clean water from the air-handling units and pumps it back to the Central Plant’s cooling towers for use as makeup water (instead of having to buy water from the city of Houston). A similar system collecting condensate from the BioScience Research Collaborative for use at the South Plant is already operational. "When people think of conservation efforts, they think of things like shutting off the faucet when they brush their teeth, but this is something going on at Rice in the background all the time, and it has a big impact," Johnson said.

Another conservation project was the installation of low-flow showerheads in Hanszen College. Housing Operations Manager Mark Chaszar tested a low-flow showerhead this past year in the suite of Hanszen EcoRep and then-junior Christoph Meyer, and the showerhead proved to be very popular with the students. "The payback on these showerheads is literally a few months, and they provide better showers," Johnson said.

Finally, a student-led project resulted in the retrofit of roughly 100 old toilets on campus with new water-efficient toilets. The project was initiated by undergraduate Doris Lee through RESET, Rice Endowment for Sustainable Energy Technology, which supports initiatives for a more sustainable campus. Lee worked closely with FE&P Plumbing Supervisor David Mosquinski to develop a proposal, and the FE&P Energy Steering Committee provided significant matching funds to RESET to enable the project to move forward. The new toilets included a variety of dual-flush technologies as well as standard 1.6 gallon-per-flush models, all of which are considerably more efficient than the older toilets, which can use 3.5 gallons per flush or even more.

"From our various projects on campus, we will expect to save from between 12 million and 14 million gallons of water each year," Knezevich said.

One additional water-conserving measure is a temporary one: Rice is recycling water from pumps at Sewall Hall to irrigate nearby areas. FE&P staff are reviewing ways to make this practice permanent.  FE&P has also put all landscape enhancements on hold until planting conditions improve.

Johnson said even when it does start raining, the campus won’t recover quickly. "We’ll be seeing the effects of this drought for several years," he said. ”We’re focusing on watering our historic trees because we’re trying to keep them alive. Our live oaks are a critical part of our identity. Lawns can be replaced in a day, but replacing a majestic live oak takes a lifetime.” Susann Glenn, manager of communications for FE&P, added, ”Campus isn’t as green as it normally is, but it’s not because we don’t care. It’s because we do care."

In the meantime, members of the campus community can help by being mindful of the fragile state of the flora, not climbing trees and not walking on the grass. They should also avoid parking golf carts on tree roots.