With the Turlock Irrigation District reporting 1.82 inches of rain dropping on Turlock during the storms Monday and Tuesday, the Stanislaus State system of ponds and pools was able to retrieve a significant amount of water from storm drains in and around campus.
On Monday the reclamation system received and pumped nearly 2.2 million gallons of water. Then, with the ground already saturated, Tuesday’s rainfall, while lighter than the previous day, sent 3.5 million gallons through the system for a two-day total of 5.7 million gallons.
Since January 1, the storage and reclamation system has received and pumped nearly 12 million gallons, an amount that would fill the entire storage system to near capacity levels. As pointed out by Louie Oliveira, chief operating engineer in Stanislaus State’s Facilities Services, a large amount of that water has been pumped through campus and released into the Turlock Irrigation System. The release is strategic, he said, as campus engineers strive to keep enough room on campus to accommodate the precipitation expected to fall on the region in coming weeks.
The successful capture and pumping of rainwater goes hand-in-hand with the University’s mission of reducing water use campus wide — an effort bolstered last fall by the installation of a new water tower filtration system. The new system allowed the campus cooling system to utilize lake water instead of pulling water from the city supply and resulted in an immediate 22.3 percent reduction in campus use of potable water.