CSC leads in water capture planning
The two major construction sites on the east side of the Chadron State College campus provide an opportunity for progressive water conservation planning by CSC Coordinator of Physical Facilities, Blair Brennan and Campus Horticulturist, Lucinda Mays.
The large open space combined with the slope of the land create an ideal place for dry retention areas, called swales, to capture and utilize snowmelt and rain runoff for new plantings around the Rangeland Complex and the Eagle Ridge housing units.
“I'm so tickled with how the water capture and delivery is being handled,” Mays said of the Bahr Vermeer Haecker plans of the area. She has arranged windbreaks and other smaller plantings so that they will benefit from the water that would normally run off into storm sewers.
A new parking lot to the east of Burkhiser will feature an island with trees. A large swale north of the parking lot on the architectural drawing above provides a planned location for depositing snow removed from the parking lot. As the snow melts or the rain runs off, the moisture will nourish nearby plants with any excess continuing to flow northward through culverts in the bottoms of the swales.
All runoff will be absorbed by the engineered landscape from the city water tank on the top of the hill above the Rangeland Complex to 10th street as a result of the proactive collaboration by CSC and BVH.
Three of the Eagle Ridge housing units on the drawing, financed through bonds, will be ready for occupancy by the fall of 2014, according to Dale Grant, vice president of administration and finance. The other four units will be finished one at a time in the future as demand and funds allow.
Category: Campus News, Housing & Residence Life