We hope you are enjoying the Summer months with family and friends.
Continuing the trend of our past few newsletters, we feature in this edition two great projects occurring here in Laie. Both are taking place on the campus of Brigham Young University - Hawaii.
Retention Improvements at BYU-Hawaii Campus
Two berms will soon be installed on BYU-Hawaii campus, resulting in a significant increase of flood water retention at the university. The drainage retention work will take six weeks to complete and will ultimately benefit the Laie community at large.
Retention improvement work will take place on the campus front fields, where plans call for an 18" dirt and rock berm. When finished, the area will retain 9.9 acre feet of water (AFW) -- more than doubling its current capacity of 4.2 AFW.
The other improvement area is behind the university dorms (see graphic below) where the installation of a 3-foot berm will retain another 1.75 AFW. Berm installation at this location is a joint project between BYU-Hawaii and Hawaii Reserves, Inc.
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| Click here for link to drainage retention graphic |
In total, the improvements will increase campus retention capacity from 4.2 AFW to 11.65 AFW -- an improvement of nearly 200 percent.
"When our community is flooded, we are all impacted," said David Lewis, vice president of facilities and sustainability at BYU-Hawaii. "A 100-year flood event generates about 95 acre feet of water (AFW). We're pleased that these improvements will allow the university to retain about 12.2% of that water on campus, resulting in a drainage benefit to the community."
The improvement work is scheduled to begin this week and will be completed by the end of August.
BYU-Hawaii Sustainability Efforts Reduce Costs
The sustainability of our community -- including BYU-Hawaii -- is a critical issue for all of us. Over the past several years, BYU-Hawaii has implemented a number of initiatives to increase its sustainability while decreasing utility costs, allowing the university to reduce its operating costs and serve more students.
In November 2011, the university organized the Sustainable World Action and Technology Team (SWATT). SWATT is a student and faculty group dedicated to helping the university's sustainability effort. "This has been a collaborative effort with students, volunteers, missionaries and the facilities staff," said Randy Sharp, campus director of facilities management.
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| BYU-H has implemented various sustainability initiatives |
Recent SWATT projects include removing and de-lamping 3,000 unnecessary light bulbs, installing programmable thermostats to coordinate air conditioning with class schedules, and replacing many of the exterior and parking lot lights with LED lights. These projects alone have lowered the university's annual electricity kilowatt usage by 950,000 kilowatts a year.
In June 2013, BYU-Hawaii established its own recycling facility with the contribution of a baler, a machine used to compact recyclables, from sister institution BYU-Idaho. By November 2013, the Recycling Center had processed about 42,000 pounds of recyclables, reducing trips to the landfill from six times a week to four.
In addition, both BYU-Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center process a lot of biodegradable garbage, or green waste, from trimmed plants and food. A tub grinder now processes the green waste into mulch that is used in landscaping and gardening projects.
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| Click here for link to sustainability graphic |
David Lewis, vice president of facilities and sustainability noted, "These sustainability efforts are part of BYU-Hawaii's master plan to serve more students while decreasing the overall cost of utilities."
And it is working. In the first phase of construction, completed in 2013, four additional student dormitories, two Temple View Apartment buildings, and the new Heber J. Grant Building were added to campus without increasing utility costs.
Read more about sustainability in the BYU-Hawaii Newsroom.
Mahalo,
