Joe Fullerton, energy management coordinator, facilities planning, maintenance and operations for San Mateo County Community College District (SMCCCD), gave a presentation on how the district has reduced its usage. The district is made up of three colleges — Cañada College, College of San Mateo and Skyline College — which combined make up 1.7 million square feet of total space, encompass 144 acres of maintained landscape and serve 45,000 students.

In January 2014, Governor Brown called on Californians to voluntarily reduce their water use by 20 percent and said that mandatory restrictions could ensue. SMCCCD’s Chancellor Ron Galatolo responded to the governor’s proclamation by setting a 25 percent water-use reduction goal for the entire district. Fullerton said that the district has currently reduced its water usage by 22.7 percent across all three campuses.

The district started its water reduction plan by dividing its conservation efforts into four categories: landscape and irrigation, industrial process use, domestic and other. Fullerton said that 50 to 60 percent of the water usage at the three campuses is related to irrigation, 25 percent is related to industrial processing (heating and cooling) and the rest is related to bathrooms, lab use and even recreational activities such as a Slip ’N Slide used by an on-campus club.

The SMCCCD’s energy management focused on how to improve its irrigation water usage without completely doing away with campus amenities that attract students such as the green lawns and trees. One thing that helped was installing efficient water nozzles for the sprinkler systems. The nozzles were donated, and the district spent $18,000 on installation. The team also used water-based irrigation controllers.

Other operational improvements included more regularly putting covers on the pools, which take a lot of water to fill and evaporate easily. Custodians at the schools use green cleaning practices, and the bathrooms all have low-efficiency toilets. The team also decided to shut down fountains after hours, especially at night, and instituted metering to track the district’s water usage.

Fullerton added that the SMCCD is also considering geothermal energy. His goal is for a 40 percent reduction in water use in the next 18 months, but he constantly asks facility staff for ways to get to 50 percent — a goal SMCCCD just might meet.

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A wide array of green building topics was covered at the two-day conference. In total, 33 sessions provided insight and strategies to an assortment of green building subjects — especially for those involved in green school projects. The summit provided forward-thinking education programs through various education tracks. Several green school-related sessions covered how schools should make the most out of Proposition 39, which promises to bring more than $2.5 billion to California schools over the next five years for energy-efficiency projects.

On Day 1, Track 4 covered Green Schools (USGBC) with a variety of green session topics. The first was “Healthier Schools by Design: EPD and HPD for the Future,” which discussed a movement led by the USGBC, Living Building Institute and the Healthy Building Network to encourage builders to use healthier interior materials such as walls, floors and furniture in schools. The second session was titled, “Leveraging Prop 39 for Green Schools Forever: Smart Energy Investments.” The session was geared toward providing K-12 district staff with practical resources and strategies to leverage their Prop 39 funding and focused on smart finance and implementation investments of tracked avoided costs. The third session addressed recommendations for how schools can teach students to save water and energy.

On Day 2, Track 4 covered the USGBC, while Track 6 covered Green Schools, offering more green building sessions that relate to the green school sector. The sessions addressed Prop 39 again, as well as educational seminars on green building codes and water conservation, among others.

Prior to the two-day summit, a pre-summit workshop on April 7 included a daylong seminar, “Prop 39: Implementation Update,” which was also dedicated to providing education and resources on Prop 39. The initiative has the potential to enable every local education agency to progress toward more efficient and healthier facilities, and to help schools save money that can be invested in teachers, supplies and other aspects of program delivery, according to summit leaders.

The presentation detailed proposal preparation and submittal, what kinds of projects are most likely to be approved and best practices that will enable project leaders to make the most of their funds, among many other subjects. Speakers at the workshop included Marcia Smith, program director for Prop 39 Implementation at the California Energy Commission; Bob Chase, deputy state architect; Bill McNamara, director of Energy Programs at the California Conservation Corp; Tim Rainey, executive director of the California Workforce Investment Board; Jim Kelsey, founding principal of kW Engineering; and Ariel Dekovic, senior program manager from the Collaborative for High Performance Schools.

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