As the University of Wyoming continues to cut costs where it can and increase sustainability, UW’s Operations division is doing its part to utilize water from natural sources to keep the campus well-maintained and inviting.
“If you’ve seen a bunch of pipes going around campus right now, we’re trying to expand the network,” Executive Director John Davis said. “That’s our current effort.”
Housed in small, unassuming buildings at several points on campus, UW’s private well pumps draw water straight from gradually replenished underground aquifers in order to irrigate nearly 100 acres (about 77 football fields) of surface-ground on campus, allowing Operations to keep UW looking nice and green, even in the Wyoming desert. The cost is well worth it, says Davis.
“The campus would look pretty rough,” Davis said. “You go down to the University of Arizona and there’s green places there too. It’s what you do when you have a college environment, and it’s traditional. It’s been a beautiful campus for many, many years.”
Several plazas situated around the main walkways still show off Wyoming’s more rugged natural environment at a lower water cost, and other plantings demonstrate even more ways that Operations is involved on campus.
“We try to keep Prexy’s the nicest, as best we can,” Davis said. “The flowers are all started in a greenhouse from cuttings from the previous year — some of our flowers are 60 years old.”
Students stretched out on the campus’ grassy areas are a common sight in warmer weather. Operations Deputy Director Forrest Selmer said the specific variety of grass that makes such lounging about feasible is a costly but popular and resilient grass that can weather droughts without needing replaced.
“Everyone loves bluegrass, which is a very thirsty grass, but it’s a hardy grass,” Selmer said. “And you can do stuff like have events on Prexy’s Pasture.”
UW’s well system allows it to meet the campus grounds’ water demands, made in large enough quantities to be charged for by increments of a thousand gallons, for a much lower cost than it would otherwise pay to use city water for irrigation purposes. With private wells Operations can instead achieve the same purpose at the much more manageable cost of routine maintenance and pump replacements about once in a decade.
The oldest well, installed in the ‘50s, has provided more than a billion gallons to the campus. Other additions to UW’s well system further reduce the need to pay for and use up water sourced elsewhere — and they quickly pay for themselves in the process.
“It’s a no-brainer on using it,” Selmer said.
Selmer estimated that the well system for irrigation saves the campus around $600,000 per year. That water, however, is non-potable, and water for domestic purposes such as drinking and hygiene must still be pumped in from the city due to its need for treatment. That water comes from the Casper Aquifer, which provides 60 percent of Laramie’s water supply — sometimes all of it, during drier years.
“Casper water is a deep well, but it’s pretty clear. The only thing they need to do to treat it is put a little chlorination in it,” Selmer said.
One UW well in the basement of the Biological Sciences building taps into the Casper Aquifer to provide clearer but still untreated water for research purposes.
While some water is purchased from the city for irrigation, most still comes from UW’s own wells at a current split of about 60-40. Not every new addition to the system has been successful, due to some trial and error involved in establishing a new source, but the campus has come a long way from the old times of simple mass-flooding irrigation techniques.
