St. Olaf Monthly Water Usage Data: June 2018 – Present (June 2023)
Visualization generated by Flourish Data Visualization Platform.
Total Supplied is the total volume of water that the college purchased for use each month. Wastewater is the volume of total water consumed that goes down the drain each month. BoilerRO-Irrig is the difference between the two. This is all of the water that doesn’t go down the drain, and includes both irrigation for our green spaces and the various water needs for our steam boilers.
Water Conservation
Reducing Our Water Consumption
- Low consumption toilets are installed in recently constructed buildings, including Regents Hall of Sciences and New Hall. They use 1.6 gallons per flush, which is the current EPA standard and much lower than previous models.
- All showers are installed with low-consumption showerheads, using 2.0-2.2 gallons of water per minute.
- The laundry machines in every dorm are high-efficiency and were designed with sustainability in mind. Students can choose to wash their clothing on an “Eco” setting, which uses less water than the other options.
- The student-run Take Back the Tap initiative established in 2013 by the student organization Environmental Coalition worked to reduce the use of plastic water bottles, and some of those changes are still in place today.
- Water bottle refilling stations have been installed in most buildings in high traffic areas to discourage the use of plastic water bottles.
- In past years, the Environmental Coalition has carried out a water and electricity reduction competition between dorms during Earth Week. This initiative not only motivates students to decrease unnecessary water use, but it also encourages them to be more conscious of the resources they utilize every day.