Kait Christensen | News Co-Editor
Last fall, Buena Vista University (BVU) installed two water bottle filling stations: one in the Siebens Fieldhouse and one in the Social Sciences and Arts building. These stations have quickly become a hit on campus as they are filtered, clean, and easy to use.
Keith Schmidt, Director of Facilities Management, discussed the steps that were taken in installing these devices and some of the obstacles that had to be overcome in order to make this project a success.
“Right now we have two of them. The problem is they only match up with a certain type of drinking fountain,” Schmidt said. “Initially, we were going to put one in the Siebens Fieldhouse and one in the Forum because we had two of them, kind of as an experiment to see if they would work or not.”
Quickly Schmidt and staff learned that the Forum would not be an option when running through the new filling station experiment.
“We found out it wouldn’t work in the forum because they have the brass, really nice but old drinking fountains. To be able to use that, we would have to replace one of the drinking fountains, which we can’t do just one of them, we would have to do all six of them, and they’re very expensive. They put the second one in Social Sciences and Arts building because it had a fountain that matched up with it,” Schmidt said.
The initial idea for the stations came from within the BVU facilities staff. One had been seen at another college, so the facilities team presented the idea to the administration who approved it.
“They agreed and thought it was a good deal, and it has been,” Schmidt said.
The expense of the drinking fountain installations depend directly on whether you purchase the attachment of the filling stations or purchase the attachment and fountain as one. Schmidt explained that each attachment unit was around $500 per unit. He went on to explain that the whole unit, which is the attachment and fountain, was up to $800. Funds were provided by operational funds in the university.
“They had a promotion on these, where we bought the one with the drinking fountain, and if you bought one, they gave you another one,” Schmidt said about the devices BVU purchased.
Jill Rhea, associate professor of communication studies and chair of the campus sustainability task force, noted some of the great things about these new devices that have been installed.
“They have electronic sensors on the water bottle filling stations, so that gets rid of a lot of the spread of germs. You’re not touching things to make the water come out.”
Another beneficial aspect of these filling stations is they literally display how environmentally helpful they are.
“The ticker tells how many water bottles have been saved from the landfills, which is really nice,” Rhea said. “They are ADA compliant, the American Disabilities Act, so that people in a wheelchair can use them efficiently.”
Campus organizers are hoping for new plans that would allow them to put filling stations in other places around campus.
“Ideally, we’ve identified a couple other places,” Schmidt said. “The Forum would be a great place, and we’d love to get some in the residence halls and Science Center. It would be cost saving for them (water users), and environmentally [it] would be a real good thing, too.”
Sophomore Cameron Beatty often uses the new filling stations in the Siebens Fieldhouse for baseball practice, workouts, and throughout the day.
“I enjoy the new filtered water fountain because they provide the ability to fill up my water bottle without using my meal plan to get clean water. Storm Lake water has toxins that I don’t want to put in my body, so I like the filtered water,” Beatty said.
The filling stations are in place on many other college campuses as well.
“It’s something that if you go to other campuses, it’s caught on, and you see people using them all the time,” Schmidt said.
Photo by Tyson Domingo
