Apr. 22, 2016
California accumulated a water debt of 20 inches of precipitation between 2012 and 2015 – this is roughly the average annual amount expected within the state according to a recent NASA study. The extended lack of rain and snow led California Governor Edmund G. Brown to issue an Executive Order last year mandating 25 percent water use reductions for California’s cities and towns. Even before these measures were taken by state leadership, NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley was looking toward a more eco-conscious and sustainable future.
Steve Zornetzer, associate center director at Ames, was inspired to apply space-based technologies, such as the International Space Station’s water reclamation processes, to Sustainability Base here on Earth.
Dedicated in 2012, Ames’ Sustainability Base is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certified building, considered among the "greenest" buildings in the federal government. One of Sustainability Base’s foundational goals is to provide a living test bed for proof-of-concept demonstrations in sustainability research and technology development.
The 50,000 square-foot, crescent-shaped building houses NASA water reclamation technology, which could support very high water reuse efficiency - 90 percent better than comparable conventional buildings. The building may serve as a model for replacing or retrofitting conventional, inefficient buildings and lead the way for future construction, within government and outside of it. Ames contributions were recognized in 2013 by the California Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award.
According to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, “The most common indoor [water] use is toilet/urinal flushing, which can represent up to 75 percent of the total water demand in a commercial building (assuming no cooling demand).” This makes restrooms ideal targets for reducing water use. At Sustainability Base, low-flow toilet fixtures are installed, using only 0.8 gallon per flush.
Michael Flynn, advanced life support researcher at Ames, develops water reclamation technology for space applications, and his technology has been utilized with Sustainability Base. The facility’s dual-piped plumbing is designed to collect “gray water” from sinks and showers. This gray water could then be recycled through a combination of forward and reverse osmosis and returned to the facility to operate low flow toilets.
Water recycling technology for non-potable onsite water systems is an acceptable use of reclaimed water for users. “No one likes the idea of drinking their own urine, even in most cases when recycled water is just as clean, if not cleaner, than faucet water,” said Flynn.
To avoid the perceived “yuck” factor of humans consuming recycled water, there are many other uses for recycled water, such as cooling towers for computers, irrigation and flushing of toilets. Using recycled water for these purposes can help meet California’s mandated 25 percent potable water use conservation goal.
The Ames campus is striving to meet the President’s Executive Order (EO) for federal facilities. In comparison to California’s water use reduction goals, “EO 13423 goals are measured as water intensity; in other words, gallons per square foot of building space,” said John Scarboro, senior environmental management specialist at Ames. The Presidential Executive Order’s target is a reduction in water consumption intensity of 16 percent from 2007’s usage by this year. A new executive order, EO 13693, maintains the requirement for federal facilities to reduce water use intensity by 2 percent annually through 2025.
In February 2009, when Moffett Field’s 40 acre golf course was managed by NASA, Ames partnered with the bordering City of Sunnyvale to convert the irrigation system to the city’s reclaimed water, saving 35-42 million gallons of potable water annually. NASA’s neighbors, the City of Sunnyvale and the City of Palo Alto, have viable reclaimed water sources that offer potential for further potable water savings for Ames. Expanding reclaimed water irrigation throughout the center would require expansion of the neighboring city’s reclaimed water mains onto Ames’ property. Planning, funding, commitment and cooperation with local government entities are key to sustaining efforts to achieve long-term water savings.
Underlying Moffett Field is a contaminated groundwater plume, the legacy of many years of military presence, industrial activities and most recently the silicon chip manufacturing activities of the 1980s. For the past 25 years, Ames, the U.S. Navy and the Moffettfield-Ellis-Whisman (MEW) companies have been working with the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up contaminated groundwater. A vast network of wells and piping have been installed to pump and treat the water, then discharge clean groundwater.
In June 2009, NASA’s Strategic Institutional Investment Fund (SII) approved $2.5 million for Ames to revitalize and convert an on-site building to a reverse osmosis facility. This enabled the center to tap into the existing clean groundwater discharge as an alternate source of water. “Construction for the SII project was completed in December 2012 and currently, the building provides the Arc Jet Complex, a unique NASA aerospace testing national asset at Ames, all its industrial water needs, saving over 20 million gallons of potable water annually,” said Kenneth Kono, arc jet project manager. Ames’ unique Arc Jet Complex simulates heating and pressure conditions similar to those experienced by spacecraft during atmospheric re-entry, testing the heat shields used to get vehicles safely back to Earth and to Mars.
Once Flynn’s water technology is fully functioning at Sustainability Base, it will use 90 percent less potable water than a comparably sized office building. However, the majority of savings will be achieved with the use of remediated water for the landscaping, not through the gray water reclamation system.
In the future Ames will seek to expand its use of recycled water, while continuing to reduce landscape water needs, increase storage capacity for industrially reusable water and monitor water use in order to enable the best future for use of California’s water.
Image: Ames Potable Water System Use (includes all water delivered to tenants).