Sustainable Peralta

The Laney College Garden will be one of the many sites served by EBMUD's recycled water.

LANEY COLLEGE – The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) will soon provide the entire Laney College campus and the Peralta District Offices sites with recycled water for use in all irrigation. Sergio Angel, Head Groundskeeper for the Peralta, expects EBMUD engineers to begin inspections this week to make sure no irrigation water will find its way into drinking water.

When completed, the retrofit will save Laney College approximately $6000, since recycled water is 25% less expensive than fresh water. The College currently uses 3.7 Million gallons of fresh water for irrigation each year.

“I thought it was crazy [to use recycled sewage water]. I heard that the water smelled, so I didn’t want it,” remembers Sergio. “Then [in 2006] we went for a tour [at their test sites] and the grasses and flowers EBMUD’s test plots looks good. They looked healthy, so we decided to try it.”
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The long, rectangular lights (containing high-efficiency fluorescent lamps) will replace the circular lights (containing high-intensity discharge lamps).

In December 2008, Peralta completed a massive lighting upgrade through Enlight Energy Efficient Lighting of Pleasanton: retrofitting 9,000 lighting fixtures at Laney College and Merritt College to save an estimated $90,000 on nearly 800,000 kWh of electricity every year.

The project reduces Peralta’s carbon footprint by nearly 1 million lbs. of CO2 every year. This is the equivalent to approximately 73 average North American homes or 50 average North American sedans (source: BEF carbon calculator). Peralta will receive $133,000 in rebates from PG&E for this project, which will help pay 30% of the $431,000 price tag. Then, after 4 years, the District will have full recovered the cost of the project through savings on the utility bill.

“The savings realized through sustainability projects is a win-win for the environment and for academics,” says Dr. Sadiq B. Ikharo, Vice Chancellor of General Services for the Peralta Community College District. “This is just the beginning of Peralta’s Energy Master Planning and Implementation process that will reduce energy use and make more funds available to the classroom in a time of budget cuts.” … continue reading »

Assistant Warehouse Supervisor Ken Hall receives another shipment of 100% PCW paper.

Peralta took another major step towards sustainable operations this past year when the District Purchasing Department began to buy 100% Post-Consumer Waste (PCW) content recycled paper for the majority of Peralta’s copying and printing. Give Something Back business producsts delivered our first order of paper in March of 2007, and college’s began to receive the paper as early as April, as they finished using their old paper and the Warehouse supplied them with the new eco-friendly paper. … continue reading »