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Students Flush With Success

Tribune photo by JAY NOLAN

Seventh-graders surround a cistern as they talk with younger students at Learning Gate Community School in Tampa. The device is new to the school and it's designed to save water usage when kids flush the toilets.

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By COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR

cpastor@tampatrib.com

Published: March 17, 2009

LUTZ - Learning Gate Community School composts and recycles its trash, grows vegetables organically and waters shrubs with rainwater collected in barrels.

So when it came to bathroom usage, the charter school didn't want its environmental efforts to, well, go down the toilet.

The school added another twist to its eco-friendly approach this year by hooking up a cistern to low-flow toilets.

Learning Gate, which serves kindergarten through eighth grade, opened its "green building" in August. The three modular units serve fourth, fifth and seventh grades and have energy-saving features, such as biodegradable soy foam insulation and classroom lights that adjust automatically.

The cistern system filters and purifies rainwater and dew, stores it in a giant pouch under one of the buildings and pumps it back into four toilets. The toilets flush with 1.28 gallons, compared to about 2.5 gallons for a traditional toilet.

The cistern cost about $38,000 and was included in the cost of building the new classrooms.

It has allowed those classrooms to reduce their water usage by about 20 percent, said teacher Adam Wolford. His seventh-grade class has been explaining the system to younger students this month and answering questions about water conservation.

The seventh-graders held signs pleading, "Don't Let Your Future Run Down the Drain," and described how the cistern worked.

Alex Levinar, 12, kicked off one presentation by telling first- and third-graders how rain and condensation drips down gutters, passes through a filter that keeps out leaves and twigs and flows through a chlorinator and a series of pipes.

A neoprene bladder, with a bouncy feel like a water bed, can store about 7,000 gallons of water, which gets pumped out as needed through more filters and a pressurizer and another series of pipes into the toilets.

"I think it's a really good way to save water," Alex said. "I think it's a really valuable thing."

The toilets don't require as much water as older models to flush. A storage tank with well water serves as a backup, but Learning Gate hopes to get half its water from the well. The toilets have been using 180 gallons of cistern water a day.

Learning Gate is the first Hillsborough County public school to use a cistern for its toilets, a source of pride for many of the students. Anthony Bolduc, 13, said he tells his friends at other schools about it. None of them has a similar system.

"I think it's groundbreaking," Anthony said.

The students are thinking about other ways to get greener. Children suggested turning off faucets while they brush their teeth at home, or collecting water from the shower as it warms up for other uses.

Cody Cummings, 13, said he and Anthony would like to invent an irrigation system that hooks up to rain barrels. A cistern such as Learning Gate's might be out of reach for the average homeowner, but Cody said a rain barrel is a smaller cistern and a less expensive way for people to reuse rainwater.

The school also plans to expand its cistern to more toilets and eventually venture into solar energy. Posts surround walkways to the green buildings that could hold awnings with solar panels.

Learning Gate is applying for a platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. The U.S. Green Buildings Council awards the designations.

Reporter Courtney Cairns Pastor can be reached at (813) 865-1503.

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