• This case study exemplifies so many elements of how rainwater harvesting can contribute to potable water reduction, stormwater reduction and groundwater recharge.

    This school knows how to capture rainwater effectively so as to reduce standing water damage on sports fields, where to store it for later irrigation needs, how to incorporate permeable pavement, and the many benefits of their actions on overall watershed health. Go Coast Unified School District (CUSD) and Cambria Elementary School.

    Stormwater Management Reduces School’s Reliance on Municipal Water

    By Aaron Reynolds

    The Coast Unified School District (CUSD) sought a solution to irrigate a combined 130,000 square feet of all-season, multipurpose grass fields at its Cambria Elementary School, located in the seaside town of Cambria, CA. Nestled between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the famous Pacific Coast Highway, Cambria faced certain challenges that made conventional delivery systems not feasible: limited water resources, erosion control challenges, and an elevation rise that prevented adequate volume and pressure to transport irrigation water on-site.

    Injection molded, arched chambers can be used individually or in series to provide a highly effective, clog resistant drainage system.

    Due to the stringent water quality and erosion prevention demands of the California Coastal Commission, the CUSD contracted RRM Design Group for architecture and civil engineering services and Earth Systems Pacific for soil engineering to coordinate a resolution. The team chose to implement the Environmental Passive Integrated Chamber (EPIC Chamber™) System, a water management solution from Indianapolis-based Firestone Specialty Products. The system can collect and store water from all available stormwater and hardscape run-off and help reduce municipal irrigation water reliance by more than 50 percent.

    The solution was fully customized for Cambria Elementary and comprised two main components:

    • EPIC Chamber – injection molded, arched chamber that can be used individually or in series to provide a clog resistant drainage system. The system is non-pressurized with no moving parts. It uses the strategic placement of holes to control water flow through and out of the chamber. The transfer of water is a natural function of gravity.
    • EPIC Pan – used as a water barrier for the chamber, the pan allows a certain amount of filtered run-off to infiltrate and recharge the groundwater table.

    The system can provide the school with a source of free irrigation water by harvesting rainfall during its two-month wet season, an important consideration in Cambria where summers are long and dry. The water management plan for this project included six strategically located EPIC profile sections across the 12-acre facility, with a combined turf area of 130,000 square feet. The initial storage volume of the profile sections provided 325,000 gallons of storage at 2.5 gallons per square foot. Located beneath the main athletic field, a secondary storage of horizontally placed reservoirs offered the additional capacity to collect 1.7 million gallons.

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