Fountains full again, finally

By Hal Tift

Campus fountains are flowing again with the help of some ingenuity on the part of Physical Plant staff at the University of Georgia. They are no longer flowing with municipal, potable water but with water from the university’s own stash.

For more than a year the two largest fountains at the university were kept dry because of the severe drought in Athens. The larger of the two fountains is located on Herty Field, and the other is next to Old College.

Athens-Clarke County has had restrictions in place since rain fall was drastically below normal levels early in 2008. The campus fountains were among water fixtures that were forced to be turned off.

This spring the rain is falling again at more normal levels, but that’s not why the fountains are shimmering again.

The restrictions have been slackened but not removed, said Thomas Satterly, assistant vice president for physical plant. There are some water fixtures, specifically ones with fish or plants in them, that were never subject to the restrictions, Satterly said. But the two largest fountains do not meet those requirements.

To get the fountains running again, the Physical Plant staff got innovative.

They formulated methods of collecting condensate that could be used according to water restrictions. Among the methods are collecting condensation from air conditioning units, with cisterns that catch rain water from roofs, and wells owned by the university.

The fountains could have been running in this fashion throughout the drought, but the plans were extensive and time consuming.

“We had to go through the plumbing and design to determine if it was feasible, Satterly said. “That took about a year.”

Now the fountains are running, and there is no reason to believe that they will ever depend on the municipal water system again.

“It’s self-sustaining,” Satterly said. “There’s more than enough condensate.”
The fountains being full and running again changes the atmosphere for some in the university community. People often lounge on the lawn of Herty Field in the pleasant company of the fountain.

“It’s a lot nicer out here when the water’s running,” said senior Ukiah Busch from Ellijay, Ga.
Busch is a fifth year triple major in French, Italian, and Spanish. He spends a lot of his time in the nearby Romance languages building, so he says that Herty field is a common lounging spot for him. “The background noise is nice if nothing else.”






Ukiah Busch, fifth-year senior from Ellijay, Ga., lounges on Herty Field after the fountains quit running early Wednesday. (Photo by Hal Tift)









In a continuing story, the two fountains on the University of Georgia campus which have been running for nearly three weeks after a year of dormancy have stopped flowing yet again.
The smaller fountain near Old College is totally dry after running perfectly as recently as 10:30 a.m.

“It wasn’t running right, so we had to pump out the water so I could work on it,” said university grounds worker Joe Marshall. Marshall oversees all the fountains on campus.

The larger fountain at Herty Field was full of water but no longer spouting today. Marshall said that the wind was blowing too much water out of the fountain. The limited amount of recycled water wasn’t enough to sustain the fountain’s flow.



-Edited by Suha Zakiuddin