April 24, 2012
The Hays Consolidated Independent School District was selected as one of the winners of the Texas Water Development Board Rain Catcher Award for 2011. IWS designed and installed the rainwater harvesting system for this project.
The Hays Consolidated Independent School District serves nearly 15,000 students and includes 20 campuses located throughout the Kyle and Buda communities. The school district has been a leader in water conservation and took the initiative to install rainwater harvesting systems at two of their new campuses (Carpenter Hill and Ralph Pfluger elementary schools) that opened in 2010. The system at each campus consists of two 53,000-gallon metal tanks (total of 106,000-gallons of capacity) that collect rainwater flowing off about 44,000 square feet of roof area. Condensate (approximately 2,900 gallons per 12 hours when the system is running at peak capacity) from the rooftop HVAC systems is also collected in the tanks. The harvested rainwater and condensate water are pumped to the gardens at the school and used to irrigate the grass and native vegetation. Excess rainwater is channeled to an onsite detention pond and allowed to infiltrate into the subsurface.
On the educational side, the systems are being used to teach math, science, and ecology to kids in the schools. For the future, three existing schools in the district are planning to build their own systems with funding that they have received from the Hill Country Alliance.
About the Rain Catcher Awards
The Texas Water Development Board’s Texas Rain Catcher Award is a rainwater harvesting competition and recognition program established October 1, 2007, to promote technology, educate the public, and to recognize excellence in the application of rainwater harvesting systems in Texas.
