Through a dim hallway, past a huge chamber filled with chugging generators and wheezing boilers, the jewel in Dominican Universitys green crown sits quietly in a dank antechamber dappled with sunlight. Its an ancient concrete water cistern, and for more than 90 years it has studiously collected rainwater runoff from nearby buildings. Overlooked and forgotten for decades in the basement of one of the oldest buildings on campus, the old reservoir is now the centerpiece of the River Forest-based universitys green initiative.
 
The story of how the ancient cistern was put back into use at Dominican is a combination of fortuitous discovery and sensible sustainability.

We knew [the cistern] was there, we knew it collected rainwater off all these buildings here, but it had been dormant for years, said Dan Bulow, director of building and grounds for the university.

Exactly where the cistern came from is a bit of an enigma. The reservoir, which Bulow estimated to hold about 60,000 gallons of water, is located beneath the universitys East Science buildingbut it doesnt appear on any archival blueprints of the original university.

For many years, Dominican staff wasnt entirely sure what to do with the rainwater collected by the cistern. Most of the time, they pumped it out into River Forests sewer system to avoid flooding East Sciences basement. But in 2004 when Dominican set out to construct Parmer Hall, its new, high-tech science facility, the universitys staff decided to add a well so the universitys daily irrigation needssome 30,000 gallons of watercould be quenched using groundwater instead of River Forests potable drinking water, as had been the case for many years.

We were watering the whole campus and especially the soccer field, said Bulow. It was millions of gallons of water. We thought, lets get a well in here so we can use groundwater to do this.

The new well made good sense in conjunction with Parmer Hall, which architecture firm Holabird & Root according to green building principles. The building is situated to maximize its use of natural light, and it contains recycled material from the universitys previous science building. Inside, overhead lighting is controlled by motion sensors, which switches off lights if the room is vacant.

Even better, Bulow realized the university could use the old cistern to provide extra water for the well setup. The whole team was excited to find a use for the long-abandoned basin, and they assembled a group to clean out the ancient concrete grotto.

Thats when they discovered just how big Dominican Universitys cistern truly was.

They discovered all this debris that had fallen down there over the years, Bulow said. The three-day cleaning project turned into a two-week effort, and the team was shocked at the size of the mystery cistern.

Today, the immense reservoir provides all of Dominican Universitys sprinkling needs. Its recharged frequently by rain runoff from nearby buildings. The engineering team recently hooked the cistern into Parmer Halls mechanical system, allowing the basin to provide water for some of the science buildings water-hogging processessuch as the cooling tower, which can use as much as 900 gallons of water an hour.

Working together, the new well and the old cistern save about 4 million to 6 million gallons of water per year, greatly reducing River Forests overall water usage, according to the university.

This fall, the final part of the water-recycling network will be put into place: a valve that will capture water pumped out of the basement of Dominicans newest dormitory, Centennial Hall, which was built atop an underground river that feeds into the Des Plaines River. The water, which had been discharged into the sewer system at a rate of about 30 gallons per minute, will now go to help re-charge the cistern.

Its just a matter of sitting down and talking with the contractor, said Bulow. That will probably [provide] enough water to where we wont have to use the well.

None of this matters to the cistern itself, of course, which burbles quietly as water flows steadily into its thick concrete basin. Its carrying out its decades-old mission. The only difference is that Dominican University, imbued with a renewed sense of sustainability in the 21st century, has fallen back in step with this ancientbut still quite functionalrelic of a bygone era.

By Patrick W. Rollens | Tribocal.com reporter

Photos by Kristin Peterson, Dominican University