Guess Who’s Back…Back Again

By Manali McCarthy 

It is Spring Quarter here at the sunny University of California. Flowers are blooming. Temperature is rising. Water is being utilized at an alarming rate…Good thing the Resilience Team could not be more ready to get our rainwater capture system approved and funded. TGIF — thank goodness it’s funded! We are on track to submit our application to TGIF, with the continual help and support from the amazing Tom Lukas. He has let us know that the project budget has been completely drafted, which is the main new component of this year’s TGIF application. We need to show the committee that the budget has been thoroughly examined and worked through, to ensure minimal kinks or setbacks. Tom has dowloaded product data and shop drawings from the company who is assisting us with the cisterns, RainHarvest Systems. These drawings and data reasonably depict the tank, filter, pump, and instrumentation set up. These items and tasks have also been included in the line item budget. (It sounds pretty official, right? We know.) The pricing of each component of the cistern system and its makeup is coming in hot as Tom works with project managers in his Facilities Management office. Dew you think this project would succeed without him? We don’t! We will be able to examine the budget in person in our meeting with Tom along with Nurit Katz next week. Next stop: finalize the TGIF application and prepare for lift off!

In other news, Earth Day is coming up next week which means it is time for the annual Earth Day Extravaganza. The Resilience Team has reached out to Jeff Fuller of RainHarvest Systems, who has graciously volunteered to send us actual models of water tanks (pictured)! Coming all the way from the land of the sweet peach (Georgia), these models will allow us to provide helpful visuals when explaining and educating the UCLA community about our project. We are stoked to be able to share what we have been working on and to help contribute to a sustainable future.