When I arrived to Northern Arizona University in 2013, the campus had a comfortable feel to it. I remember talking with upperclassmen who were shocked by the number of freshmen that came during my freshman year. Apparently we were the record breaker for largest freshmen class in NAU history. Well, the records have continued breaking each year since I began, and I don’t see an end in sight. Those who came before me knew NAU as the smaller of Arizona’s three universities and enjoyed escaping the crowds at Arizona State University or University of Arizona by attending school in Flagstaff. With each year, I feel the campus growing and becoming more crowded. The campus energy is no longer the same.
An article was featured in The Lumberjack, Northern Arizona's student newspaper, from 2010 discussed increasing concerns for a growing university population. “The Arizona Board of Regents 2020 Vision set a goal for Northern Arizona University enrollment to increase to 35,000 total students statewide, In 2010 the Board updated enrollment projections to 25,000 students on the Flagstaff campus by 2020 or soon after.” With less than five years ahead of us, before 2020, we are almost at the 25,000 students goal. As of 2015 school year, there are approximately 20,896 students on the Flagstaff mountain campus. I don’t believe the Board of Regents takes into consideration the possible negative impacts that mandated growth will have, and is currently having in a city like Flagstaff, a city not meant to be a metropolis like Phoenix or an oasis like Tucson.
This growth is noticeable, in the classroom with sizes increasing, in the housing situation on and off campus, and in the overall ebb and flow of the town. These are just a few of the effects the growth is having here. Flagstaff is a college town, which means the growth of the school directly affects the growth of the community, they are interconnected like a river's levels and the sub-flow beneath. Sometimes this growth can be beneficial, for example, the economy benefits from increases in population, but for a community that is currently not meant to hold its projected capacity, resource availability becomes a growing issue of discontent. Concerned citizens are beginning to feel as if resources, such as water, are being threatened by the influx of college students. The part-time residency held by students in Flagstaff, a city with an already threatened water supply, decrease the longevity of the cities supply, as does any continued and exponential growth of the area.
The southwest is feeling thirstier than ever, being in a drought for the past 15 years, leaves even the cooler climates of Northern Arizona searching for water to quench their needs. Now take a moment and imagine Flagstaff as a glass of water. The glass is getting larger, meanwhile, the water content inside the glass is remaining the same. With no sign of water aquifer recharge in the near future, the city must work to find ways to meet not only the demands of the long-term and committed residents but also the increasing student population which is integral to the functionality of this city.
Northern Arizona University uses 558 Acre Feet, which is 17 percent of the non-residential use of potable water here in Flagstaff. Additionally, when it comes to reclaimed water which is being used in landscaping and in some plumbing systems on the campus, they consume 129 acres. In order to put this into perspective, based on a 2014 Water Consumption report from the city's utilities division, NAU uses 8 percent of the potable water here in Flagstaff. This may not seem like much, but the residential portions are a majority of the pie, and NAU students who live off campus are contributing to that use as well. If you break this down even further, according to Erin Young the city’s water manager, with “approximately 25,000 students, they are using 20 gallons of water per day per student, and the average residential per capita per day is 53 gallons, but that number is not broken down by individuals in the household.”
When students who attend the university arrive in Flagstaff from all over the country, many of them are not familiar with drought or water scarcity -- two terms the southwest is all too familiar with.
Ward Davis a member of Flagstaff Water Group, agrees, “We do see a problem with educating the students about water use, many of them are coming from areas where no one worries about water.”
Even those who are from the southwest, may not realize the intensity of our current water situation, or how their lifestyle choices will impact the future of the water. The university has several programs instituted to try and educate the students about water conservation, the first step in maintaining longevity for our supply, which has thankfully shown to be effective. Even the program coordinator for NAU’s office of sustainability, Nick Koressel, feels that more can be done when it comes to conservation. As sentiment shared by Young and Davis as well.
In an interview, Koressel mentioned, “Not only does the school have more to do on its part, i.e. fixing the landscape water systems to become more efficient, and continuing to improve the plumbing on campus, but the students have more work to do as well.”
For most young adults entering college is a pivotal time in shaping the habits they make regarding water use. Beginning to live on their own places responsibility on their shoulders, and the power for them to make the right choices or develop bad habits which will stick with them the rest of their lives. It is the responsibility of the school to make sure students are learning to be water stewards because it is a shared responsibility not only in Flagstaff but wherever students may move after completing their degrees.
“There are several programs that already exist at NAU,” said Koressel. He added that redirecting the focus may be needed in the future to help educate those who live off campus as well.
Erin Young and the water department of the city, work really hard to educate residents about water conservation, in order to help keep the supply at a moderate level in relation to the demand. Collaboration between the university has slowly begun to increase and the continuation of this will be beneficial in the future.
“More open communication will help the city to include the school's growth in city planning as well,” said Young. This is an integral part of preparing for water demand.
Increased education about conservation will help lower the school's usage rates, but also benefit the students as they transition to living off campus, something that is becoming more necessary as there is minimal space on campus to house the 20,000-plus students. The issue of apartment-style housing not billing students for water, and even on campus residents not being able to connect their use with the cost of water, negatively influences the way they conceptualize water issues in the area. Young and Davis both feel that working better with students in the community about ways to conserve and stay informed will help the overall communities work towards reaching conservation goals. Yet, we must remember conservation is not the only answer.
An official stance on whether the student population growth will negatively affect the city’s supply has not been taken by any parties, but one thing if for certain, Flagstaff is growing, and preparation for this is a must. This remains true with or without NAU’s help and augmenting the current supply is part of what the city is already working towards. According to Young, the city has been exploring alternative water supplies, to have ready when the current supplies become too low to meet the demands. These supplies will cost a lot of money, money which currently is not available. The way that NAU plays into this is if growth explodes faster than the city is preparing for, which would put a heavier demand on the supply that may have been expected to last longer.
As I mentioned in the beginning, NAU is growing exponentially. The rate at which it has been growing does not seem like it will be causing huge problems with the water supply, but that is if it stays stable. When it comes to the city growing and the school growing we don’t know when it will stop, but we can assume that based on the way things have been going, it’s not going to. The changes to the town that come with this create concern for students and residents, and the city and campus will have to adapt to those changes and the growth occur. Preparation is key, and it seems the school and the city are on the right track though growth may not be for the best considering the history and culture of NAU and Flagstaff, that may be lost in the process.
