BOTHELL — Some students were beginning to wonder if the toilets at Cascadia Community College were possessed.
Sanitary seat covers would be whisked away before one could use them. Slight movements would spark premature flushes. And the blame couldn’t be pinned solely on a full moon. A black sweater would be enough to set the toilet whooshing.
“Even if there’s no one in the stall, they’ll go off – just walking past,” said student Kristen Bell, 17. “It’s just unnecessary.”
Cascadia administrators agreed and turned off the automatic sensors, urging students and staff to instead push a button to flush toilets.
A year later, the “Push to Flush” campaign has saved more than the frazzled nerves of many posteriors.
Over an eight-month period starting in May 2004, the college saved 177,276 gallons of water compared with the same period in 2003, according to water bills.
At 1.6 gallons per flush, that’s 110,797 fewer bowls of water down the drain, enough to run the Cascadia campus for two-and-a-half months, or seven households for a year.
Talk about liquid gold.
Toilet humor aside, those savings are flush with extra value at a time of drought worries.
“We are very proud to be part of conserving precious water supplies in our region,” interim president Brinton Sprague said in a news release.
In an e-mail survey of students, just two of 100 responses were opposed to the switch.
Student Darren Larpenteur, 18, said he is privy to the advantages of the automatic sensors. “You don’t get germs on your hand.”
But he and his friends, Dan Gordon and Max Hubbard, both 19, say they don’t mind taking a plunge by the manual method.
“It’s really nice to push the button instead of a nasty bar. There’s less germs,” Gordon said.
“Yeah,” Hubbard agreed. “You can just use your knuckle.”
Signs in bathrooms announce the good news about water savings, something students have picked up on as well.
“I think it’s a real wise thing to do in terms of stewardship,” said student Loraine Spargo, 52. “The automatic way is obviously easier and much more sanitary. But on the other hand, we’ve saved so much water …
“You wash your hands after you’re done anyway,” she added. “Hopefully.”
Cascadia shares a campus with the University of Washington’s Bothell campus. About 2,000 people are on campus any given weekday.
The switch affected the majority of the campus’ 155 toilets. Handicapped-accessible stalls and a few other toilets are the only ones that kept the sensors.
Also, custodians have been saved some hassle. “As soon as we’d adjust (a toilet sensor) for one person, another person would go in, and it wouldn’t be adjusted for them,” facilities director Tony Guerrero said.
Even so, the clean-up crew initially worried about the switch.
One of the advantages of automatically flushing toilets is a reduction in shoe abuse – as people sometimes will kick a flusher instead of using their hand.
Facilities staff even bought extra buttons in preparation.
“But the damage did not happen. The response was very, very positive,” Guerrero said.
Melissa Slager is a writer for The Herald in Everett.
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