Fixing up the water: CCNY proposal 

By: Team Updog

Introduction

It is said that you should drink at least two liters of water a day to stay healthy. Water is a basic necessity and should be accessible for everyone. Many problems such as dizziness, fatigue, confusion, and other health hazards can amount due to lack of water.  There are simply not enough water fountains in the NAC building that can help us keep hydrated. Helping us function through the day and keeping us hydrated, these water fountains fail to be kept clean for us to drink, while some don’t even work as no water is able to be produced.

We went around campus to survey how many people, staff & students combined, used the water fountains. The survey we inquired tells us that around 57% of people at CCNY use the water fountains. From this, we can suspect that it is popular for students and staff to drink during their day. While there are a majority of people that use the schools fountains, only 47% actually think its clean. This supports our proposal for the need of cleaner water fountains and the maintenance of them. Many people that we interviewed also seemed to disagree on the fact that there were enough water fountains inside of NAC. Following up, we asked if they would use the water fountains more if they were cleaned and maintained and a total of 60% had agreed. The people of our school support and agree; we need additional and maintained water fountains. 

  We propose that there should be more and cleaner water fountains available throughout the CCNY campus. For simplicity’s sake, we kept the fountains in the NAC library and NAC cafeteria out of our proposal. We were able to deduce at least 5 fountains per floor, however, given the massive square footage of each floor, we decided that this was not enough. We also surveyed the condition of the fountains. Most of the fountains had an “uncomfortable” rate (too high or too low) of water exiting the fountain. The fountains were also dirty, and looked as if they’d been unkempt for a while. A lot of the fountains were found to have gum stuck to them. With more water fountains in a school building such as NAC, with the influx of students and staff that are there daily, there will be great benefits for everyone. 

 

Action Plan

Our plan of action comprises of 3 stages: pre-planning, planning, and post planning. The Pre-planning stage is where we understand the sentiments of the CCNY community and we conduct our own research to figure out how to proceed with our proposal. The planning stages consists of labor, the changes we plan to make to the water fountains on CCNY, and our actual proposal. The post planning stage consists of our ability to maintain the work done in the planning stage and collecting data to prove the benefits of the proposal. 

In our pre planning stage, we took surveys to understand how the students of CCNY feel about the current situation of the water fountains in NAC. We chose students as our demographic because they are the ones that tend to navigate through the NAC the most. We also collected qualitative data ourselves to describe said fountains. 

Our planning stage includes the bulk of our proposal. We plan on adding an additional 5 fountains per floor of the NAC (not including the library and the cafeteria). This will lead to easier access for students. It will also reduce time spent outside of class trying to look for a fountain. We also want to clean up and maintain the fountains already in place. The plan requires supervision from CCNY janitors or other qualified personnel to oversee the installation of the fountains. This is expected to take, by a conservative estimate, about a month or two. 

The post-planning stage is essentially a stage to monitor the effects of the newly installed fountains and to maintain all fountains in the NAC. This requires a survey one year after installation to qualitatively assess the benefits of the fountains. This also requires the addition of “fountain clean-up” and “fountain maintenance” to the task list of the CCNY janitors. The hiring of additional personnel for the post-planning stage seems unnecessary, but if need be, it is not entirely out of the question to hire an extra janitor or two. 

 

Costs/Benefits

We all came to a compromise that we would be installing 5 small-sized drinking fountains in each of the NAC’s 7 floors (we didn’t include the cafeteria and the library). This means a total of 35 fountains will be added throughout the building. The first of many expenses that align with the installation of drinking fountains is the cost of the power required to launch the fountain. Each fountain requires a 110V outlet in order to allow the fountain to run which can cost anywhere between $60 and $400. Second, we must take into account the size of each fountain. Installing a small-sized fountain can range between $250 and $1000. After that, we must take into account the cost of labor for the installation and maintenance of the fountain. Fountain companies typically include plumbing and electrical setup and can take 1 full working day to install, meaning the cost of the labor can range between $320 and $520, depending on the hourly wage of the worker installing the fountain. Maintenance which includes changing the water every month, thoroughly scrubbing off bacteria that accumulates in the basin every 2-3 months, and adding algae-preventing chemicals to the water would cost about $15 per fountain. After calculating all the expenses, we came to a conclusion that the average total cost of installing a single water fountain is about $1,350, with respect to an affordable budget. This would mean adding 35 drinking fountains to all of the NAC would cost the school a grand total of $47,250. 

 

Expenses per Fountain

Expenses	Liberal Cost ($)	Conservative Cost ($)	Average ($)
110V Outlet	60	400	230
Fountain (small)-(includes pipes)	250	1,000	625
Labor (plumbing & electrical)	320	520	420
Annual Maintenance	60	90	75
Total	690	2,010	1,350
Total for 35 fountains	24,150	70,350	47,250

 

Now from the fiscal year of 2018, CCNY started with a budget deficit of 6.7 million dollars. This deficit includes construction work, and a budget reduction from the CUNY system. However, it is possible to fund these water fountains without adding on to the deficit. At the current stage, the vending machines at CCNY seem to be simple space holders. It is possible to sell underperforming vending machines (the yogurt vending machine near NAC 101, for example) to obtain some money for the fountains. Because CCNY utilizes high end vending machines, selling just 2 vending machines can provide up to 10 thousand dollars. The remaining money can be obtained by raising the tuition of each student by just 2 dollars. With about 17,000 students in the City College of New York, this should cover the remaining costs. It is a miniscule price to pay for the betterment of the CCNY community. 

Having access to cleaner water fountains would guarantee each student is refreshed and fully hydrated throughout the day. In addition, reducing the amount of water bottles consumed would not only save each student money, but would fortify less plastic waste being used and which means our environment would be getting less polluted. Adding more water fountains would also be more convenient for those who consume CCNY water daily and wouldn’t want to walk a long distance for water. Lastly, the addition of more water fountains would provide more accessibility to the public, including those with disabilities with respect to the regulations of every water fountain installed throughout the city of New York.

Conclusion

Water is a basic necessity of life as stated before. It is a resource we humans will always consume on an every day, and/ or an hourly basis for us to survive and function. One of the main attractions and buildings for students in The City College of New York, The Northern Academic Center. The vast majority of students heavily rely on water fountains as a source to provide them hydration in order to function in their classes with the minority bringing their own bottle of water on campus. The majority of students in the NAC believe that the water isn’t clean, there isn’t enough water fountains in their building, and that if there was a satisfactory amount of clean operating fountains readily available for students in the NAC, they would use it more often. Not utilizing water fountains in an area where the majority of students and staff spend their time in the NAC whether it is because of inconvenience, or the intuition of the student/staff that it may not be clean can lead to a vast amount of potential health drawbacks and hazards physically and mentally  such as fatigue, dizziness, vertigo, etc… .This is specifically dangerous to students and staff that spend countless hours of their day in the building throughout many years to come. To prevent this, we include our action plan of installing 5 fountains per floor with included maintenance and upgrades throughout the time in service of the water fountains. With a total of 47,250$ coming from the budget of the school, not only will this plan be the safer and healthier move for the students of NAC. This will also pave the way for a more greener, economic, and environmentally friendly community. Improving not only the health and well being of the students, but also the reputation of The City College of New York for its convenience and environmental safety concern as a whole.

 

About us:

Motiur Rahman is currently a student at the City College of New York pursuing a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering. In 2018, he’s held 2 jobs; one as a part-time canvasser for Metro Strategies group, and another as an intern for a graphic design company called Big Design Professionals. He has also volunteered at Neighborworks to help clean up parks and make NYC a better place to liveHe is a master at efficiency and finesse. Throughout the years, Motiur learned to use various software. He knows how to use Autodesk Fusion 360, Solidworks, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft powerpoint. Motiur is an extrovert, and therefore, he’s quite good at communicating his ideas with others even if they are complete strangers. He aspires to work in either the space industry or the automotive industry. 

 

Gary Fung is a second year transfer student at CCNY studying for a Bachelor’s in Earth and Environmental Systems engineering. He is fluent in Microsoft Office applications and can fluently speak two languages. He currently has a part time job as a barista at a cafe in prospect park. With leadership and communication skills he is able to perform many tasks and work well with teams. He hopes to obtain an internship from the DEP or an environmental firm where he is able to work with water or energy.

 

Ricardo Ruiz is currently in his 2nd year at the City College of New York as an Electrical Engineering student. He is an open-minded logical thinker, who emphasizes the importance of an organized and neat work environment, works well with others, and an extroverted individual who excels in communication skills and is bilingual. Ricardo is experienced with work involving public relations and customer service and seeks a high position job in a money making corporation in his current field of study. 

 

Taimoor Mohammad is currently a first year student at the City College of New York as a Computer Science major. He understands and works with various coding languages such as CSS and HTML. Graduating from high school, Taimoor had held many jobs in the past involving teaching youth at the YMCA, Retail and transactions at Walgreens, data entry for SYEP head offices, and a cashier at Citifield. Taimoor aspires to earn his degree and land a job in AI training.

 

 

Appendix

 

Survey

Please circle the most relative answer Do you bring bottled water to School? Yes / No I use CCNY water fountains Strongly agree  /  agree  /  disagree  / Strongly disagree Do you think the water in CCNY is clean?  Yes / No There are enough water fountains in NAC Strongly agree  /  agree  / disagree  / Strongly disagree Would you use CCNY water fountains if they were cleaner and more readily available? Yes / No

 

Survey Data

 

Question 1: Do you bring bottled water to School?

 

Yes: 24 + 13 + 17= 54

No: 27 + 12 + 7 = 46

 

Question 2: I use CCNY water fountains

 

Strongly Agree: 13 + 9 + 2 = 24

Agree: 18 + 10 + 5 = 33

Disagree: 12 + 3 + 8 = 23

Strongly Disagree: 7 + 3 + 10 = 20

 

Question 3: Do you think the water in CCNY is clean?

 

Yes: 13 + 12 + 22 = 47

No: 37 + 13 + 3 = 53

 

Question 4: There are enough water fountains in NAC

 

Strongly Agree: 2 + 1 + 0 = 3

Agree: 9 + 3 + 8 = 20

Disagree: 25 + 11 + 8 = 44

Strongly Disagree: 14 + 11 + 8 = 33

 

Question 5: Would you use CCNY water fountains if they were cleaner and more readily available?

 

Yes: 30 + 15 + 15 = 60

No: 20 + 10 + 10 = 40

 

References

 

Cost to Install a Fountain – Estimates and Prices at Fixr. (2016, July 14). Retrieved from https://www.fixr.com/costs/fountain-installation.

 

City College of New York. (2019). Fy 2019 Budget. FY 2019 Budget (pp. 1–9). NY, NY.