Date
Inquiry

We are currently designing a new County Justice Center. The project consists of 193,338 gsf and will house the county jail, Courts and office space for the County Attorney, Community Corrections, Sheriff and Court Administration. The facility comprises an occupant load of 1,879 - 587 of which are attributable to the jail portion of the facility including the inmate population, staff and visitors. During the design development process, the project team has determined that the project will be able to achieve over 40% water efficiency for the project in the courts and office space of the project. However, due to the product availability, maintenance requirements and the behavioral nature of the inmate population we have determined that the project will be unable to use low flow fixtures for the jail portion of the building. Use of low flow fixtures will place an unreasonable burden on the construction project and negatively impact the ongoing operations and maintenance of the project. Not being able to use these fixture types will negate the water efficiency achieved in other portions of the building. We respectfully request that the jail portion of the facility be exempt from the water efficiency calculations and that these strategies be applied only to the Courts and Offices areas of the project.

Ruling

In the definitions section of EPAct 1992 (Section 123, B) "water closet" and "urinal" fixtures installed in prisons are excluded. Also, the definition of "showerhead" excludes safety showerheads. Thus, these fixtures do not fall in the scope of this credit, and do not need to be included in the calculations for WEc3.

Internationally Applicable
Off
Campus Applicable
Off