(IL) Chicago Tribune – Through a dim hallway, past a huge chamber filled with chugging generators and wheezing boilers, the jewel in Dominican University’s green crown sits quietly in a dank antechamber dappled with sunlight. It’s an ancient concrete water cistern, and for more than 90 years it has studiously collected rainwater runoff from nearby buildings. Overlooked and forgotten for decades in the basement of one of the oldest buildings on campus, the old reservoir is now the centerpiece of the River Forest-based university’s green initiative.
The story of how the ancient cistern was put back into use at Dominican is a combination of fortuitous discovery and sensible sustainability. More