Temperatures in Los Angeles on Tuesday and Wednesday hit uncharacteristic highs for the season — 90 and 92, respectively. The National Weather Service announced a “red flag warning” for LA and Oxnard due to the prevalence of hot, dry air — a combination that can aid the start and spread of wildfires.
As temperatures rise, students and faculty across campus are turning towards water fountains on campus to get ahead of dehydration risks in this heat.
On September 12, USC’s Chief Sustainability Officer Mick Dalrymple sent an email to students highlighting the incoming “Green Week,” celebrating campus sustainability initiatives. One item Dalrymple chose to highlight in this email was a list of easy options for students to be more sustainable in their everyday lives, including making use of the “200+ campus hydration stations” available on University Park Campus (UPC) by carrying around a reusable water bottle.
Dalrymple’s email links to an interactive map that shows all of the stations. An analysis by Annenberg Media staff revealed that the average student cannot realistically access all 278 to refill their water bottle.
In looking further, Annenberg Media determined the following:
- Seven campus hydration stations are in off-campus locations, including the LA Memorial Coliseum
- 69 campus hydration stations are located at the Health Sciences Campus
- Of the 202 campus hydration stations located at UPC,
- 92 are located in residence halls, which are not open to nonresidents or those who are not accompanied by a student living there
- Five are located within gyms, which require a student ID and a waiver to be filled out for entry
- Five are located within on-campus stadiums, those being the tennis courts that are blocked by football renovation and the Merle Norman Stadium
- 10 are marked as being “outdoors,” meaning not inside a campus building that could be locked at any given moment, and are not inside campus stadiums.
USC Bottle Refill Breakdown
Explore the map to see which water refill stations are easily accessible
Map by Daniel Pons
These final 10 campus hydration stations are in accessible spots on campus and function properly, as of the time of this article’s publication. These are their locations:
- South of the Leventhal Accounting Building, under the bridge
- In the USC Village, next to the new pilates studio
- East of the Doheny Memorial Library, by the diagonal path
- Outside the Roski School of Art
- East of the Joint Educational Project (JEP) house, by the Trousdale campus entrance
- West of Leavy Library
- West of the Olin Hall of Engineering
- South of Parkside Apartments
- North of Parkside Residential Hall, by the dining hall entrance
- North of the Student Union Building, across from Tommy Trojan and below the Sustainability Hub’s windows
The heat advisory for LA County is scheduled to end Wednesday evening, and temperatures will cool down by the end of the week. Dry conditions will persist through the weekend.