The Catalina Island Museum uses water totes to bring fresh water to the island. Photo courtesy Catalina Island Museum
Catalina Island has been bustling with construction projects over the last several years. New restaurants, a new spa and renovated hotels are all in the works or completed, as is an expanded golf course, new activities and a new grocery store. One of the most widely anticipated projects is also one of the largest. The Ada Blanche Wrigley Schreiner Building of the Catalina Island Museum will dramatically increase the amount of space dedicated to the art, history and culture of Catalina Island.
Thanks to the dedication of the museum’s staff and supporters as well as the innovation of its general contractor, this expansive construction project will have very little impact on the island’s rapidly dwindling water supplies. Catalina Island is in the midst of a historic drought that has forced residents and visitors alike to decrease the amount of water used. Rather than contribute to the problem, the museum has chosen to be part of the solution. Large plastic totes are filled with water purchased on the mainland and barged to the island. Each tote contains 275 gallons of water and with 120 totes available; the contractor estimates that by the end of the project they will have saved 33,000 gallons of water that would otherwise have come from the island’s water supplies.
The Ada Blanche Wrigley Schreiner Building of the Catalina Island Museum will open in 2015 and include space for permanent and traveling exhibits as well as an atrium, digital theater and sculpture garden.