Impact Stories

Greening the Ballpark

Pentair partnered with the Minnesota Twins to develop the innovative Rain Water Recycle System (RWRS) for Target Field, saving the city nearly 2 million gallons of water per year.

In 2009, the Major League Baseball Minnesota Twins were constructing a new ballpark in the heart of Minneapolis. For team officials, environmental responsibility was a top priority. This was evidenced by an audacious goal: making Target Field the first LEED-certified pro-sport venue in North America.

So with 10 months until the opening of the ballpark, the team approached Pentair looking for help in reducing their reliance on municipal water.

A Complete Solution

The team’s options for reusing water were limited, as the stadium’s water and wastewater piping system was already completed. Working around this challenge, Pentair helped develop the Rain Water Recycle System (RWRS), partnering with the team from concept and design through build and installation. The first-of-its-kind RWRS captures, conserves and reuses rain water for irrigating the playing field and washing down the stadium seats.

A Green Home Run

The inventive system was a massive success, reducing Target Field’s need for municipal water by over 50 percent. In the first three years of the ballpark’s operation, this amounted to an annual average of 2 million gallons of water saved, enough to fill over three Olympic swimming pools.

As the Official Sustainable Water Provider of the Minnesota Twins, Pentair has helped the team find other opportunities to conserve water throughout the stadium. One such example was the decision to place tap filtration systems in all of the suites, replacing bottled water with refreshing filtered and chilled water.

Pentair’s expertise was also pivotal in helping to achieve the team’s short-term goal as the U.S. Green Building Council awarded Target Field with LEED Silver certification. The stadium’s point total was the highest ever attained, making it the greenest ballpark in America.

“We had a vision to make our new ballpark more environmentally friendly. Pentair imagined and executed a solution that is now a sustainability model for modern sports stadiums,” said Laura Day, Executive Vice President of Business Development, Minnesota Twins

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Capture, Conserve, Reuse

Environmental Impact and a Pro Sports First

Step 1

Rain water is collected from the field and stadium seating areas, a seven-acre collection area.

Step 2

Rain and irrigation water percolates through the field’s underground drainage system and is stored in a 12-foot-diameter cistern contained beneath the field’s warning track.

Step 3

Collected water goes through Pentair’s Rainwater Recycle System:
1. The water is filtered through the Pentair AquaLine™ Filtration System
2. It is then disinfected using Ultraviolet (UV) Light technology and an Ultrafiltration process
3. Finally, chlorine is added to the water to maintain sterility.

Step 4

Treated water accumulates in a holding tank and overflows back to the cistern until it is needed for field irrigation or stadium wash-down.

Step 5

Then, the cycle starts over.