6A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COLLAPSING CAMPUS
WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2005
Collapsing
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
Construction at 14th Street and Jayhawk Boulevard is near completion. The utility tunnel located underneath the pavement was the University's top maintenance priority for 2005. This section of the utility tunnel was in danger of collapsing, putting facility operations employees in danger. The tunnel is about 25 feet deep and contains steam lines and voice and data cables. The tunnel serves the Spencer Art Museum, Kansas Memorial Union, Dyche Hall, Lippincott Hall, Douthart Scholarship Hall and Grace Pearson Scholarship Hall. More than S11,000 square feet of facilities depend on steam produced by the utility tunnel. The cost of emergency replacement of this section of tunnel was $1.4 million dollars.
"We don't have a comprehensive review, so we know we have more out there than what we have recorded," Modig said.
Modig's office is a disarray of countless stacks of files and folders of documented maintenance projects. For Modig, a typical workweek ranges anywhere from 60 to 70 hours, which doesn't leave him much time to tidy up.
Most of Modig's time is spent figuring out what maintenance projects must be taken care of immediately and which projects can be put on the back burner.
"We try to find a reasonable way of taking care of all the University's maintenance needs." Modig said. "Given the lack of funding, we are put into what we call a crisis management mode."
Modig uses the word crisis to describe the University's maintenance problem because according to building maintenance guidelines set by the Kansas Board of Regents, more than half of its buildings are deficient.
Roofs are the No.1 priority when it comes to maintenance, Modig said. If a building does not have sound roofing, other problems will follow.
"We take care of our roofs because lack of roof maintenance will make that building uninhabitable and over time, you'll have a much bigger problem then just a leaky roof." Modig said.
Repairing roofs is a vital part of preventive maintenance, but they are expensive to repair.
On average, Modig is given a $500,000 annual budget to fix roofs. With that budget no more then one or two roofs can be
Haworth Hall Located north of Robinson Center
water to rush into the building.
Modig was left no choice but to defer another much-needed roof maintenance project until the following year.
Built in 1969
Received a
Kansas Board of
Regents building
score of 72
Building condition classification:
not used
"When you do an emergency bid you create a trickling down effect," Modig said. "This is why we call it crisis management."
Deficient Building replacement cost: $59,129,000 Total cost of documented repairs: $9,249,480
replaced in the same
A good chunk of this year's
year.
"We are going to spend $400,000 on Robinson Gymnasium's roof this year alone," Modig said. "That doesn't leave much left for anything else."
else. Robinson's roof was scheduled to be fixed last year but was bumped down the list to make room for an emergency maintenance project. In 2003, the Computer Services Facility building's roof split open, allowing
funds were not spent on roofs or leaky windows. This year's No. 1 maintenance concern was u n d e r - ground, out of sight.
The construc-
tion site
adjacent
to
Spooner
Hall,
which
led off.
Street to the dismay of the residents of the Douthart Scholarship Hall, was this year's crisis.
Underneath the pavement is one of many steam tunnels that produce heat for campus buildings. The tunnel needed to be fixed because it was putting the lives of employees who worked in the tunnel in danger. It also threatened to cut off heat and power to numerous buildings on campus.
Documentation submitted to the Kansas Board of Regents stated that "every time maintenance workers have to go into certain parts of the tunnel, they are risking their lives."
Vernon Haid, senior supervisor of the facility and operations steamfitter's department, worked in the tunnel. He alerted the design and construction department to how serious a problem the tunnel had become.
Haid, equipped with nothing more then a flashlight and a hard hat, regularly checked the tunnel for routine maintenance.
"The heat is something else," he said. "It's usually anywhere in the range of 130 degrees."
The heat was not the only thing Haid had to worry about. Major holes were beginning to form in the corrugated metal and pipes were beginning to rust. The metal liner used to protect the pipes from the elements had deteriorated to such an extent that Haid could easily push his hand through it.
"You try not to think about something like that happening when you're down in there, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't in the back of my mind," Haid said.
For the steam system to operate correctly, the level of steam must remain at a consistent level. If the rusted pipes and eroded metal fails to maintain adequate steam levels, an emergency system releases steam and simultaneously removes all the oxygen in the tunnel.
Although work on the steam tunnel underneath 14th Street has been completed, other
steam tunnels underneath the campus are deteriorating such as the one near Spooner Hall, he said.
he said.
"As of right now the other tunnels are manageable, but that doesn't mean tomorrow they will be," Haid said.
The 14th Street tunnel had to be fixed because it provided heat to Dyche Hall. Dyche Hall is home to nearly 200,000 specimens used for biodiversity research.
Protecting valuable resources
Had the tunnel not been fixed, rare living and extinct plants and animals that rely on a specific climate would have been lost. Losing those specimens could have cost KU an estimated $5 million in research money.
Jordan Yochim, assistant director of administration for the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Center, said he was ecstatic that KU made that steam tunnel a priority.
"Dyche has been the permanent home for the Natural History Museum for 100 years," he said. "The public knows us here and the research we do is known throughout the world."
Not too far from Dyche another building benefited from the repairs to the steam tunnel. The Spencer Museum of Art also relies on a controlled environment to protect its valuable art collection.
art collector.
Richard Klocke, exhibit designer for the Spencer Museum of Art, has the task of preserving works of that date back to Middle Ages.
"With the age and texture of art pieces we have, it is crucial that our building maintains a normal climate," Klocke said.
While those at the art museum and Dyche Hall breathe a sigh of relief, people in Malott Hall are finding it difficult to breathe.
Malott Hall, home to the University's chemistry department, is a building that stinks, literally. Between the fumes from the chemicals used by hundreds of students and the odors from live animals kept for research, the building has a unique fragrance.
In recent years, students have actually passed out, while others have vomited from the strength of nauseating fumes.
Robert G. Carlson, professor
ing is only a symptom of the real problem, which is that the University's chemistry labs are outdated.
"There are high schools equipped with better laboratories." Carlson said.
Rich Givens, professor of chemistry, said a long list of Kansas schools have better chemistry lab facilities than what Malott Hall offers.
What has Givens said Kansas State and even smaller schools like Fort Hays State surpass the University of Kansas' outdated facilities.
He said that Kansas State University's chemistry laboratories have a maximum of two students sharing one fume hood. In some Malott Hall laboratories up to 17 students are forced to share two fume hoods.
share two names Fume hoods are important to chemistry labs
Nunemaker Hall Located on Engel road
Located on Engel road north of Daisy Hill
Built in 1971
Received a Kansas Board of Regents building score of 78
Building condition classification: Deficient
Building replacement cost: $1,498,000
Total cost of documented repairs: $224,380
kansan.com
I LOVE YOU JULIA!
Sorte boa em seus exams. Eu faltoo diário. Você será sempre meu gato do kitty.
MARTIN
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