Water is a crucial resource at UBC, for basic human needs and to support research and operations. The simple act of turning on a tap to access a safe and reliable water supply is something students, faculty, and staff depend on each and every day.
Although UBC isn’t technically a municipality, in many ways it operates like one — maintaining a vast infrastructure and supplying our own services, including waste management, energy generation and distribution, and infrastructure development. Managing our water alone is an intricate process involving staff members from Energy & Water Services and partners from across UBC’s VP Finance & Operations portfolio (VPFO). These individuals work in concert every day to ensure the university has a clean, safe, and sustainable resource on tap — by procuring, securing, testing, delivering, financially managing, and safely disposing of the university’s water. Through this work we enable excellence at UBC, by making sure water is available to support world-class research, to heat and cool our buildings, to water our campus living lab, and to be ready to drink.
Water makes its campus entrance
UBC’s water is purchased from Metro Vancouver, and sourced from rain and melted snow in the mountainous watersheds that surround the city. Metro Vancouver tests and treats the water, then it travels many kilometres through pipes to the Sasamat storage reservoir in Pacific Spirit Park, adjacent to UBC.
Our water enters the Vancouver campus through two trunk water mains. A pipe 600 mm in diameter runs below University Boulevard, and a 300 mm pipe enters below West 16th Avenue. The 600 mm pipe heads straight for the Power House at 2040 West Mall, where booster pumps increase the water pressure for distribution to the student residences and academic buildings in the north part of campus. The taller buildings in this zone need their water under higher pressure to reach upper floors in the event of a fire. The 300 mm pipe mostly supplies residential buildings and student residences along Lower Mall. Water arrives through the 300 mm main at sufficient pressure to service the shorter buildings in this zone. From those two entry points, water is distributed across campus through over 80 km of pipes and service connections.
Keeping the pipes working and the water flowing
One of the many people involved in maintaining that maze of pipes is Roger Cerny, head plumber for UBC’s Energy & Water Services department. Roger, who has more than 15 years of experience on campus, oversees a crew of eight, plus two labourers, to ensure the system stays in good working order and UBC’s spaces can fulfill their mission and purpose. “I have lots of senior people on my crew, and I’m very, very fortunate to have them,” Roger says. “We safeguard our system, we protect the drinking water. We’re very proud of it.”
In addition to the many kilometres of pipes Roger and his team maintain, the distribution system has 2,100 shutoff valves and 440 fire hydrants, each of which needs to be tested annually. The campus also has seven pressure-reducing valve stations and two check valves that ensure water is at the right pressure where it needs to be. And this is all before water even enters our buildings.
To make maintenance of all these components manageable, their locations and status are stored in a database. When Roger and his team test a valve, they use an iPad to scan a QR code on the item and register the inspection. The system continues to be expanded to include the thousands of assets managed by Energy & Water Services, making it easy to find and repair components across campus. “Anybody who finds a problem with any of our assets, like a fire hydrant leaking, can scan it and we would get that information and be able to do the repairs necessary,” Roger says. “It’s like we have extra eyes in the field — that really helps us out.”
Another vital part of Roger’s and his team’s work is to maintain the pipes themselves. He estimates that in 2018 alone they removed 2,200 metres of old cast iron water main, which are typically replaced with ductile iron pipes, which is more flexible and less susceptible to corrosion. The cost of this vital maintenance is built into the VPFO’s annual budget, which is managed by a team of financial experts within the portfolio.
The VPFO is responsible for stewardship of UBC’s physical and financial assets, including all facilities as well as the university budget and endowment. The services provided by the 1200+ individuals who report to the portfolio enable UBC’s excellence in learning and research.
In addition to Energy & Water Services, teams from VPFO’s finance departments, as well as Safety & Risk Services and Building Operations, are critical to keeping our water systems flowing. Read the full feature on Water at UBC on the VPFO website.