In St. Louis, it precipitates in one form or another on an average of 111 days out of the year, or 28 percent of the time. In other words, nearly one out of every three days here at Washington University we get rained, snowed or sleeted upon.
Practically speaking, of course, the rainfall here isn’t that regular. We may get a dry spell of up to two weeks, followed by several days of torrential downpours. Some years, like this one, it even snows on or after the first day of spring.
That’s where our problems begin. When we here at the University get rained on, the rain doesn’t go away. It lingers. Students walking to class near Graham Chapel and Lab Sciences are diverted at points by huge puddles. Mudd Field lives up to its name. Same thing goes for the Swamp. At several points during the past few years the puddles in those areas were so pervasive that ducks started living there.
We have a major drainage problem on campus.
This problem isn’t anything new, of course. When the Hilltop – er, Danforth – Campus was established in the early 1900s, the area was artificially leveled. That leveling process, combined with dense, clay-rich soil, completely eliminated the natural pathways for water to drain away from campus. Maintenance has been trying to deal with it ever since.
Bill Wiley, manager of maintenance operations for the University, said that within the past few years, additional drains were added to the area between Lab Sciences and Graham Chapel. Further, Mudd Field has been releveled every few years to create a higher “crown” in the field’s center from which water can drain. Wiley noted that the University’s focus is on making sure walkways are traversable, rather than making campus fields usable.
Unfortunately, even efforts to keep the walkways open don’t seem to be working. The deep puddles covering pathways between Graham and LabSci keep coming back. Often, these puddles are located immediately adjacent to the very drains that are supposed to funnel them away. And on the South 40, large swaths of the interior path are still covered by water when it rains, as well as whenever the Swamp’s sprinkler system kicks in or workers leave a hose running.
While the upcoming excavation and subsequent rebuilding of Mudd Field over the University Center’s new underground parking garage may help alleviate some of Mudd Field’s drainage problems, it probably won’t alleviate all of them. We fear that this construction may in fact make the drainage situation on campus worse – unless a strong effort is made to include additional drainage pathways around the parking garage.
We understand that it’s difficult for the University to correct the mistakes the founders made when putting this place together, especially when we’re continually erecting new buildings that further complicate the campus drainage situation. Yet we’d like to see the administration work harder to alleviate these problems, as they clearly aren’t going to get better on their own. One would think that with the kind of top-notch, expert faculty our architecture and engineering schools have, the University might be able to bring their talents to bear on the situation. In addition, the University surely has connections with alumni and other professionals who might be able to help address the issue.
Puddles on campus might not seem like the most pressing concern. But all that standing water presents a real health risk to students and faculty members. Mosquitos readily breed in that much water – and in St. Louis, mosquitos may carry the West Nile virus, as well as other encephalitis-causing agents. In addition, standing water along the edges of the Swamp, Mudd Field and most other grassy areas on campus often robs students of the ability to simply toss a Frisbee around on a nice day.
Instead of spending so much money on tearing up and replacing flowers and turf to impress prospective students and their parents, the University needs to address the drainage problem that makes replacing campus ground cover necessary in the first place.