Tuesday, July 1, 2014

UW Shuts Off "Out Of Control" Sprinkler On Mary Gates Drive Until City Responds To Fix It

Geyser-like sprinkler on Mary Gates Drive and NE 41st Street
on Wednesday night last week
 
 
 
 
 

UW photos showing where the sprinkler is located when shut off







Following our post about the "out of control" sprinkler reported last Wednesday, by a resident on Mary Gates Drive,  near the UW Student and Family Housing, UW Facilities quickly worked to shut it, while they wait for this City owned sprinkler to respond and fix it.

UW Facilities said they had first notified the City over a week ago about the issue and contacted them again last week after our Blog post. 

Howard Nakase, UW Manager of Grounds Operations, told us that the sprinklers are not a UW system so all that they could do was "triage the circumstances.  The City will need to correctly fix the long term issues."

James Boeckstiegel, UW Irrigation Maintenance Mechanic Lead, told us last week:
 

In the interest of safety and water conservation, the UW Irrigation Department has capped and marked the problem sprinkler on Mary Gates Drive.   
Above are two photos:  one showing the marked sprinkler and one reference photo to locate the sprinkler.  It is approximately 55 feet south of the “No Parking Anytime” sign on Mary Gates Drive.
For reference, it is the University of Washington’s policy to try to run their irrigation when traffic (human or vehicular) is not so high.  That is generally between midnight and 6am.   
If a problem does occur such as this one, we have equipment and precautions in place to detect the issue, shut the irrigation down automatically, and notify us via our computerized central control warnings on many of our systems, to preserve safety and prevent water loss. 
Thank you to the neighborhood watch for reporting the problem.  I hope the city of Seattle can deal with it soon.  


 

 

 
 
 

 
 

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