The familiar steam in front of the 459 dining hall has permanently dissipated, and after a day and a half outage due to repairs, the heat is back on in McVoy, Blake, Herget and Miller residence halls, just in time for the temperature to drop.
Facility Services assistant director Tammy Millican said the repairs to steam lines were completed Friday, but students will see the hole for about two weeks. New concrete lids are poured to allow workers easier access to the tunnels after installation. 
After completion, parking near the dining hall will return to normal, Millican said.
In 2012, a large energy grant as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allowed Facility Services to fix many of the deteriorating pipes, but these pipes weren’t included for several reasons, Millican said.
Facility Services focused the grant money on larger tunnels to cover more areas of campus. Projects also had to be “shovel ready” to qualify for the grant, and at the time, there was not a steam leak on the particular pipe.
Millican said she was not surprised a leak developed, and repairing the leaks as they are discovered is part of regular upkeep.
“You have an aging infrastructure on campus, so that’s part of what we do maintenance wise is we go in as they develop,” Millican said.
The repairs are indirectly related to the asbestos abatement tents in the quad because the same tunnels connect them, Millican said. But she added there was no risk of asbestos exposure in front of the 459.
The lines run more efficiently when steam is not being lost to the air, but she said the leak was not large enough to be much cost to the University. 
“The good news is we get to go in and insulate those pipes and put in the lids, so it will operate more efficiently,” Millican said.
Viva Courteau, biology and psychology sophomore, said the steam has been there as long as she can remember, and it has become a campus mark.
“I always kind of appreciated the steam in the cold months,” she said. “It was nice.”
As a resident of East Laville, Courteau said she walks by the steam on her way to the UREC and the 459, but the repairs do not affect her parking. 
Dietetics freshman Marcela Caraveo lives in Blake Hall and said while she is thankful the heat is back on, she will miss the steam as an identifying landmark.
“You could tell people, ‘It’s the dining hall over by the steam,’” she said.
However, Caraveo said, she will not miss the noise and lack of parking once the repairs are complete.

Gallery • 1 Photos

Javier Fernández

Construction stops steam vents in front of the 459 Dinning hall.