Wastewater floods Granskou dayrooms

More than a month after Granskou Hall's dayrooms flooded with wastewater, the university still hasn’t told students what happened — or when the spaces will reopen.

With the exception of the seventh floor, all dayrooms in the building are closed off from student use.  

According to Whitney Jibben, the director of facilities operations the closure stemmed from a clog on Aug. 17 in the dayroom plumbing system. 

When the facilities team was unable to remove the clog, they hired a company on Aug. 19 that would jet the pipes, pushing high-pressure air through as an alternative way of clearing them.

“The clog that was sitting in the pipes was ejected out into the dayrooms on floors one through four,” Jibben said. “So the clog is gone, great, but obviously now there’s a new issue.”

Black wastewater spurted out of the pipes and onto the ceiling, walls, floor and furniture in the dayrooms. The wastewater was made up of organic debris – mainly food waste, oils and greases — that went down the drains and built up in the pipes over time.

For Logan Sutter, a sophomore living in Granskou Hall for the second year in a row, a clog made of food was not surprising.

“Last year I remember seeing a lot of food waste,” Sutter said. “At one point I went in [to the dayroom] and there were bits of seafood, including parts of a crab or a lobster.”

The facilities department hired Crew Restoration and Construction to clean up the messes. 

Employees wrapped up the items that were contaminated by wastewater and sent them to the landfill. The areas were then sealed off, creating a negative-pressure environment to prevent foul odors and other possible sewage from getting into the hallways. 

Many of the damaged elements of the dayroom have not been replaced.

“We’re still working out the pricing of the vanities, flooring and furniture,” Jibben said. “We have a budget set aside for issues that come up, so we’re not concerned that it would be over the budget that we’d be working on.”

While the administration is trying to get everything put back together, students are left without a space important to their academic and social lives.

Macee Bortnem, Granskou Hall's fourth-floor Viking Advisor (VA), noted that it’s harder for students to get to know each other without a dayroom.

“The dayroom is a place where people can study or hang out, take a break from their roommate or take a phone call,” Bortnem said. “It's made it a bit inconvenient to build community on the floor when we don’t have that dedicated space.”

Sophomore Charles Nichols noted his need for a dayroom, especially during the evenings.

“It’s disappointing to me because I always use them late at night to work on homework so I don’t bother my roommate,” Nichols said.  

He also stressed the importance of the dayrooms on a social level. 

“It’s also sad because it’s a community space where you’ll meet people who end up there sometimes,” Nichols said. “Whether it be in the middle of the night or the middle of the day, you’ll find someone at some point in time to just talk to.”

For some students, not knowing what happened has added to the frustration of losing a space they rely on.

“The only way they’ve communicated is what I’ve heard from my VA,” Sutter said. “That and the big sign right outside saying that the dayroom was closed.”

While news about the dayrooms circulated informally, students have received no official notice about the situation.

Jibben said that communication would typically come from Resident Affairs rather than facilities.

Jibben said she hopes the day rooms will reopen in mid-October.