Busted waterline floods hall basement

Yesterday's accident occurred about 9:30 a.m. near Yavapai Residence Hall and the Social Sciences building when a piece of machinery digging about 20-feet deep broke a pipeline, said Al Tarcola, director of the Department of Facilities Management.

The machine lifted the 6-inch pipeline up after breaking it, causing a 15- to 20-foot break under a service tunnel, Tarcola said.

The tunnel was flooded and the water settled in Coronado Residence Hall's basement, the lowest point where the water could go, he said.

The water was pumped out of the tunnel and onto East South Campus Drive, Taracola added.

He said "a couple hundred thousand" gallons of water were released when the pipe broke.

Water to nearby buildings was not cut off, but Coronado did not have water for an hour, he said.

Tarcola said Tucson Water fixed the pipeline and Facilities Management told the contractor, Sun Mechanical Contracting Inc., that digging could start again at 1 p.m. yesterday.

The contractor is digging a trench to lay pipe that will expand the air conditioning capacity in university buildings.

Another waterline broke early Friday morning, damaging an electrical transformer in the basement of the Speech and Hearing Sciences building. That damage forced the building to remain closed until workers could replace the transformer over the weekend.