Jasmin French
The water outage, which residents of the Belmont Residence Hall experienced on Wednesday, Oct. 24, is in the process of being fixed.
The bathroom faucets, showers and water fountains have all been out of commission for the last week, causing students to shower and use the restroom in the other residence halls.
Craig Cason, associate vice president of facilities, and his team have been working toward solving the problem over the last week.
“We have a contractor over there right now that’s replacing the waterline,” Cason said.
A fire hydrant is providing water to Belmont until the pipe is fixed, Cason said.
As of right now, the issue has been resolved and students can return living as normal, because a fire hydrant is providing water to Belmont until the pipe is fixed, Cason said.
“The whole water break has been addressed and fixed. They’re filling the hole right now, which I expect may take another day or so. We’re going to put some gravel over it then we’ll come back and fill it in with concrete at a later date when we’re not disrupting students,” Cason said.
The outage was caused by a break in the waterline, which occurred right outside of Belmont. Shifting ground, according to Cason, caused the break.
Many factors can cause a break to occur, according to vienna.patch.com, but extreme fluctuations in temperature are the main contributors.
The pipe, fittings, dirt and asphalt all expand at different rates. When there is a sudden change in the temperature, either high or low, the materials change shape quickly, causing stress and eventually a break, according to the website.
Belmont is the only resident hall at CSU-Pueblo that has a community bathroom. The students rely entirely on the bathroom faucets and showerheads to provide water for them.
“I feel as though we should be compensated somehow for going days without water and weeks without being able to drink from the water fountain,” said Charles Evans, sophomore political science major.
Students have been warned to not drink the water in the building because the water department advises against drinking water from a fire hydrant.
“There’s nothing like living in a building where you have to run your water through a coffee maker in order to not get sick,” said Doug Bell, senior sociology criminology major.