Editorial: Leaky pipes point to bigger problems, including lack of attention from administrators

A pipe leaked above the ceiling of Croutons, causing dirty water to seep past the ceiling tiles and onto the floor. This created a messy situation— smelly, brown water trickling down, leaving the room in disorder.

Returning students, doesn’t this sound familiar?

Broken pipes, and UT waiting until things are already broken to fix them. Sounds like at least three major maintenance issues that made headlines last year.

In January, 23 buildings campus-wide had frozen pipes that caused damage to equipment, ceilings, walls and floors. The extreme temperatures caused several systems to fail, including air intakes and heating systems — which on this campus are mainly steam-powered. We thought we’d seen the last of that because the Snowmageddon weather seemed to be over. But there was more to come.

On Jan. 30, pipes burst on the third floor of Sullivan Hall. The cracked pipe was from a fire sprinkler. The flood caused classes to be held in a different building for the rest of the semester.

Then, in April, yet another problem struck. A sewer pipe burst in the basement of Carlson Library causing an inch of sewer water to coat the ground. The library closed early that night and was closed the next day. And this was the week before finals.

These problems took months to fix.

And now, with a leaky pipe dripping behind the Croutons food service area, we’ve encountered our fourth major issue. It’s time to ask why.

UT cut infrastructure funds during the 2013-14 school year. Some of the funds that usually went to building upkeep went into keeping the tuition down for students.

Four problems within ten months points to an issue, and students shouldn’t have to pay for misallocated funds.

We’ve written about UT’s reallocation of “deferred maintenance” funds before in an editorial titled “Don’t neglect upkeep of buildings.” These types of maintenance issues need to be addressed before they happen. Sure, we can afford a few thousand dollars for an outside cleaning crew to double check food service areas, and that’s cheaper than investing several thousand dollars in a new roof, or in a better pipe system.

But what’s the tradeoff? That we ask students to worry about the infrastructure of the institution they’re paying thousands of dollars to attend? That they worry about their safety between classes?