Tour of KSU buildings provide lawmakers with up-close look of repairs
6:15 p.m. Thursday, August 10, 2006
K-State Administrators were pleased that lawmakers took the time to tour the campus Thursday.
“We've been able to show them things they've seen in pictures before but you really can't understand the magnitude until you're right there looking at it,” said Ed Rice, KSU Administrator.
Such as in the Call Hall Mechanical Room, where leaky pipes pose dangerous problems.
“The piping through this building is pretty well rotten and rusted away so we constantly have to do repairs inside the building,” said Dale Boggs, building maintenance.
And when one of these pipes rupture, the room fills with water which is a serious situation considering the transformers sit across the room with more than 4,000 volts of electricity pumping through them.
Bio-defense labs
K-State could be the site of a new $450 million federal bio-defense laboratory. It's one of two locations in the state - the other is near Fort Leavenworth that is in the running for the lab.
State officials said the project could boost the bio-technology sector of the Kansas economy. Homeland Security officials will narrow down the nationwide list of applicants by the end of the year.
Over in the power plant, the switchgear room dates back to 1923.
“This is the oldest part of the electrical system on campus and it's probably one of the most troubled parts of keeping the power on in campus buildings,” Boggs said.
Maintenance crews are often forced to create makeshift solutions, like this downed circuit with the chain wrapped around it.
“That's how we have to secure out a circuit that's down and we're back feeding the building right now because that circuit is down and chained off to make sure it stays grounded out,” Boggs said.
And there are issues outside many of the campus buildings, too.
At the entrances to several buildings, metal covers keep falling masonry from hitting students as they enter for classes.
Senator Duane Umbarger said he expects lawmakers to place more focus on higher education issues like campus maintenance in next year's session.
“We got he K-12 funding issue behind us now and I think something like this as far as the deferred maintenance is going to get moved up on the priority list toward the top,” Umbarger said.
Now it wasn't all bad news. Lawmakers also got a tour of K-State's new Bio-security Research Institute. 49 News couldn’t take our cameras inside for security reasons, but lawmakers said they were very impressed with what they saw and proud to have it in Kansas.
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