Augustana’s Slough will be drained for a significant portion of the school year, affecting the campus’ wildlife, beauty and events. Starting Nov. 12, the facilities department will begin to slowly drain the Slough. During this time, a city contractor may deliver construction equipment and materials, placing them on the west side of 38th Street in current no-parking zones.
The Slough Path is intended to be closed from late December through early January.
In 2017, a portion of the pipe under the Slough collapsed. A large portion of the lower campus flooded, and the pipe was temporarily repaired. Now, the city of Rock Island is placing a new pipe along the slough, rather than in the water.
Bob Lanzerotti, director of facilities and sustainability services, explained the process.
“The city of Rock Island approached the college asking, “Would we object to this type of work?’ And we said ‘absolutely not,'” Lanzerotti said. “We are being inconvenienced a little bit, but at the same time, in the end, it’s going to be for the better of Rock Island and all of us here at Augustana.”
Right now, there is a manhole in the Slough, which students may recognize on their walk from upper campus to lower campus. In addition to the new pipe, the city plans to move the manhole so that it can be reached more easily.
“Anytime they need to get into it, they need to get a boat,” Lanzerotti said. “[Soon] they can just step right in it.”
This will also improve the appearance of the Slough. The new pipe will run underneath the Slough Path and should last for over 100 years.
According to Lanzerotti, more work on campus will begin the week of Monday, Nov. 25. There will be machinery on campus but with snow guards blocking it from students’ view.
Kirk Anderson, chief financial officer, said that this project is happening because of the incident that occurred six years ago.
“We’ve always wanted them to fix it because this situation could happen again, and it’s just taken them this amount of time to come back,” Anderson said.
Because of the pipe’s location, the city of Rock Island struggled to fix it correctly. The new pipe will not only be in a better location but also alleviate concerns about the pipe’s age.
According to an article in the Quad City Times, Augustana sued the city after it was revealed that the city had known about problems with the pipe as early as 2003.
14 years later, a portion of the pipe collapsed, emptying the Slough and flooding parts of lower campus with run-off and sewage.
Tim Muir, professor of biology, studies the turtles on campus that call the Slough home. They too were impacted by the 2017 disaster.
“We lost some turtles,” Muir said. “2010 was the first summer that I trapped turtles, and there were a couple that I had seen every summer, and I haven’t seen them since.”
On the other hand, some turtles managed to stay on campus in the small amount of water that did remain in the Slough in 2017.
“Adult turtles spend the entire winter under the ice,” Muir said. “They’re air breathers but they can hold their breath for three or four months.”
According to Muir, the Slough will fill up naturally when it rains in the spring and transform back into the Slough Augustana’s community and animals know and love.
