Article content

Where would you look to find the heart of Ottawa?

It’s not the ByWard Market, the Rideau Canal Ice Rink or even the green carpet of the House of Commons.

The real beating heart of the city lies behind the stone walls of Fleet Street Pumping Station, where five enormous pumps supply hundreds of millions of liters of drinking water every day. Remarkably, the technology has barely changed since the day it opened on Halloween 1874, when Alexander Mackenzie was prime minister and horses and wagons roamed the city’s muddy streets.

Article content

Fleet Street, which celebrated its 150th anniversary last week, is the last water pumping station in the country.

“It’s very simple, but very effective,” explains Paul Montgomery, manager of the Fleet Street pumping station and the Lemieux Island water treatment plant.

“People ask why we didn’t replace them with electric power,” Montgomery said, struggling to be heard above the din of the five-horsepower pumps that together deliver 2,400 horsepower. “Why would we? Can you imagine the size of the electric motors and generators we would need to replace them? »

Using hydraulic power to run the pumps also saves money — about $1.2 million a year in electricity costs, he said. And because they run on river power, even a city-wide blackout wouldn’t stop the water from flowing.

Nestled beneath an escarpment on the eastern edge of LeBreton Flats, the Fleet Street Pumping Station may be barely noticed by those passing on foot or bicycle on the adjacent Pooley’s Bridge. Few would imagine the mysterious workings inside.

The pumping station was designed by Thomas C. Keefer, a Canadian civil engineer who also built hydraulic works in Montreal and Hamilton. Keefer’s plan was to harness the flow of the Ottawa River to operate the pumps. But its original purpose was not to provide clean drinking water.

Article content

Article content

“It was built to provide water to fight fires,” Montgomery said. “In the 1800s, huge fires broke out in cities like Ottawa. Businesses wanted to buy insurance, but insurance companies insisted that there had to be an adequate water supply. It was the insurance companies that demanded it.

(Ottawa’s first fire brigade was formed the same year Fleet Street opened, but ironically neither was of much help when the Great Fire of 1900 destroyed a fifth of the city.)

Water from the river enters the system through the Nepean Bay Gates, just west of the Canadian War Museum. It flows approximately 500 meters along an aqueduct to the pumping station where it enters five portals, one for each pump. After passing through a screen to keep debris out, the hydraulic power turns turbines which in turn drive huge gearboxes which transfer that power to the pumps.

Even though the machines have been updated, they aren’t really new. The gearboxes date from 1932 and 1943. Detailed plans, hand-drawn by craftsmen at the now-defunct Dominion Engineering Works in Montreal, sit on a table, ready to be used if a part replacement must be machined.

Article content

When the Lemieux Island treatment plant opened in 1932, Fleet Street was converted to provide drinking water. A pipe placed on the ground of the aqueduct transports clean, drinkable water to the pumping station for distribution. Fleet Street pumps deliver water to 95 percent of the city’s residents, from Orleans to the east, Stittsville to the west and Manotick to the south.

On an average day, Ottawa uses about 300 million liters of water, Montgomery said. Lemieux Island and Fleet Street can together produce approximately 400 million liters of water. The city’s second water treatment plant, at Britannia, adds another 360 million liters per day.

Either one can easily meet Ottawa’s demands. In fact, several times a month one or another plant is shut down for maintenance and only one plant supplies the city with water. There is space on Fleet Street to add a sixth pump, and if necessary, Lemieux Island’s capacity could be increased to 600 million litres, he said.

“The city is growing, for sure, but people are using a lot less water than before,” he said. “Today we have more efficient installations and the water itself costs a lot more, so people are becoming more economical. And there is a demographic change. People simply don’t use as much outdoor water as they used to.

Article content

The Fleet Street Pumping Station was designated a national historic site in 1982. That can make work outside difficult — “There just aren’t a lot of stone masons to do the work,” Montgomery says — but does not affect changes or modifications. necessary inside the factory.

Yet a look inside the station, with its polished wooden railings, historic plaques and grinding gears, would still seem familiar to the 19th-century craftsmen who built it. The next time you take a shower, fill the sink or flush the toilet, think of Fleet Street Pumping Station, the beating heart that makes it all possible.

Our website is your destination for the latest news, so be sure to bookmark our homepage and subscribe to our newsletters so we can keep you informed.

Article content