OTTAWA — Canada's national archives building is so prone to leaks that it sprang another one last month just as workers were cleaning up the mess from a flood days earlier.
The showcase building near Parliament Hill was given a second soaking June 1 when a cold-water valve in a women's washroom failed, internal documents show.
The leak triggered a fire alarm, and flooded two corridors as well as an area where books are stacked, though no volumes were damaged because a tarp had been thrown over them by workers cleaning up a May 20 flood.
The first flood, caused by a broken pipe in a washroom, also set off a fire alarm and damaged more than 400 books in the basement. Some of them required freeze-drying but nothing was lost.
Although Library and Archives Canada staff played down the May 20 flood, and never issued a release about the June 1 incident, leaks have become a way of life at the non-descript structure, opened in 1967 just west of Parliament Hill.
In the last 20 years, there have been at least 83 soakings at the facility, with causes ranging from burst pipes and overflowing toilets to faulty roofing, documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act show.
An archives spokesman told news media in May that flooding problems had abated since 2004, when the roof was repaired, but records show there have been at least 12 leaks since then. An inundation on the 8th floor in August 2006, for example, soaked 57 volumes.
Thousands of rare books and documents have been badly damaged by water over the years, including one 1999 deluge that soaked 7,825 items.
The auditor general in 2003 estimated more than 30,000 documents had been damaged by excess heat or water at the aging headquarters building since 1988, costing at least $4.5 million in repairs or replacements.
The security guard who came across the May 20, 2008, leak during an overnight shift “saw water coming down the ceiling like Niagara Falls,” says one report.
An investigation later placed the blame on renovations that were completed a decade earlier to make space for a washroom for the disabled.
“At the time the existing plumbing was capped and the new wall concealed the pipes,” says an internal report.
“Visual inspection of the pipe has been impossible for 10 years making this incident unpreventable.”
About a third of Canada's collection of historical documents is kept in a modern, secure facility in nearby Gatineau, Que., which has numerous safeguards against water and humidity.
But the building, opened in 1997, is now full and none of the remaining nine buildings run by Library and Archives Canada meets modern standards for preservation. A planned expansion of the Gatineau building has been on hold for a decade.
A spokesman says the aging headquarters building at 395 Wellington St. has been improved over the years, including installation of water-detection sensors and a so-called dry sprinkler system to help protect against water damage.
“There are things we've done to strengthen 395,” said Doug Rimmer, assistant deputy minister of programs and services. Rare materials have also been moved off-site to better protect them.
But plans to create a second state-of-the-art facility like the one in Gatineau remain on the drawing board, he said.
In 2004, the federal government merged the National Library and the Public Archives into a single entity.
The headquarters building mostly houses books, but some manuscripts and other documents are kept there for public consultation. The building also frequently plays host to exhibitions of historic and rare documents.
In Pictures:
