Confirmed: Fleet Street uses water to pump water

I'd like to correct the record.

On October 1 of this year, while attending a drop-in Open House about the City of Ottawa's plans to rehabilitate the Booth Street heritage bridge (more on that to come in a future blog post), a City representative mentioned offhandedly that the Fleet Street water pumping station had been converted to electric pumps "decades ago", like in the 1950s.

One of the LeBreton Flats residents in attendance, echoing the sentiment of many, expressed dismay that he'd been telling people for years that it was a water-powered water pumping station. I, myself, had made this claim in my 2012 blog post 3D Through the Aqueduct (part 2).

While still at the Open House, I did a quick Google search on my phone, and found only unsubstantiated claims. A City employee working on a project about one of the aqueduct's bridges is a pretty compelling authority. My next step was to send out a Tweet calling on the crowdsourcing power of Twitter to confirm or deny these electric claims.

One piece of 'new' information supplied by Ian Izzard of the City: the Fleet St Pumping station has been fully electric powered (not hydraulic from aqueduct) since the 1950s. Can anyone confirm this? @HeritageOttawa #ottcity #LeBretonFlats

— Charles A-M (@Centretowner) October 1, 2019

That yielded nothing conclusive. There was a City report describing the pumping station as water-powered, but that report was prepared by the Councillor's office, not the water department.

I eventually (Oct 17) emailed Councillor McKenney, who sent the request down the bureaucratic ladder, and the very next day I got this wonderfully clear and detailed response from Paul Montgomery of the City's water department. (Emphasis added, slightly edited).

Mr. Akben-Marchand,

There are five water turbine powered centrifugal pumps at the Fleet Street pumping station; all are still used and in service. A small amount of electrical power is required, for automated controls, lighting and such, but the primary sources of motive power for the station's installed pumps is water and, of course, gravity.

Many people incorrectly assume that we use the river, at Fleet Street, to drive generators which would then drive electric motors and, in turn, to drive pumps. Rather, we use water powered turbines to drive mechanical gear boxes / speed increases to then directly drive the installed pumps.

Approximately 20m³/s of Ottawa River water flows, through a headworks control gate structure located along the shore of Nepean Bay, through the covered Aqueduct below the former Ottawa Street, to the Fleet Street Pumping Station and then down through the turbines. The approximate head, across the turbines, is 27 feet.

Treated drinking water flows by gravity, through a large buried watermain from the Lemieux Island Water Treatment Plant, to supply the five pumps at Fleet. At full capacity, the Fleet Street pumping station can supply approximately 200ML/day to the City.

Thanks,

M. Paul Montgomery, P. Eng.
Plant Manager, Water Production - East
Water Services, PWES

That settles that! I publish it here for posterity, and for the next person who hears rumours of the plant's electrification!

By the way, that "200ML/day" refers to Megalitres per day, or 200,000,000 litres! I discussed the underground Ottawa Street aqueduct in this 2012 blog post.

LeBreton Flats updates/errata

On the topic of corrections and updates, here are some to some previous blog posts about LeBreton Flats:

• In the 2012 post, 3D Thursday: 3D through the aqueduct, part 2 of 2, I didn't know the purpose of the wooden bracing on the Fleet Street Pumping Station building. A CBC Ottawa News video from 2013 says that the City was doing repairs to cracks that developed on both the pumping station and Pooley's Bridge following blasting at the site of nearby condo development on Lett Street.
• The tree featured in the 2014 post, The Lonely Elm was cut down in Winter 2014-2015 (literally: the two nearest photos showing the tree present and absent were on 2014-12-21 and 2015-03-28). The price of progress for LRT and, it would seem from aerial photos, the Combined Sewage Storage Tunnel (CSST) access shaft.
• Also in the Lonely Tree post, I referred to a section of Wellington Street as "Old Wellington", which was incorrect. It would have just been "Wellington".

I actually have a number of LeBreton Flats related blog posts in various stages of development that I hope to publish soon, including the results of quite a bit of research about Wellington Streets.

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Chinatown double-flyover

I found this well-timed photo as I was catching up on sorting my significant backlog of photos. Looking up at the corner of Somerset Street West and Booth Street, the sky is divided by the traffic signal arms. In the left quadrant is a gull, and in the right quadrant is a low-flying Air Canada jet:

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Tulips & tower cranes sprouting up

In the first weekend of May, the tower crane for Broccolini's hotel/condo at 199 Slater went up. This is right across the street from the BMO building at 280 Laurier, at the Slater Street "Bank" Transitway station. The BMO building had some nice flowers by its windows to go along with the view.

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Peds on Weds: Delivery door design

Is this delivery truck at the Delta Ottawa City Centre too big, or is the delivery entrance too small?

Either way, it results in the truck blocking the sidewalk completely, and even this short truck diverts pedestrians not just into the roadway, but into the travel lane, to get past. Not the only pedestrian issue at this '60s-built hotel and conference centre.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]
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8 Love Locks' Flat

Both the Ottawa Citizen and the Centretown Buzz did stories about the love locks on the Corktown Footbridge in advance of Valentine's Day. Come to think of it, so did I.

What I didn't post was this photo from the same day, showing a chain of "love locks" (I suspect this set is just regular locks...), with the canal-side pavilion "8 Locks' Flat" in the background:

I have a lot of photos of the canal and of the footbridge, as you can imagine considering the Pedbridge blog I used to document the bridge's construction in great detail, and considering I was on the naming committee for the bridge!

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Flashy bike

Near the end of December as the Rideau Canal skateway was agonizingly close to opening, I went on a Bike Ride along the canal one night to take some photos of the canal. With my bike resting on one side of the Bank Street bridge, I took a picture of it. Realizing I'd accidentally got it when the flashing purple lights were off, I took another. At the suggestion of a friend, I made it into an animated gif, and it works pretty well!

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3D Thursdays: Lotta Hitschmanova

After picking up my mail from the Sparks Street post office last week, I noticed a plaque on the entrance to 56 Sparks which I hadn't before, with a relief profile of the subject, Lotta Hitschmanova.

Source photos for the 3D image: Left (adjusted), Right (adjusted)

(I had to make some significant adjustments to the images with Photoshop's "lens distort" feature to get both of the images roughly square, and as a result the effect is much more crisp when you viewi the image full screen. I've included the adjusted versions of the source images above to save you some trouble if you wanted to have a go at it yourself.)


Not having noticed the plaque before, I also hadn't heard of her before either. Hitschmanova's Wikipedia Entry isn't too short, and longer than the entry for the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada, which she founded in 1945 and remains operating at 56 Sparks Street, suite 705 as USC Canada.

The USC Canada website has a trove of information about Dr. Lotta, including historic audio and video clips of USC public service announcements narrated by her.

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3D Thursday: Snowbikes

Over at the Kenniston Apartments, which is the name of the retail/apartment complex that contains the Lieutenant's Pump, there are three bike racks used primarily by the residents.

After a mid-December snowfall, they were frozen in time:

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

I ride a bike in the winter—enthusiastically—but I understand that many people don't. If you're interested in trying, Citizens for Safe Cycling's annual winter family bike ride should be coming up sometime later this month. It's a great way to try with lots of company around, and hot chocolate with marshmallows at the end! Stay tuned to their website and Twitter for details. It's usually a Sunday late-morning in late January.

[Tune in on Thursdays at noon for a new 3D image. View the 3D label for other posts with 3D images. 3D FAQ]

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From the "fake trees" department...

There was a brief period in the design for the Bronson Avenue reconstruction when the consultants responded to residents' desire for more trees by suggesting fake metal 'trees' to provide shade to pedestrians, since there would be no room for real trees in the widened Bronson Avenue. Thankfully, this suggestion was short lived, and circumstances changed to permit a lot of real trees.

Across from the Rideau Centre's food court a couple of weeks ago, I noticed this row of branches lined up outside the entrance to 45 Rideau Street, next to the Chapters. It looks like they have been lined up as fake 'trees' to provide a structure on which to mount decorative lights.

In fairness, if these were real trees they wouldn't have leaves at this time of year anyway.

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3D Thursday: Frosted Preston

It's been a while since I did a straight-up residential photo for my 3D Thursday series. Here's a nice shot of some trees on Preston Street on the first snowfall of the season, which happened to be on Saturday, November 9, the day of the Plant Pool Recreation Association's annual Dessert Party.

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

The PPRA raises funds to allow children to participate in recreational programming who might not otherwise be able to afford to.

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Lifting Centretown's Spirits

Yes, there are decorations on streetlamps, lights in store windows, and powdery white snow on the ground, but last week's opening of the new LCBO at Bank and McLeod has not just spirits, but also wine and beer.

(pre-Photoshop pic)

Ottawa Citizen columnist Joanne Chianello sparked a twitter conversation earlier this month about the location, and the relatively uncommon location of this LCBO at the base of a condo tower (certainly unprecedented in Ottawa).

A spin-off twitter conversation by Metroland's Laura Mueller sparked a discussion about the impact of this location on the other nearby LCBO locations. CBC's Giacomo Panico pointed out that this location was moving from 240 Sparks ... LCBO store locator [Edit: I got some stuff wrong here earlier. Fixed now, I think.]

Meanwhile, the LCBO 7 blocks down Bank Street in the Glebe, which would be visible from the Bank and McLeod location if not for the Queensway, isn't going anywhere anytime soon, apparently. (Sadly, all three of the large ash trees in front of that location succumbed last year to the Emerald Ash Borer beetle infestation).

Equidistant from those two locations, the LCBO next to the Loblaws on Pretoria is being rebuilt in the location of the former Beer Store (which, by contrast, is closed permanently) with nothing but air above it.

There is also supposed to be an LCBO at the new Lansdowne Park big box plaza/mall.


There's a lot I can't comment on by the mere fact that I don't drink alcoholic beverages, but it's still an interesting case study in terms of, "what do you put in a mid-size mainstreet commercial space when there's already a Shopper's Drug Mart only a block away?"

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War Memorial

The war memorial at Confederation Square, at the top of Elgin Street at Wellington, is designed to be larger than life. You have to go pretty high up to get a good idea of just how big a site it is (and this photo omits the vast plaza off screen to the right). I took this photo the same day I took this one of the roof of the Central Post Office.

Obviously, this is the site of Canada's annual Remembrance Day ceremony. Every November 11 at 11am, this square is filled with veterans and dignitaries, and the streets surrounding it are packed with onlookers.

Some other things become clear at this location when viewed from above. One is that the former train tunnel that runs along the Rideau Canal below the Chateau Laurier (more recently the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Parliamentary offices).

Another is the alignment of the Plaza Bridge. I've always been a bit confused by the layout of the concrete here (which is more slippery to bike on when it's wet), but from up above you can clearly see how it follows the Canal.

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Metropolitan Centretown

Looking south at Bank and Gladstone on a rainy dusk in early September. (Sigh, at a quarter to 8pm!)

I'm not particularly fond of the development here, nor the way the former Metropolitan Tabernacle's façade has be entirely de-animated as it has succumbed to death-by-Shoppers. But because the building is so close to the street, the developer was forced to bury the power lines. That on its own is a plus, but in addition it has meant full-fledged streetlights instead of the light heads tacked on to wooden hydro poles.

I suppose that arguably there is a pedestrian component to that to warrant adding "Peds on Weds" to the title of this post, but really I just wanted to post this picture because I like the colours.

[Tune in on Wednesdays at noon for a new pedestrian-themed blog post. View the Pedestrians label for previous Peds on Weds posts]
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Take a Peak at the Post Office

I had occasion somewhat recently to visit the top floor of the Central Chambers building, the offices of Shaw Communications. The view from there is quite impressive.

The biggest surprise from this vantage point was the tower on top of the Central Post Office building:

Even though the elevator penthouse is mentioned in this Urbsite post, it always blended into the background for me.

Also visible are two towers on top of the Langevin Block, the uppermost corner of Confederation Square, the Sakahan tarp over the National Gallery, and Gatineau. And, of course, Parliament Hill, both the Centre Block (plus Peace Tower) and East Block.

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Autumn in Centretown

The brown-tinged leaves of the ginkgo tree are one of the signs of fall.

As you could probably tell, though, this photo isn't from the current season, with the tower crane for the Centropolis condos in the background. It's from mid-October 2011, so we still have some time to enjoy a touch of good weather here or there. And even in mid-October, the flower shop/café had its patio chairs set out.

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Summer sunset

After my summer hiatus, I started with a post from the north-west corner of Centretown. As the summer comes to an end itself, it seems fitting to post this photo of the opposite corner, looking south-west from the Museum of Nature's east parking lot. Aside from the very pretty pink clouds, the skyline is populated by 467 Elgin, the Ottawa Police headquarters at 474 Elgin, and the small office building at 100 Argyle.

This past Monday, the Museum of Nature had a meeting about the future of its west parking lot. I'm composing this before the meeting, but presumably they are presenting the latest iteration of their plan to renege on their promise to reinstate the west lawn as a public park. They promise to post the latest plans to nature.ca/west.

By the way, you can see my three-part tour of the Museum of Nature as it appeared on the day it reopened after years of construction. Start your tour with part 1.

P.S.: Speaking of sunsets, don't forget about the second edition of Nuit Blanche Ottawa Gatineau tomorrow night, 6:21pm to 4:22am!

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3D Thursday: Accessible McNabb

McNabb Park Community Centre has been having some work done on the front of the building (although the "front" is set far back from Percy Street). I believe they're installing an accessibility lift to provide access to the basement and main floor, so you don't have to wheel yourself up the long ramp.

Source photos for the 3D image: Left, Right

Incidentally, there is an ongoing public consultation on the redevelopment of McNabb Park.

I took the above photo on my way home from purchasing my new camera, a waterproof Sony Cybershot the size of a small wallet. It ostensibly has a "3D mode" which uses software to extrapolate depth information from multiple rapid exposures at different focus settings, but the "3D" photo it creates is very shallow, and doesn't beat exposures from two separate points.

I had two cameras of the previous model I used (a Pentax Optio W series) which allowed me to take two simultaneous photos side-by-side. This meant I could take photos of moving objects and people (like so), but so far I only have the one Sony camera, which will limit my 3D photo-taking opportunities. Luckily I have a lot of them banked up.

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Wings over North Centretown

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while. In June and July I was busy with Bluesfest, and at the end of July I lost two months' worth of photos to a massive hard disk failure.

So that kind of set me back a bit. Plus: hey, it's summer! But as things return to 'normal' I figured I should try to get my blog schedule back on track. I'll start off easy.

Here's a photo of the north-west sector of Centretown (the first definition here), looking east on Nepean Street from the hill near Bronson Avenue. At the upper-right, you can see the biplane that is another sign of summer:

Straight ahead is Centennial Public School, which had 21 trees planted earlier this summer thanks to the CCCA's Trees & Greenspace Committee, which worked to get the City of Ottawa to plant them.

Beyond that is May Nickson Place, a red-brick Ottawa Community Housing highrise on Gloucester Street, which will be sandwiched by even taller condos under construction on either side (the tower crane is for 224 Lyon).

Beyond that is the steeple of St. Patrick's Basilica, which is flanked by two CCOC towers at 210 Gloucester and the corresponding address on Nepean. The sides of those buildings blend into the Place Bell behemoth at 160 Elgin Street, which also has two highrise developments under construction on either side, although these are across the street.

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3D Thursday: 1966 Batmobile at Ottawa City Hall in 3D

This mornming, the Batmobile is visiting City Hall as a publicity stunt for Ottawa Comicon, and will be at Marion Dewar Plaza at 11:45am. I grabbed a 3D shot of it as it was being prepared for its appearance. Click for full size:

I also tweeted a photo of four By-Law officers (including a By-Law supervisor) eyeing the car, but none of them were up to giving it a parking ticket.
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Cruising on Elgin

The Ottawa Police Service has new cruisers, based on the Ford Taurus, rather than the familiar Ford Crown Victoria, which has been discontinued. As reported by the Citizen, these were released in February, after a technical hiccup.

Here's one heading up Elgin Street in front of the former Elgin Theatre (now Harvey's, Quizno's, and Johnny Farina)

Back last July, the Ottawa Sun wrote about the new cruisers, and a video on their article gives a tour of some of the features inside.

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