Word: steams
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...main entrance to Harvard's labyrinthine network of steam tunnels, the myths seem credible enough. A discreet door at the corner of the Science Center belies the cavernous two-story room behind it: a blast of warm air and the loud rush of machinery engulf the visitor as the door swings shut on a familiar world that is light, breezy and boundless. Inside, the huge water tanks that dwarf green-uniformed workers and the computer control room could grace the set of any James Bond science fiction scenario...
Those who know the tunnels--the B&G workers who service the pipes, and Thomas Tribal, Harvard's manager of Energy and Systems-rarely spin such yarns, and instead speak of the utility of these energy-efficient heating highways. Behind this steam screen of infamy and intrigue is really an emphatically nuts and bolts operation that supplies heat to most of the University...
Roughly two miles of underground tunnels house the pipes that carry steam from the Cambridge Steam plant near Harvard's Peabody Terrace apartments to almost all University buildings, excluding the medical area. Steam runs through the pipes to individual campus halls and houses, as far north as the Law School and biology labs as well as across the river to the Business School, and is returned to the plant as condense water, formed from the cooled steam...
...them around the clock. Two men work full-time in the tunnels, and other shifts are rotated between a group of Buildings and Grounds workers. Workers fix leaks, operate valves and inspect the pipes, paying special attention to the pipe joints which expand and contract in response to the steam's heat. Failure of these joints to slide freely could create safety hazard, says Chester P. White, one of the two full-time tuneless. "If a line ever went there'd be no getting out" he warns...
News of the planned boycott at the law school provoked a flurry of passionate editorial response, cropping up in papers as far away as Honolulu. Far from quieting down with time, the controversy seemed to pick up steam as new columns and letters continued to appear more than one month after the story became public...