Late August flooding of Brooks Hall ruins scientific data and research, total repair cost undetermined

The water leak in Brooks Hall over the summer had much more of an impact than some moldy ceiling panels and soggy paperwork.

Geology professor Kathleen Benison lost several salt samples obtained during an excursion to Australia. The samples, which were acquired through a grant to hire a drilling team to harvest the salt, would cost more than $100,000 to replace.

“When we have grant projects, they’re almost like a contract,” Benison said. “Some of that work I just can’t do because of the loss. It was a lot of logistics, time and energy to get these samples. I lost some of them to the flood and they’re really irreplaceable.”

She said the flood also greatly affects research time, an asset incredibly important during the summer months.

“It’s our focus time,” she said. “We’ve really lost three summers of research time. There are biology faculty who have lost years of data. I think our building is outdated for what we do — for doing science.”

Effects on the department

Biology Department Chairman Stephen Roberts said the flood tremendously affected a large volume of scientific research, data and samples.

“It certainly delays the progress of those students in their degree program and it delays the overall goals and outcomes of these research projects,” he said. “This can have a significant impact obviously on student success, overall career success of the students and the advisers, and on the possibility of refunding from our major funding agencies when goals are not met.”

Roberts said Central Michigan University is agreeable to some sort of compensation for those affected by the flood, but no details have been set in stone.

Steve Smith, director of public relations, said most of the rehabilitative work in Brooks Hall is complete and total costs for repairs have not yet been determined.

Plainwell senior Autumn Haagsma planned on spending her summer doing geology lab work and research for her senior thesis which was about the affects of acid in an Australian lake.

However, faulty piping in Brooks Hall flooded the building with more than 40,000 gallons of water on June 4 and ruined her plans.

“The geology department seems to have bad luck during the summer,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “This was the second summer when my research was delayed. Last summer it was construction and this summer it was the flood.”

Haagsma received a summer scholarship from CMU’s Summer Scholar program.

The scholarship is a $3,000 stipend that can be used to cover any expenses under the requirement the recipient spend at least 20 hours a week doing research.

She said she has to work twice as much to get her research done in time since she couldn’t do much during the summer.

“I am concerned that the setback will influence the quality of my work,” she said. “I am also concerned that I will not have a sufficient amount of data to defend my thesis well.”