page_title: Sooke Flowline
section_title: Maintenance
hierarchical_section_title: Sooke Flowline / Maintenance
caption_attribution_description: English: Pipe damage.
context_page_description: The Sooke Flowline is an abandoned 44-kilometre concrete aqueduct that snakes through the Sooke Hills from Sooke Lake to the Humpback Reservoir near Mt. Wells Regional Park. From this reservoir, a buried, riveted steel pressure main transported water to Victoria. In between 1994 and 2007, this main was replaced since it was long past its useful life. The flowline was vital to the continued growth of the City of Victoria as it provided a reliable water supply.
  Elk Lake used to be the water supply for Victoria and when the Colquitz River was dammed, it merely flooded the swamp and merged Elk and Beaver Lakes. Unfortunately the intake was at the swampy, shallow end of the reservoir. In the early 1900s, it was determined that Elk/Beaver Lake could no longer meet Victoria's water needs. The daily draw from the lake was just too great and despite measures taken to buy time, such as filter ponds, the pressure and supply was too little and sediment and amphibians were getting drawn out through the lake's intake.
context_section_description: During the flowline's operation, caretakers lived along the route in small cabins; many of them are still there today. They rode recumbent tricycles on the pipe with tilted rear wheels to stay on top. During their routes they were on the lookout for cracks in the pipe, leaky joints and trespassers.
  Every 600 metres (660 yards) or so there are access hatches. These were meant for periodic maintenance from the inside by workers. A man would lie prone on a cart and scrape moss off the inside of the pipe and clear sediments, rocks and dead fish which inevitably backed up in places. Placed on top of these hatches were wire mesh domes, which reduced pressure build up and helped aerate the water.
caption: Another example demonstrating the vulnerability of the pipe.
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