How an 'act of neglect' put national treasures at risk in 1990
Water pipe burst at the National Archives, but archivists came to the rescue
Federal archivists heard the news and sprang into action, as they knew water and old paper were not a good match.
They also knew the time would come — as it did on the evening of July 4, 1990 — when water was going to cause the National Archives of Canada (NAC) some big problems at its aging building on Wellington Street in Ottawa.
The CBC's Denise Harrington reported that the water pipe burst in the building above a vault where many old maps were stored.
"There were no drains, so some documents were permanently stained," Harrington told viewers on The National, the day after the incident.
Water inside vault
Ed Dahl, a map specialist, was among the archivists who scrambled to save documents in the vault from the water.
"We opened the door and that's where the water was really gushing in," he told CBC News.
The Canadian Press reported that the burst pipe had left 100 of Canada's oldest atlases soaked. Some 2,000 books were damaged by the water as well.
Harrington noted "this isn't the first time water has leaked on documents here and the archivists are frustrated."
As National Archivist Jean-Pierre Wallot explained, the building had needed repairs for some time. But those repairs had not been dealt with and this was the result.
"Of course, this is not an act of God, it's an act of neglect," Wallot told CBC News.
It could have been worse
According to what the archivists told Harrington, the damage to Canada's collection of historic documents and artifacts could have been worse.
Historians and archivists didn't want to see anything like that happen again.
"Repairs to the archives building have been delayed over and over again because of government cutbacks and there's no final decision yet on whether to construct a new building," said Harrington.
"In the meantime, the government says it's doing its best to protect historical documents in a building it admits is out of date," she added.
The NAC opened a Preservation Centre in Gatineau, Que., in 1997.
According to the Globe and Mail, the purchase of the land had been approved in 1989, but plans to temporarily relocate the collection until the new building was complete were delayed in a cost-cutting move.
