UW-Madison declares chilled water emergency

The chilled water systems that cool buildings at UW–Madison are unable to keep up with demand of recent extreme heat and humidity, and Physical Plant officials have declared a chilled water emergency that could last for at least another day.

To ensure that those buildings housing animals, scientific experiments and highly specialized equipment stay cool, several other buildings have had their chilled water supply shut off until further notice.

The shutoff affects more than a dozen buildings, including Bascom and Agriculture halls and the Helen C. White, Wendt and Steenbock libraries. This afternoon, Memorial Union, Union South and the Kohl Center were added to the list.

As a result, supervisors in those buildings are expected to honor reasonable requests from their employees to leave work early. Employees will need to use vacation, available holiday time, leave without pay or accrued compensatory time (if applicable), or will have to make arrangements with their supervisors to make up the time.

If a class is cancelled due to untenable conditions in the classroom, the instructor should make every effort to reschedule it at a later date, university officials say.

Supervisors are encouraged to make accommodations to relieve conditions for employees who remain at work, such as allowing them to move to other buildings when possible.

Physical Plant associate director Faramarz Vakili is asking employees campuswide to take all possible measures to reduce heat loads and chilled water consumption in their buildings.

Those measures include:

• Turning off excess lighting and utilizing natural daylight whenever possible.
• Shutting off equipment such as personal computers, copies and appliances when not in use.
• Making sure windows and exterior doors are shut in air-conditioned spaces.
• Making smart use of blinds and window shades to reduce air infiltration.
• Closing the sash on fume hoods.