Passersby waved the air in front of their faces. Daniel Jackson, a security guard for the David O. McKay Library and a junior studying economics, smiled as students quickened their steps to pass the scene and its accompanying odor.

Four people stood across from Jackson in the midst of a collection of plumbing equipment, intent on the work in front of them. The four individuals unanimously agreed that no clogged drinking fountain is capable of creating a smell that could daunt them anymore.

The four members of the BYU-Idaho plumbing crew responded to a call about a backed-up drinking fountain in the library last Thursday. Water was pooling near the fountain when they arrived. Water seeped from the drinking fountain and the pipe in the wall beside it.

They successfully removed the clog with a rotating, snake-like tool that George Archibald, a full-time member of the crew, estimated was about 100 feet long. A tool at the end of the snake twisted out of shape and black water briefly gushed from the pipe before the problem was resolved.

“Sometimes there’s crazy stuff in there and it ends up bending [the tool]. But that’s a cheap piece. We can buy other ones,” said Alejandro Gonzalez, a part-time member of the crew.

Gonzalez said they were at the scene for two and a half hours. The four members worked in unison, one feeding the snake into the wall. The others helped him operate the snake, fetched buckets of water and tested their progress by pouring them into the fountain.

Gonzalez explained that so much water was backed up because another drinking fountain directly above on the second floor is connected to the leaking fountain on the first floor. Whenever the one on the second floor was used, the fountain on the first floor filled with its residual water.

Craig Forbush, a full-time member of the crew, explained that the low flow created by people using drinking fountains isn’t enough to sufficiently scour the pipes and prevent clogs from happening. Jackson said that the fountain is notorious for clogging and that it has been having problems as far back as sometime last semester.

Sometimes the snake can’t push a clog all the way through a pipe and out of the way. “Sometimes people put in weird stuff,” Gonzalez said. “When we retrieve the machine, some stuff comes [with] the machine, like paper clips and things like that.”

While the other three members began gathering equipment and tools after the job was done, Forbush called someone to let them know what had happened to the surrounding carpet. Nathan Wood, another full-time crew member, said that he was contacting someone to clean and take out any remaining odors once they left the scene.

Archibald wanted students to know that what they put into the plumbing makes a difference for everyone who uses the facilities after them, not just
the plumbers.

 “Never put anything in the toilet that’s not supposed to be there,” Archibald said.

The crew performs maintenance on all campus buildings, including housing. There is always one plumber on call on Saturdays and Sundays in case of emergencies.

Usually only one plumber is needed to fix a problem.

“But when there are lots of crazy stuff going on, we all put our efforts together to try to figure it out,” Gonzalez said. “Today, it turned kind of crazy.”