This blog is generally in favour of accessibility and a flexible attitude to public space, but perhaps there are some corners of the city that should remain firmly closed. One of those is the McTavish Reservoir, one of the largest reservoirs of potable water in the city. In 2007, the city invested about $9 million in renovating and upping the security on the McTavish reservoir in order to prevent contamination and possible terrorism.
But the folks who engineered the security measures clearly didn’t have much experience navigating Montreal’s ancient sewer system underground. Their security measures were no match for urban explorer, Controleman. He recently discovered that all one has to do is cross the street to find an access route to the McTavish Reservoir and its 37 million gallons of fresh water.
“J’ai bel et bien été en mesure d’y retourner après l’ajout de sécurité, la seule différence était qu’au lieu d’entrer directement sur le terrain du réservoir, on passe sur la rue en face!” he wrote in a recent email.
On his photography blog, Controleman shared his mixed feelings about finding this essential resource so vulnerable, and the repercussions of making his discovery public.
J’ai longuement pensée au conséquence d’écrire un tel texte, autant pour ma personne que pour le bien ou le mal de la population. Le fait d’être en mesure de me trouver aussi proche, et si facilement d’une ressource essentielle a la vie, prête à la distribution, m’a hantée trop longtemps pour que je recule en arrière. J’aimerais ne jamais avoir pénétré ces murs de roches…
J’pas trop certain, j’vais encore me faire blaster, pis pourquoi j’aiderais un gars qui fait 4 fois mon salaire à l’heure quand c’est nous qui c’est tapé toute la sale job?
Note to the city’s engineers: if they can beat you, perhaps you should invite them to join you.
What do you think? Does this represent a dangerous security risk? Is it even possible to reliably safeguard urban infrastructure?
Photo: McTavish Reservoir by Controleman
11 comments
To be fair to the city, it seems as though they did install additional security features between this particular tunnel and the reservoir itself. I won’t say what that entailed, but let’s just say that if you were to walk into the area containing the storage tanks, someone would be alerted. The only question is how long it would take for security to get there in order to investigate the situation further. Five minutes? Ten minutes? Half an hour? I have no idea.
I have been down there. With a group of friends. We watched a film, drank cocktails, had a party… in 2005, for fun. Three hours. No guard.
Frankly, I laughed when I learned that they were going to secure the area…most of the money seems to have gone into a fence.
And no, I dont think you can secure this kind of infrastructure. In any case, not by preventing people from infiltrating the containment area, shown in the photograph. If someone were planning bad things they would be better off doing it from the surface.
Best not to draw any attention to this at all, because it just invites trouble. Or, just add the area to a McGill security guard’s route, and bob’s your uncle.
Being a previous McGill Security guard, I can tell you that response time is rather quick. 5 minutes or less for foot and car patrol. Especially since the security office is right across the street.
Unless officials were blatantly ignoring information re this security risk, there was no need to go public with it… Unless embarrassing the city was part of the agenda, this story will likely inspire more urban explorers to test the boundaries of just how far they can go – A potentially dangerous game…
I must admit I did make it public so the city may end up knowing this. Who’s ready to pay for something that don’t work? If they can’t make it right, then don’t make it. Why am I paying tax for that? I’ll make it for 20 bucks and it’s gonna be better.
As for the guard time response; I’ve already went off from the reservoir right in front of his face and he never bother to come ask what I was doing there. I might be underestimating guards, but hell, catch me if you can. I’m not trying to be pretentious or whatelse, but hey, who’ve been looking at this? That’s really a crappy job!
It is impossible to secure such space from terrorism, but if a city is about to spend millions on that, please make sure students can’t make it to there. At least.
Pis quelqu’un pourrait aller pisser dans notre eau potable.
Ou voir même pire : déféquer dans notre eau potable!
It’s relevant to note that accessing the interior of the reservoir is not the same as accessing the potable water within. It’s not like there’s a lake in there. You would have to have considerable expertise and/or equipment to do anything naughty in there.
Yeah, good point. I guess that part might not be obvious to those who don’t know how things are set up in there.
If they want to do it, they should do it right.