Man and his holes

>> The thin rust-red line between civilization and its vast underground of cables, pipes and human filth

by PHILIP PREVILLE

Photos by Gunther Gamper

The reason man-hole covers are round is because, thanks to the miracle of pi, they can't fall into their own hole. The steel circles weigh anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds each, and you don't want one to accidentally fall on someone's head.

There at least 150,000 man-holes scattered across Montreal, all leading to the underground domain of certified technicians and skilled labourers.

The little bell in the centre of this cover designates, of course, Bell Canada. Bell actually has its own subterranian network, although--believe it or not--they have no idea how many of kilometres of tunnel or how many man-holes they own. Hydro-Quebec also has its own network for high-voltage power lines, and the government maintains its own tunnels on federal lands (the port, railyards and so on). Bell's network is actually a remnant of days gone by: when they were a monopoly they could afford their own tunnels, but now they do business with...

...the Montreal Electrical Services Commission (MESC), which builds integrated tunnel networks for phone, cable and electricity lines, closed-circuit networks, you-name-it. The MESC network includes 15,000 man-holes for 600 kilometres of tunnel. Each type of cable gets its own tunnel, only four inches in diameter; if you line them all up end-to-end, the MESC has over 19,200 kilometres of tunnel--almost enough to stretch around the world. Because this network must remain as dry as possible, it is kept separate from...

...the city's waterworks system. For drinking water, the city has 20,000 man-holes for over 2,500 kilometres of water pipes. Then there's the sewer system: another 2,500 kilometres of sewage troughs, with 47,000 man-holes of their own. And finally, there's these babies: the rain collectors, over 85,000 of them scattered across 2,400 kilometres of roads and back alleys. In most areas of Montreal, the rainwater goes to the main sewer pipes and is treated before being released into the river.

Final factoid: In east-end Pointe-Aux-Trembles, the sewer and rain-collector networks are separate; sewage is treated, but the rainwater goes straight into the river. Problem: the sewer pipes for some PAT residential developments have been connected to the rainwater system, which means their raw sewage is being dumped into the river. The city intends to fix the problem within the next five years. Thankfully, the problem is located downstream from the city's drinking-water intake system.