Sooke Flowline

In 1912, the city of Victoria expropriated forty property owners on Sooke Lake and on the proposed flowline right-of-way (ROW), at significant cost. The city hired the Pacific Lock Joint Pipe Company to cast the pipe segments, and using their patented design, constructed the pipeline. In between 1911 and 1915, this major engineering project employed over 400 workers and housed their families in rural Sooke. The pipe is almost completely at a constant elevation. Although figures vary, the slope from Sooke Lake to Humpback is between 0.0947% and 0.119% when the inverted siphons are excluded.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

At the factory located at Coopers Cove, the site of today's Stickleback Bar and Grill, round concrete segments, 36,000 in all, were mass-produced. The engineering firm Sanderson and Porter specified 40-inch pipe, but the company already had 42-inch molds made up, so they decided to use them instead. The factory was very efficient and used steam to accelerate the curing of the concrete segments. In one eight-hour shift, 150–160 segments were produced. The segments were winched up the hill {{convert|450|ft|m|0}} above the construction site.{{cite book |title=At The End of the Trail From Victoria|last=Hall|first=Del|publisher=Cougar Press Editions|year=1989|location=Victoria|asin=B002IGIN76}} Three small locomotives were used to bring segments to both ends via a temporary {{RailGauge|2ft|lk=on}} gauge railway, and the pipe was constructed from the ends to the midpoint.{{cite book |title=The New Water Supply System of Victoria British Columbia|publisher=Sanderson and Porter Engineers|year=1915|location=New York}} At the ends, tripod derricks would unload the segments and place them on the crushed railbed while the tracks were removed. All trees on the {{convert|100|ft|m|1|abbr=on}} right-of-way were cleared so that they could not fall and crush the pipe.

{{wide image|Flowline Panoramic - Copy.jpg|1200px|Panorama of the Sooke Flowline looking east above the Sooke River near today's Sooke Potholes Regional Park}}

During the flowline's operation, caretakers lived along the route in small cabins. They rode recumbent tricycles on the pipe with tilted rear wheels to stay on top. During their routes, they were on the lookout for cracks in the pipe, leaky joints, and trespassers.{{Cite book|last=Peers|first=Elida|title=The Sooke Story: the history and the heartbeat|publisher=Sooke Region Museum|year=1999|isbn=0-9694942-2-X|location=Sooke, BC|pages=191}}

Every {{convert|600|m|yd|abbr=none}} or so, there are access hatches meant for periodic maintenance from the inside by workers. A man would lie prone on a cart and scrape moss off the inside of the pipe and clear sediments, rocks, and dead fish, which inevitably backed up in places. Installed on top of these hatches were wire mesh domes, which reduced pressure buildup and helped aerate the water.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

File:Leaking Sooke Flowline, Vancouver Island, Canada.jpg

File:Pipedamage.JPG

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The flowline was never highly efficient. When the taps were opened in 1915, the water that came through was of high quality, but it was soon discovered that it experienced 50–75% water loss throughout its length, depending on the season and temperature. During summer however, the leaking was slightly reduced. This needed to be remedied by placing strips of material across the joints and fastening them with iron bands. A further challenge occurred in the winter of 1915–16. Parts of the newly constructed pipe got taken out by landslides, and repair was difficult, since the construction railway no longer existed. When the city began to outgrow demand, the pipe section from Sooke to the Humpback Reservoir was decommissioned, in 1970. The pipe had begun to show its age, with many leaks and damage from falling trees and rocks. It was then replaced with the {{convert|8.8|km|mi|abbr=on}} Kapoor Tunnel, bored through solid rock to the Japan Gulch Disinfection Plant, near Goldstream Provincial Park.

The portion of the old pipe from Sooke Lake to Sooke remained in service after the Humpback Reservoir section was decommissioned. It was routinely patrolled to make sure marijuana grow ops weren't tapping into the pipe and to do periodic patching up as best as possible, but it still had many leaks. Damage had also resulted from falling rocks and trees, and there were concerns about its ability to survive a major earthquake. Finally in late 2009, it was replaced with a PVC pipe buried under the Galloping Goose Regional Trail. This connects to the Sooke River Road Disinfection Facility, which went online in 2009. The facility incorporates ultraviolet disinfection, followed by the addition of chlorine and ammonia.{{cite web|url=http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/engineering/sooke-r-disinfection.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130823234923/www.crd.bc.ca/water/engineering/sooke-r-disinfection.htm|archive-date=August 23, 2013|title=Sooke River Road Disinfection Facility}}

The water department of the Capital Regional District still owns pipe and the approximately {{convert|100|ft|1|abbr=on}} wide corridor, which includes large trees, cliffs, and mossy bluffs.{{citation needed|date=January 2019}}

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There are 54 trestles along the {{convert|44|km|mi|abbr=on}} length of various sizes, spanning ravines. During construction, temporary timber trestles were built alongside the proposed trestles to avoid delays and speed up the building of permanent concrete trestles.

The largest part of the pipeline consists of reinforced concrete segments, which are {{convert|4|by|4|ft|m|2|spell=in}}.

Six concrete trestles are made out of wood staves preserved with creosote and bound with iron bands. These were built to reduce the length around the longest of ravines. The wooden trestles dip down one side of the ravine and go up the other, relying on the downward pressure to push the water back up. These "dipping" trestles, known as "inverted siphons", were initially constructed of concrete as well, but the material is very weak in tension and resulted in cracked segments due to the pressure of {{convert|39.017|psi|kPa|abbr=on|lk=on}} (abs).

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File:Flowerpotpipe.JPG

As a pilot project of the Sooke Region Museum, surplus sections of pipe were laid out at multiple locations around the Sooke townsite, accompanied by interpretive signs and historical photographs. One issue that had to be addressed was the presence of asbestos on the pipe, originally used in the mortar to join pipe segments together.

These segments can be found at the following locations:

• Sooke Region Museum grounds on Phillips Road
• In front of Home Hardware on Sooke Road
• Holy Trinity Church on Murray Road
• Sooke Municipal Hall on Otter Point Road

As part of a beautification project around the CRD, plain electrical boxes were outfitted with decorative images of the pipe trestles. Such examples are at the following locations:

• Helmcken Road and Watkiss Way in View Royal
• Veteran's Memorial Parkway at the E&N crossing in Langford
• Lansdowne and Foul Bay Roads in Oak Bay
• Bay and Pleasant Street in Victoria

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The pipe can be found and accessed at the following locations:

• {{coord|48|26.821|N|123|33.293|W}} – Mt. Wells Regional Park – the pipe terminus is at the Humpback Reservoir (Mt. Wells parking lot), and it twins Humpback Road to Sooke Highway.
• {{coord|48|24.836|N|123|35.138|W}} – parking is located by some mailboxes {{convert|300|m|yd|abbr=off}} south of indicated location.
• {{coord|48|23.991|N|123|38.184|W}} – Glinz Lake Road – drive up the road and park just before the Camp Thunderbird main gate. The pipe crosses the road approximately {{convert|50|m|yd|abbr=off}} south of the gate.
• {{coord|48|23.835|N|123|36.256|W}} – Impala Road – this steep road is best if it's walked up; there is no room to park up the road.
• {{coord|48|24.251|N|123|39.996|W}} – Harbourview Road – there is a CRD parking lot at the end. Continue walking up the road for 15 minutes, where you will see the pipe cross.
• {{coord|48|26.374|N|123|42.976|W}} – Sooke Potholes – the pipe runs north–south to the east of Sooke River.

• Lubbe Powerhouse

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• [https://www.scribd.com/full/39868988?access_key=key-14fwt5vp0bixfqg4rm14 PowerPoint about the Sooke Flowline's historical significance]
• [http://metchosin.wordpress.com/water-line/ Images of the line east and west of Impala Road]

Category:Aqueducts in Canada

Category:History of Victoria, British Columbia

Category:Juan de Fuca region

Category:Transport buildings and structures in British Columbia