Friday Focus: UAF improvement through Facilities Services

Working at UAF, building new facilities, and making major improvements and repairs, is the coolest job ever. After two years of planning, some good luck with the weather, and the teamwork of many skilled workers, this outage allowed UAF Facilities Services to take the steam system down (impacting heat and hot water) to execute several critical improvements. This was the longest heating and hot water outage we have ever executed. The work we accomplished in those two weeks now allows us to systematically update the steam piping system without campus-wide outages. While the snowfall on the first day did have us making some quick adjustments, the amazing resilience and grace of our Nanook community kept our momentum moving forward, pushing this first critical phase of repairs to be completed on time. We are happy to report all systems are up and running again, and future outages are likely to be shortened as a result of this work. This type of work, especially on systems and buildings that our UAF community relies on, requires a lot of planning and precision to execute. Continue reading the Friday Focus.

Warming Arctic expanding salmon range via 'open gates'

New research has connected warming ocean temperatures to higher Pacific salmon abundance in the Canadian Arctic, an indicator that climate change is creating new corridors for the fish to expand their range. Learn more about the study.