A story of flood, ice and fire
(Note: this is not an old story from 2024 - stay tuned as Ben transports us from time spent at Casey to the present at Mawson).
Nearly 2 years ago to the day, the third chapter of a terrifying, and still rather painful story was unfolding for the 77th at Casey. Whispers were just starting to make their way around station; our beloved hydro (hydroponics) was in the middle of its third catastrophic event in just 8 months…it was on fire.
Chapter 1: The Flood
Four months earlier, the beginning of what would become a series of unfortunate events was unfolding without anyone being the slightest bit aware. It was an unusually cloudy day for Casey, usually known for its year-round beautiful blue skies and stunning auroras, so most of us were enjoying a quiet weekend indoors. The only ones of us venturing outdoors that weekend were those needing to for work, on-call or secondary duties. Hydro was one those secondary duties, and thankfully all year our team was punctual and never missed a shift. Due to this, punctual as ever, one of the team was heading out for their usual Saturday morning shift only to discover a giant waterfall coming from the entire perimeter of the building. Also, surrounding the building was a brand new, almost perfect, ice rink. As they skated their way across the ice to reach the door, they were met with a building with over 10 cm of water all over the floor and a new water feature in nearly every corner of the building.
After shutting the water down and getting the plumbers involved it was discovered that 5 fittings had simultaneously let go and water was coming out each one at full flow, for an unknown amount of time. To this day I believe it is unknown exactly what caused it, except possibly a water hammer event or random spike in pressure. What is known is how much water we lost, 20,000 litres, and how hard it was to get that water back. Despite Antarctica being home to 70% of the worlds fresh water, it requires a huge amount of energy and labour for us to make just enough water to get by, and keep our reserves topped up.
Chapter 2: Ice
Just over a month later the second and arguably worst of the catastrophic events was unfolding, and this one was truly a series of unfortunate events. Also, a great example of the Swiss Cheese Model.
The hydro roster involved morning and evening checks, one person in the morning and a different person in the evening. The series of events begins with the evening checks of one particular Friday, that just so happened to coincide with one of our monthly Friday social events, a Guitar Hero Competition. Oh, and I was totally lying earlier when I said we were punctual and never missed a shift. The evening check that Friday was missed, followed by the Saturday morning check also being missed, due to a ‘sore head’. Meaning the first time someone stepped foot into hydro since early Friday morning was 5 pm Saturday afternoon. During this time the power, including heating, had tripped to the building and everything froze…everything. The plants, the water pipes, everything. Why didn’t we get our usual alarms paging our on-call team to let them know there was a problem? This was found to be off for an unknown reason.
Months and months of hard work, and our only source of fresh food was gone instantly. The water was turned off, building left to warm up and we returned back to the living quarters (Redshed) that evening feeling very deflated. The next morning, just to add insult to injury, we discovered we’d lost another 20,000 litres of water. The pipes had actually frozen and split outside the building as well. We didn’t realise the power for the outdoor pipe heating, keeping the pipes warm outside, was actually fed from hydro itself, not the adjacent building, meaning it had been off the whole time too. A series of unfortunate events…that looking back, all could have been avoided.
Chapter 3: Fire
Fast-forward another 3 months, hydro is once again flourishing. All the plants are finally starting to mature and we are just starting to harvest the very first of our tomatoes and cucumbers. This was a real high point for the team as no longer having a water supply to the building had made it particularly hard to reach this point again. Huge props to the team for the effort just to get here. This, however, was an incredibly short lived high. Yes, you guessed it, catastrophic event number 3…fire.
It was another unusually cloudy Saturday morning at Casey, (I’ve only just realised while writing this that every single one of these events was a Saturday morning…interesting) and I was walking towards the Redshed with one of the sparkys. I remember looking over at hydro and saying “Huh that’s weird, does hydro normally have steam coming from the roof vent?”. They were also confused, and then it instantly clicked in my head, “I don’t think that’s steam".
We raced over, while thinking back to our pre-departure fire training, grabbed a fire extinguisher on the way and instantly killed power to the building as we arrived. As we opened the door there was a layer of smoke up near the ceiling and we could straight away make out an orange glow in the first grow room. We entered, staying below the smoke layer and found one of the grow lights on fire. Only a very small fire, but enough to spread smoke into all the grow rooms. We used the extinguisher to put the fire out and got out of there.
Once the smoke had settled, we could inspect the damage. For those who have seen a dry chem fire extinguisher go off, you can imagine the mess it caused in such a small space. Once again, due to the toxic smoke and extinguisher chemicals, our plants were no more. After getting confirmation from experts back in Australia, they had to be removed and the space cleaned. It was heartbreaking. We were gutted. Once again, our only source of fresh food was gone. By this point it had been 8-9 months of nothing but frozen food, with the odd trickle of hydro produce, and now almost not enough time to try again.
Chapter 4: Mawson
Now, 2 years later, I’m here at Mawson with the 79th for my second winter season…and call me crazy but I put my hand up as one of the hydroponics co-ordinators.
I couldn’t let what happened last season happen again, and for that reason I have poured my heart and soul into hydro this year. Spending nearly every spare moment I had the first month we got here to try and make sure we were set up for success, and to have non-stop fresh produce all year round. I’ve also had two extra bluetooth sensors set up that send the temperature directly to my phone, alarming me the second it gets slightly cool in there...I swear this is totally healthy, I’m fine.
It seems to have paid off. We’ve now got a team that makes up around 2/3 of the station population rostered on, putting in the hours keeping the place looking lush. These guys actually are punctual and never miss a shift, and this time I’m not lying…okay maybe one or two.
Since the first month we arrived we’ve had a continuous flow of different lettuces each and every week. We’ve also had a steady supply of some other greens like mint, parsley and spring onions, while we waited for our flowering plants to catch up. Within the last month they’ve caught up, and they’re only just getting started. Snow peas, tomatoes, cucumbers and jalapenos have been paying back that hard work generously. For the last few weeks there’s been a consistent supply for everyone at lunch and dinner. Also, our chef is incredible at finding ways to make it taste even better than how incredible it already tastes fresh.
I’m pretty sure I speak for the whole team here when I say; a tomato, cucumber, piece of lettuce, or really anything grown in our little metal box in the middle of one of the most aggressive environments on earth, just tastes better. Dragging yourself outside the toasty warm Redshed and along the hydro blizz line when its blowing 60 knts and -25°C, all of a sudden becomes worth it when you arrive at lunch to see a fresh bowl of lettuce and tomatoes…the ‘fruits’ of your labour.
It’s hard to believe after those horrifying events all those years ago, that still haunt me every night, we now have an absolute producing machine this year at Mawson. The night terrors of Casey might finally come to an end.
Just like their time in the darts comp.
Ben Graham, Mawson plumber
