The facilities staff will drain the water garden known as the Harper Humanities Garden when the weather turns cold, and the goldfish, which have multiplied during the warm months, will be placed in a special tank over winter.

The emptying of the popular feature on the west side of Mary Reed Hall is done every year on a weather-permitting basis. The fish make it a difficult process to drain, while the students can make it a difficult process to maintain the waterfall, stream, and pond because of vandalism, said David Snyder, campus operation director.

“It will take the facilities staff about three days to drain the pond and it is not an easy task,” said Snyder.

Last year, hundreds of goldfish that were drained with the water floated up in the storm gutters outside Johnson-McFarlane Hall as students tried frantically to save them.

Snyder said the workers will drain the pond to a certain point, before they take out the fish and aquatic plants.

During the winter, the fish will be stored in the third pond from the highest where they are given heat and aeration, while the plants will be covered.

“(Last year’s problem) was a miscommunication of the different departments and hopefully will not happen again,” said Snyder.

Snyder said that since the fish thrive, it takes workers eight to 12 hours to capture all of them. It is not known how many fish live in the pond, but the estimate is about 3,000.

There is also a thick silt layer on the bottom of the pond, which has collected over the years, and this makes it difficult for workers to see the fish.

The Facilities Management Department puts much effort into maintaining the beauty of the pond. The department deals with vandalism of the aquatic plants and water, which ultimately affect the fish as well.

University of Denver magazine, the alumni quarterly publication, said in an article that $1.9 million was spent in 2005 to update the garden’s landscape and aquatic plants from around the world. Due to student vandalism, however, all of the plants did not survive.

“Every couple of years we will get vandalism. In 2006, we had about 3,000 fish in the pond and then someone thought it would be funny to put soap in the pond and we ended up with about 8 fish left,” said Snyder.

Snyder and the Faculties Management Department are hoping for no problems with the draining process this year.