Delta College again has heat after the fourth pipeline-related failure since the beginning of 2026. A pipeline issue resulted in the closure of the Stockton main campus for three business days.
As of the afternoon of Feb. 25, there is heat on campus.
“What I can tell you is that the heat is on, it was turned on earlier today,” said Alex Breitler, director of Marketing and Communications, on Feb. 25. “We’re monitoring it just to see how it goes.”
That wasn’t the case on Feb. 24 when campus reopened. Work was still being done on a large section of pipes along North Burke Bradley Road. At one point Tuesday morning the system was turned back on and water erupted from the pipelines, flooding the hole dug out to reach the failing pipes.
At the time of publication, it remains unclear how the issues were resolved.
The prolonged closure was on the heels of a five-day weekend, meaning campus was only open for one day, Wednesday, Feb. 18 during that week.
College officials sent out a notice to reopen campus late Monday, Feb. 23, but encouraged staff and students to dress “warmly.” The intent was to have the system running by the start of the business day on Feb. 24.
“Unfortunately, the repair completed yesterday to an underground heating pipe on the north side of campus did not hold. Heat remains unavailable in most buildings, and we are actively exploring alternative solutions,” read an email to students from Feb. 24.
The lack of heating did not result in further campus closures, with the email citing improving weather as a reason.
“With outside temperatures rising into the mid-to-upper 60s — and possibly topping 70 degrees later this week — the weather is considerably warmer than when the campus closure began last week” said the email.
The past two months have been tumultuous for the Delta College campus as continuous HVAC issues have led to lack of heat and campus closures.
The issues began in early January with HVAC being unavailable for a period of three days, this outage led to campus being closed Jan. 6-9. Jan. 9 marked the beginning of the semester. Faculty were encouraged to move coursework online temporarily.
The issue was initially isolated to the Shima building on Dec. 30, but efforts to repair the issues led to the discovery of a larger issue.
“It snowballed,” said Stacy Pinola, the college’s director of facilities, planning, and maintenance. “The Facilities team assembled on Friday, Jan. 2 to make the repair only to find that we had a larger problem at the Central Plant and that the entire campus had no heat.”
This issue was resolved after the county superintendent of schools, Troy A. Brown approved an emergency contract to conduct repairs on Jan. 15, which the board unanimously voted to approve during a Jan. 20 meeting.
This remains one of three instances when HVAC was discussed at board since issues began, with the second and third being related to the Measure K bond project.
Problems persisted.
Another outage occurred on Friday, Jan. 23 following damage to the outgoing line that occurred after previous repairs. Heat was restored by Monday, Jan. 25 in that instance.
Pinola cited the age of the pipes as the source of the issues with most of the pipes in the area being installed over 30 years ago.
The vintage pipes would also cause the next outage which occurred on Feb. 3, following damage to the intake pipe in the same area as the
Pinola told Collegian staff that an effort to replace the line was to be made during the five-day weekend that began on Feb. 13.
“We’re shooting to have the work done over the five-day break in a week and a half, to do it over that holiday break,” said Pinola on Feb. 3.
It is unclear if that work took place, and campus was closed on the evening of Feb. 18 after a single day back and remained closed for the following five days. This left a period of two weeks where only one day of on-campus instruction was held.
