The Fleet Street Pumping Station is an historic water pumping station

Pumping station

Pumping stations are facilities including pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another. They are used for a variety of infrastructure systems, such as the supply of water to canals, the drainage of low-lying land, and the removal of sewage to processing sites.A pumping station...

 in Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is located west of downtown in the Lebreton Flats

Lebreton Flats

LeBreton Flats is a neighbourhood in Ottawa, Canada. It lies to the west of Centretown neighbourhood, and to the north of Centretown West with "Nanny Goat Hill" as the dividing line...

 area, near the new Canadian War Museum

Canadian War Museum

The Canadian War Museum is Canada’s national museum of military history. Located in Ottawa, Ontario, the museum covers all facets of Canada’s military past, from the first recorded instances of death by armed violence in Canadian history several thousand years ago to the country’s most recent...

. The building was opened in 1875 as Ottawa's first pumping station. It pumped unfiltered water from the Ottawa River

Ottawa River

The Ottawa River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. For most of its length, it now defines the border between these two provinces.-Geography:...

 in to the city's new water supply system. The structure was designed by Thomas Keefer

Thomas Keefer

Thomas Coltrin Keefer was a Canadian civil engineer.Born into an Empire Loyalist family in Thorold Township, Upper Canada, the son of George Keefer and Jane Emory, née McBride, his father was Chairman of the Welland Shipping Canal Company...

, who designed water systems for many cities in Canada. It has been expanded several times since its construction. Ottawa also has two newer and larger pumping stations: one on Lemieux Island opened in 1917, and one at Britannia that opened in 1961. While most of Ottawa's water comes from these two newer facilities, the Fleet Street Station still plays an important role in the city's water supply. The pumping station, designated as heritage in 1982 under the Ontario Heritage Act

Ontario Heritage Act

The Ontario Heritage Act, first enacted on March 5, 1975, allows municipalities and the provincial government to designate individual properties and districts in the Province of Ontario, Canada, as being of cultural heritage value or interest....

, uses hydraulic power to pump water and is the only one of its kind in Canada still in operation.