Lake Paly, as the large puddle in the Embarcadero Parking lot of Palo Alto High School is known among students, will soon cease to exist thanks to measures taken by the administration.

The buildup of water renders the Town and Country side of the the Embarcadero parking lot inaccessible for several weeks during the rainy season. Workers are installing new drainage piping to deal with this problem. In order to do so, workers dug a deep trench in front of the pedestrian crossing to Town and Country.

Lake Paly already has a storm drain in place, however, its lower diameter and increasing age have made it ineffective in eliminating rain runoff. According to Principal Phil Winston, higher diameter pipes and a holding tank are being installed to manage the water.

“They [the workers] are replacing old storm drains with larger diameter storm drains,” Winston said. “They’re also digging a sort of holding tank that will be underground so that the water will go to that holding tank, and when that holding tank fills up, my understanding is that then it will start to drain out.”

The administration hopes the new system will handle the rainfall much better than the antiquated pipes currently in place.

“They’re [the current pipes] small and they’re very, very old,” Winston said.

The parking lot construction has been in progress for about a week and is expected to finish soon, according to Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson.