City of Rugby employee Andy Hallof lowers a bucket into a basket designed to collect foreign objects in wastewater at a city lift station.

When a survey conducted by personal finance website WalletHub named North Dakota “2022’s Hardest Working State,” the news came as no surprise to City of Rugby public works employees.

Public Works Supervisor Troy Munyer said his department stays busy year-round with daily tasks such as making sure storm drains flow freely, but this summer’s work on water infrastructure and roads has made things even busier.

Munyer talked about his job recently, along with public works employee Andy Hallof and water plant employees Dale Klein and Gary Brossart.

Munyer and Hallof started their day as usual, checking on lift stations, small buildings in different parts of town that control storm and waste water flow by gravity to mains located at a higher elevation.

“Right now, all the water from this area comes into this building to our main, and it gravity flows to the other sections of town to our main lift,” he said.

City water plant operators Dale Klein, left, and Gary Brossart stand next to a computer that controls functions at Rugby’s municipal water plant.

Variety of jobs

Some jobs are less pleasant than others.

“There are baskets inside here that catch everything that shouldn’t be flushed down the toilet,” Munyer said. “We have to empty that basket out and check out the hour meters on (the station).

“We check these daily,” he said of the several stations in all sections of town. “If these stop working, they’ll back up people’s sewers in places.”

Although public works employees pay lots of attention to the city’s water and sewer system, they have a variety of jobs around the city to make sure things run smoothly.

“We’ve got to put up flags this week,” Munyer said as he looked forward to Labor Day. “We fog for mosquitoes; we mow; we spray and crack seal; we trim trees, repair blacktops from water breaks; we’ve got curbs and gutters to repair from that, too, along with sidewalks.

“In the summer, we jump in the sweepers to sweep the streets, then in the winter, we blade the streets,” Munyer added. “We make several trips up and down the streets throughout the year.”

Early starts, long hours

“We start usually at eight, but we have guys come in at six and seven at the water plant,” Munyer said. “They work in shifts at the water plant and work weekends at the water plant.

“Then, in summer, we’ve got the pool going. We’ve got the ball diamonds going and all the other stuff that goes on, too,” Munyer said. “It gets to be a busy summer.

“Then, with this project they’ve got, it’s way more than normal, too,” he added, referring to projects to replace water infrastructure from Sixth Street to 2 ½ Avenue and eastward.

“We’ve had a few issues. These water lines haven’t been emptied since the day they were put in,” Munyer said, noting many parts of Rugby’s water infrastructure date back to the 1940s or earlier.

“For the most part, they’ve never been drained,” he added. “And now, they’re putting in new pipes, and it’s stirring up debris inside the lines and creating problems sometimes. I’m just crossing my fingers that it doesn’t happen on this last shutdown, because it’s a big area.”

City workers shut off water flow to households and businesses in an area extending from Third Avenue Southeast on Sept. 6.

“When we shut a line off like that, there’s a lot of air in the system,” Munyer said. “So, we let the air out slowly all over, and it adds a lot of stress, because you don’t know what’s going to happen down below. “

Munyer said city workers have heard complaints from residents involved in water shutoffs. “But for the most part, it’s understandable,” he said.

“They’ve never experienced anything like this for the most part, and the temporary water that Wagner put on sometimes fails,” Munyer noted, referring to Wagner Construction, the firm replacing water pipes in the 2 ½ Avenue Project.

“Some people aren’t home, and last night, I got a call from a guy who didn’t have water,” Munyer recalled. “I said, ‘Can you go down in your basement?’ He was gone this week, so they took the temporary water off, but he wasn’t around to get the message.”

Munyer said city public works employees were “pretty much on call all day.”

“And then, most of the time, whoever works the weekend shift down at the water plant takes the calls, or I forward the calls to them,” he said.

Munyer said the city had contracted with a local electrician to install generators at the lift stations and city armory to keep them operating in case of power outages.

Sometimes residents ask city workers to level off uneven areas covered by gravel on broken asphalt caused by the 2 ½ Avenue Project, and earlier in the summer, roadwork on North Dakota Highway 3 through Rugby, Munyer noted.

“For the most part, everybody’s living with the problems,” he said.

However, like everyone else in Rugby, Munyer sometimes finds detours and blocked streets frustrating.

“I know the project and I still don’t know where I dare drive,” he said of the city streets. “But it sounds like they’re going to start sometime soon getting it back into shape and building it back up.”

Water plant keeps workers busy

At the city water plant, operators Dale Klein and Gary Brossart said maintaining high standards for water quality keeps them busy.

“We run equipment that adds lime to water to soften it and raise the pH up and filters the water to take the hardness out and make sure it’s safe to drink,” Klein said.

“We test for the hardness, calcium hardness, alkalinity and chlorine every day. We do state testing that needs to be done,” he added. “We do bacterial tests; lead and copper tests we’re going to do and four other state tests we’ve got to do annually for byproducts and nitrates.”

Klein and Brossart said sometimes one of them works away from the plant on water lines. “We’re definitely busier because of the construction,” Klein said.

“Troy and Gary and I have been out shutting off valves to keep up with the construction – shutting zones off and turning it back on,” he said.

“When they bring it back on, we flush the pipes to make sure the water’s clear in the new pipes. For the last two months, that’s what we’ve done,” he added.

Klein said he wasn’t surprised North Dakota bore the title “Hardest Working State in the nation.”

“We’re all here early,” he said. “We all have other jobs, too, after work here.”

“I think every one of us here has two jobs,” Klein said. “I farm and do other stuff. Troy does construction; Gary’s got another job; Andy’s got another job.”

Klein said he was on call 24/7 to respond to water plant issues evenings and some weekends.

“I am here for the alarms,” he said, noting when alarms go off at the water plant, they activate a call to the water plant operator, then his personal phone, then other employees until the system notes a response.

“We rotate every fourth or fifth weekend that we’re on call,” Klein said.

Weather challenges

“Anytime there’s a thunderstorm, I’m here,” Klein said, adding thunderstorms “mess up the computer at the plant.”

“One night, it kept going off,” Klein said of the alarm system. I went to work at 2 a.m., and 10 that morning I went home.”

Klein said winter weather can cause problems at the plant, too.

“This winter, the CO2 tank froze up,” Klein noted. “That’s always an issue.”

Klein added winter brings “mostly the sewer and water problems, a broken water main, things like that. But, the computer system that controls everything is usually touchy.”

When asked if they ever took time off to fish, hunt or relax, city workers shrugged their shoulders.

“Maybe once a year,” said Brossart.