The photos in this group were taken by yours-truly (honest!) on Saturday, 5-9-2009, whilst doing survey work on the Southwest Water Pipeline Project. It is a southwestern (gee, they should use that in the title...) North Dakota rural water project designed to bring treated water to locations where the local water is poor. For example, when I was much younger and a wet-behind the ears archeologist, I lived in Belfield ND for a short time. The water there came out of coal beds, uranium beds, or some other such wicked awful bedrock geology. When it came out of the tap, it looked like tea and would "fizz." Ugh. Now the city has good clean SWPL treated water and you can drink so much water you'll never sleep more than 10 minutes at a time without having to get up and go to the bathroom! Seriously.
Badlands west of Grassy Butte. Teepee Butte is on the horizon. The Beicegal Creek Road is out there somewhere.
Near the highway, I came across the equipment they use to lay rural water pipelines in the ground. I'd heard about this gear but had never seen it myself in person. Basically, they use 3 or 4 huge Caterpillar tractors, chained in sequence, to drag a seven or eight foot deep plow along the route. The plow clears a furrow and the pipe is laid down through a feeder tube atop the plow and its haul cat. The furrow dirt is then pushed back in and, voila(!!), rural water pipe is in the ground.
Front cat gets the best view, while the rear cat does the real work.
I think I'm impressed with the setup.
Cheers all, Mike
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