Strangest Job?

[Linerider]

I've done this for many years with perhaps 20000 hours under my belt with the majority being in the Alberta/BC oilpatch. I've been involved in some absolutely crazy jobs, but this one is the oddest....

I am currently doing a DOC (Depth Of Cover) and locate job on these giant lagoons at a huge pulp and paper mill. Each of these lagoons is about 1000ft x 1000ft and about 14 or so feet deep. The process involves nasty chemicals that are run through these lagoons where they have bacterial organisms that eat much of the nasty stuff. There are many aerators that are employed to add oxygen to the water to aid in the digestion. Each of these aerators is run by electrical cables that run back to an MCC (Master Control Center). Once the water has been run through the system, it is clean enough to be returned to the river.

Because these bacteria (they call 'em bugs) have a life cycle, they end up dying and their microscopic dead bodies sink to the bottom of the lagoons. After 15 or so years, they end up being 6-8ft deep of this slimy mud at the bottom of the lagoons. At this point, they bring in a dredger and remove this organic material to make the process run better. In the past they have hit cables with the dredger and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair/replace the cables. They brought me in to locate, determine DOC and GPS the lines so the dredger will have an easier time and they'll save $ and time on repairs.

We get on this aluminum barge (anything steel gets eaten in the caustic water) and clamp on at the motors and locate back to where they come ashore.

Long winded, I know, but a pretty cool job that is out of the ordinary.

What about you guys? Anything bizarre to share?

[TheCableVine]

The craziest thing i've ever done was locate lines running under the concrete in a building. Nothing like you are doing.

Are you confident with the locates?

[yahoo]

the strangest thing i've ever done was working at a fast food restaraunt..............what was i thinking .....i hate cooking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Linerider]

Locates are dead on the money. RD @33 and it put out a beautiul signal. The only concern for accuracy is that the barge is moving, so we double and triple check the centerline before dropping in buoys with a nylon rope and an 18.8 stainless flange blind (steel will corrode - fast). Peak and null lined up nicely and the depths were consistent. The GPS reference is sub decimetre (within 3 or so inches). The mill, and its guys, are a pleasure to work for. Super safe and not at all jumpy (about $) when it comes to performing your tasks in. They understand it takes what it takes. Plus, once they saw how well it was working, the fact that my work was pennies on the dollar compared to the alternative (repairs), made the

The dead "bugs" are decomposing under the water and when the barge gets to close to the shoreline, the slimy mud gets agitated and releases H2S (Hydrogen Sulfide) which is found anywhere organics decay and, in my neck of the woods, sour gas. Makes for a really interesting job.

[1idejim]

i've collected sperm from horses and bulls, the process is called pulling straws by those in the know.

[Dave72]

Im curious why they didnt think to power the aerators from overhead lines ?
Long span yes, but doable.

The aerator ponds Ive seen at the paper mills here arent as big, and I think someone told me that they float (implying that the unit plus cable can be towed back to 'shore' for unit work / dredging ?).

What happens if you trip on something in the barge and fall over ? Are you tied to the barge with a safety line etc ?

[Linerider]

There are 2 lagoons. One has about 20 aerators and the other has 8 or 9. I think overhead lines would create a whole set of new problems as it would become even more conjested making maint. work difficult. Poles would be an issue as well as the water is super caustic and would eat most anything, though I'm sure there would be an anti corrosion method that could be applied.

Some of them do "float" while others are fixed concrete structures that were put in place when the mill was built in the 60s. The floating ones are tethered to anchors, but they are still permanent structures. These cables are 2.5" thick and some are as long as 1200 ft. Reeling these in is not an option. In addition, the mill runs 24/7 and they need these things running to complete the process, even when the mill is on its yearly shut-down. If the process is interupted, the bugs die and the whole thing goes to hell.

The barge is the coolest part. It is a custom built $300,000 aluminum unit with an International 444 V8 diesel (same engine as the International school buses). It has a heated/air conditioned cab with all the bells and whistles you'd expect in a open water boat, a 5000lb knuckle picker (to lift electric motors on and off) and a guard rail system all the way around. On the permanent concrete structures, we'd just cruise up to them, climb on to them and put my 4" coil on. On the newer "floating" units, the boat is designed with the entire front of it being a "U" shape so you can essentially put the floating aerators right in the middle of the boat where there is picker access. I'd remove my life jacket, put on fall arrest equipment and attach the lanyard to the picker. Then remove a safety rail and walk out on to the floating base where I could hook up. Get back on the boat, remove fall arrest, don the PFD and then start locating and GPSing. Time consuming but, like I said, nobody was rushing. Safety first.

[ProfessionalLocator]

The strangest job I have ever done was to mark the phone lines coming in and out of an underground bunker, the National Nuclear Attack Recovery Coordination Center. I had to go through two separate bank vault doors to get inside the bunker. Had to make sure I was on the real signal and not on the abandoned phones lines that went to a disused battery of surface to air missile launch bays.

[alamo]

strangest job for me is having a job where I have just a few days to do a locate and my company doesn''t care if it takes me 15-20 days to do the locate. On Time On The Mark! yeah right!

[GPGrasshopper]

Through a swamp. Water was about knee deep and over 600 yards. Where am I supposed to put the paint again?
Ended up tyeing color codes ribbons on the trees with a measurement and directional arrow. Boy was that fun.

[Linerider]

I've done the swamp thing as well. We'll use 4' sharpened lath and if the swamp's quirt deep, we'll double the lath. They HDD creek and river crossings, so they're not cleared of trees like a pipeline R/W is, so we often tie flagging on the trees through the crossing.

Where you guys mostly deal with the urban jungle, I'm in the bush mostly. Idiots in cars for you, bears and moose for me.

[ProfessionalLocator]

Through a swamp. Water was about knee deep and over 600 yards. Where am I supposed to put the paint again?
Ended up tyeing color codes ribbons on the trees with a measurement and directional arrow. Boy was that fun.

I once had a place like that only it was about 100 yards. The last time I got a ticket there the water was much deeper. I told the contractor that if he dynamited the beaver dam, damn beavers had moved into the neighborhood, that I would mark it for him.

[Goldenboy]

I got a call from a fellow locator asking if I could go home and get my canoe. I went and got the canoe and another locator went to the lumber yard and had a couple sheets of plywood and had them ripped down into three inch strips. A company called in to directional bore a new fiber alongside two existing fibers than ran through a swamp for quite a long distance. We painted the wood lath orange and taped flags to the top. We hooked up to the fibers and one guy paddled while the other leaned over the front of the canoe with the receiver and lath. The swamp was a good 4-5 feet deep so 2-3 feet of lath stuck up out of the swamp with the flag taped to it. This made for a very different day for us.

[Linerider]

Here's a pic of my brother, Elvis and I doing the same thing a few years ago. Elvis and I are taking the picture. There was actually an expansion loop and had we not done it this way, the HDD likely would have hit the 6" sour gas line.

[ProfessionalLocator]

Here's a pic of my brother, Elvis and I doing the same thing a few years ago. Elvis and I are taking the picture. There was actually an expansion loop and had we not done it this way, the HDD likely would have hit the 6" sour gas line.

I seen that movie Deliverance,
I know better than to work out of a canoe.