Pawnee County Rural Water District # 1 is on top of the game when it comes to providing water to its countryside clientele. That is why they knew exactly what to do when they were faced with replacing a deteriorating waterline that spanned a branch of Keystone Lake. “We were living on borrowed time,” said Field Supervisor Robert Baugh as he pointed up at the stretch of PVC that ran along the underside of the …
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Colorado Springs — Jack Madore is wearing his never-ending grin. He is standing on a construction site lined with military tanks and a single McElroy fusion machine. He can talk circles around anyone, especially if the topic happens to be high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe, but now he is silent. His squinted gaze is locked on the jagged Rocky Mountains that hang as a backdrop over the scene. He is pausing to smell the roses; or …
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Eureka, Utah — Brian Shields squints his eyes and stares into the wavy heat-blurred mirage floating over the twin polyethylene pipelines stretching into the Utah desert. A pair of McElroy fusion machines is spitting out 80 feet of new pipeline every 15 minutes while a single fusion technician slowly paces between them like an expecting father. Shields slides his hardhat off to expose his shaved head to the August sun and says, “In a total …
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I push my way through the mass of people gathered in the pipe warehouse in search of Ryan Harrington. I find him surrounded by a group of 120-some-odd men who are shouting answers to pipe fusion questions with the enthusiasm of Ron Popeil’s studio audience. Harrington is flinging hats and shirts at them like a cheerleader at a football game and the whole scene looks more like a pep rally than a polyethylene, fusion-training seminar. …
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