1,500 water meters down!

Dode has been working on a big project at work for months.  He's been finding and mapping the water meters on the Tulalip Reservation.  The water meters were put in years ago, but the tribes have been billing a flat rate for water so the tribes hasn't visited the meters in years.  They now want to be able to charge people by the gallon for the water they use but first they had to find them all again.  Dode has used this opportunity to add the exact locations of all those water meters to his water system database.  Dode used survey equipment to measure the location of each meter to an accuracy of about 1 inch.  Some days, Dode would be in an area with dense housing and clear skies (no trees) and would locate 40-50 meters.  Those days he could just grab the GPS and jump from meter to meter measuring the location of each one without any resistance.  The survey grade GPS has to have a clear view of most of the sky to get the survey grade accuracy.  Some days, Dode would be in areas of dispersed housing with dense trees and would be lucky to get 5.  Once he physically visited each meter, he had to go back to the office and import them into his master map.  Once he was completely finished, he had to go back out and visit a few again because they'd been assigned the same number.

carrying his survey equipment

getting ready at a water meter

Cracking open the meter to get its number (every meter has a unique number).

Isaac saw all the little white things and asked, "Is it filled with drugs?!"  They're Styrofoam packing peanuts to help prevent the water meter from freezing.

Some of you might have heard a rumor that Dode is a bit of a tightwad.  The picture above is a perfect example of his thrifty ways.  He's holding a spring puller from our $50 craigslist trampoline.  He used it to open 1,497 water meter lids to get the information inside.  Three water meters from the finish and it broke into two pieces.  They had a much more difficult time getting those last three meters open than the 1,497 that came before.

Another exciting thing happened at work this week.  He got to use his GPR (ground penetrating radar) for the 1st time.  The utilities people were digging and came upon a water line that wasn't on any records.  Dode brought out his equipment to show they were the line went.  It is the location where the federal government had an Indian boarding school and hospital over 100 years ago.

Tulalip Indian School, 1912

"The Tulalip Indian School began under the supervision of Charles Milton Buchanan, a physician who also served as Indian Agent for the reservation. The first year it had only one dormitory, but by 1907 both girls' and boys' buildings were completed and the school had a capacity enrollment of 200 students. The children ranged in age from 6 to 18 years and came from many different reservations as well as some off reservation communities. It was not uncommon for teachers at day schools to recommend certain students for the boarding school. Because Tulalip offered a maximum of eighth grade education, some students transferred to Chemawa for more advanced training."

The Indian boarding school movement was extremely unpopular to the tribes.  They had no choice if their children went, some people tried to hide their children from the government in order to keep them with them.  The structures have all been wiped out and there is no sign of what was once there. While locating the water line, he found the oldest manhole cover he's ever seen. It's now a foot underground!

oops!

Oldest manhole Dode has ever seen

Using the GPR to find the water line

He should have taken a photo of the screen he's looking at.  It just looks like a bunch of lines.  Somehow, he's able to see the water line in all the noise.