I’m back, decompressing after having to use a pickaxe to dig four holes in the city’s streets to get to the cross-connect cutoff valves on a street (which turned out to be unnecessary).

It’s 107°F outside right now. I still have no air conditioning in my home. I will be taking a cool bath in a moment after I decompress.

[rant]
Don’t do some job in your yard and start the process with “I know a guy in the county government who will come by my house and do it for free with county equipment.” Also, don’t take municipal records and tools home with you.

The person across the street from me told me there was a giant flood at the end of the block, possibly a water main break.

I go down to inspect (that was where I said several hours ago I had to go).

I met the village maintenance mechanic and the gun shop owner (he has a metal detector which is very sensitive), to look for the cutoff valves.

If any of the steps in this process had been followed correctly, I wouldn’t be dying of heat prostration right now, and others wouldn’t be out a whole bunch of money. Had this been worse and I was still on the village board, I would have been demanding the village attorney to press criminal charges over this.

1) The person who was at the house said that his wife had called a couple days ago to a guy she knew on the county road commission who would come and remove a large boulder from her yard with a county front-end loader. He’d just drop by some time with it. He did this morning.

[correct procedure to get the county to do something on private property: Call the county road commission and request the proper form to use county equipment and employees for a private job, and pay the fee.]

2) Guy with the front end loader shows up, doesn’t tell the homeowner he’s here. He just drove in to lift the boulder, shoved the boulder over the curb stop for the water meter pit, sheared it off underground, went after the boulder again, and left without telling anyone he damaged the water works. The curb stop was completely ripped out of the ground.

[correct procedures: Call before you dig to mark things like the damn water system. Even if it’s just to remove a boulder. If you are working on someone’s property, let them know you’re there. The curb stop was above ground and could have been avoided simply by going at a different angle. The homeowner could have been outside to show the driver.]

3) My neighbour calls me when she sees the flood coming down the street. (The only correct thing done in all of this, but not by any of the people involved. She could have also called someone on the village board, or the village clerk. I am the easiest person to get hold of, so I got the call, plus “water works.”)

4) The village clerk arrives after I call her, and she calls the chairwoman of the village board at work. She authorises spending money (normally a village board vote is required, but any board member can spend village money in an emergency). At this point there is a four-foot wide hole in the resident’s yard with water coming out, but not under particular pressure. With that, a plumber authorised to work on public water systems is called in from the county seat, which took half an hour.

5) Plumber arrives, but can’t find the break in the water line. He calls for additional help from a plumber in the county east of us. Bill just went up. Second plumber’s dewatering pump won’t remove water fast enough. They do find the break by prodding around with a shovel (it sinks into the hole all the way to the top of the handle, and you can hear water making it sing from ten yards away).

6) County road commissioner arrives to begin an investigation (taking information), since country road equipment and a driver were used. He goes back to the county seat.

7) I can’t find the equipment needed to cut out that street’s water. The cutoff valve wrench turned out to be in someone’s truck who was at work, the water system map book was in a trustee’s home, the meter cutoff wrench had been loaned to another homeowner so they could do a home project and not returned. I track down all these people and get them to give me that crap.

[correct procedures: Unauthorised persons should not have access to municipal property, in particular the water system, which is regulated by the EPA and state. Tools should not be taken home or loaned out; to cut off the water at your meter you should call the water operator and have her or him do that; when your job is done, call again to turn it on. Do not take government records home without signing them out.]

Because the plumbers cannot get the hole dewatered with the pump, our village maintenance mechanic goes to get our submersible marine water pump. It is not in the shop, but at least the person who took it left a note.

[correct procedure: rent your own damn pump or pay the village to do your dewatering job]

The hole is dewatered with our pump. By this time I’d already dug up the cutoff valves to shut the block off. The plumbers discover there is a second shutoff valve in-line with the sheared-off curb stop with which they can cut off that house. They cut the water off. They are now repairing the water line. Now the homeowner has a hole ten feet wide and six feet deep in their yard, all caused by flooding sand out of the area around the pipes and meter.

Epilogue: The county road commissioner came back, and said he’d come to an understanding with the driver, who will be reprimanded. He and the homeowner will split 50-50 the final bill from the plumbers.