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NOTE: DO NOT VIEW THE PICS IF YOU ARE EATING! 
I just recently "celebrated" my one-year anniversary working for the city. Go me!
There was no cake, however. Well, not the kind that I would have enjoyed.
For those of you that don't know, I work for the waste water department; I deal with whatever you flush down the toilet, sink or drains. In a nutshell, the "biosolids" come into the plant, we treat it, and then we send it on its merry way to another company that treats it further. The product we send out is a mixture of biosolids (aka sludge or shit) and polymer, which is called "cake".
The polymer binds with the biosolids and the whole thing is sent thru a belt press. The belt press has two very large belts and about 5 rollers; the cake is sent thru the press, and whatever water that remains is squeezed out and sent back to the headworks. The cake, which is about 95% dry, is then put on a conveyor and sent up to a very large dump truck (about 30 yards).
Okay, now that I schooled you, here's what happened.
Thursday, June 19th, 2:30 p.m. My one-year anniversary. I'm running the belt press for the day. The trailer is getting pretty full in the front, so it's time to move the truck forward. That will let the cake fall into the back of the trailer. Another operator, John, is down there with me, and says he'll move the truck. Cool. I sit back and relax. He turns the key, pushes the gas... and nothing. A lot of revving and smoke, but the truck doesn't move. The brakes are locked. He gets out, pushes a few buttons, pulls a few levers. Gets back in and guns it. Still nothing. He gets back out, pulls the same buttons, pulls the same levers, gets back and.. and we have movement! Hot dog. I'm standing off the the side as the truck moves forward.
From the corner of my eye, I see something fall. I look back to the back of the trailer and...
"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!" I yell to John.
"What!?" John says.
"Awww, SHIT!" I say.
John gets out of the truck to look. "Aww, SHIT!" he says.
Behind the trailer is about ¼ ton of shit. The cake/biosolids/sludge is all over the floor. The trailer's gate came open.
We look at each other. Dammit. Time to get the shovels out. He turns off the truck while I get some shovels. We go to the back and look at the gate. We don't know why the gate opened. We shovel out the cake that's on the truck so we can try to close the gate. We push on the gate and manually latch it. We bring out the New Holland tractor (kinda like a Bobcat) and start shoveling the cake into the bucket.
Things are going smoothly. But only for about 5 minutes. The cake that was in the trailer is pushing on the gate. The gate can't take the pressure, and GOOSH! Out comes more! And I mean A LOT more. About one ton total came out. The pictures show how much. It may not look like a lot, but it is.
Now we're screwed.
We close the gate again and put a come-along to it. It surely won't come open again, right? HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, if you thought that, you are naive (just like I was).
John hops in the tractor, scoops up some of the cake and dumps it on the conveyor. I turn it on and clean the belt press while he dumps. So far, so good. We get about half the load in when... you guessed it! The gate comes open again, and dumps out even more sludge!
Now we have to call our supervisor because the gate will not stay closed. He comes down, sees the mess and starts laughing. Meanwhile, it's getting to be close to quitting time. It's about 4:00, and we leave at 4:30. We cannot leave this on the ground. Some of us have to stay over until it's cleaned up.
Guess who? Me, my supervisor and my lead operator. A few of the other guys helped for a while, but left when it was quitting time.
This is how we did it. We used the New Holland to physically push the gate in then used a big chain to hold the gate shut. The lead operator then used the tractor to scoop up the shit and load it on the conveyor (it is too short to reach over the side of the trailer). He scooped, I cleaned the belt press again, and shoveled what fell out of the bucket either on the conveyor or back into the bucket. My supervisor got to hose down the floor.
Around 6:30 we were done. Most of it was back into the trailer. What remained was washed down and sent back to the headworks. We didn't get out until 7:00 p.m. We smelled, we were wet from sweat and the hoses, and generally miserable. The sludge doesn't smell like raw sewage, FYI. It's a sour, earthy smell. Not horrible, but not pleasant either.
The next morning was spent cleaning up even more. I mean it was EVERYWHERE!
It's now a week later, and I still smell it on me. It's in my car, in my hair.. it just won't leave! And I have showered and scrubbed every day. I think it's the polymer that is making it linger.
So that was my anniversary. Also, I am working 9 days in a row (Tomorrow is my last day before my days off! Thank God!! I am exhausted) and I'll have another story about what it's like to clean the aerators in the aerbays. Shit water and a john-boat! That was fun!
So now the pics:
Pics taken with my camera phone, so the quality isn't the best.
I just recently "celebrated" my one-year anniversary working for the city. Go me!
There was no cake, however. Well, not the kind that I would have enjoyed.
For those of you that don't know, I work for the waste water department; I deal with whatever you flush down the toilet, sink or drains. In a nutshell, the "biosolids" come into the plant, we treat it, and then we send it on its merry way to another company that treats it further. The product we send out is a mixture of biosolids (aka sludge or shit) and polymer, which is called "cake".
The polymer binds with the biosolids and the whole thing is sent thru a belt press. The belt press has two very large belts and about 5 rollers; the cake is sent thru the press, and whatever water that remains is squeezed out and sent back to the headworks. The cake, which is about 95% dry, is then put on a conveyor and sent up to a very large dump truck (about 30 yards).
Okay, now that I schooled you, here's what happened.
Thursday, June 19th, 2:30 p.m. My one-year anniversary. I'm running the belt press for the day. The trailer is getting pretty full in the front, so it's time to move the truck forward. That will let the cake fall into the back of the trailer. Another operator, John, is down there with me, and says he'll move the truck. Cool. I sit back and relax. He turns the key, pushes the gas... and nothing. A lot of revving and smoke, but the truck doesn't move. The brakes are locked. He gets out, pushes a few buttons, pulls a few levers. Gets back in and guns it. Still nothing. He gets back out, pulls the same buttons, pulls the same levers, gets back and.. and we have movement! Hot dog. I'm standing off the the side as the truck moves forward.
From the corner of my eye, I see something fall. I look back to the back of the trailer and...
"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!" I yell to John.
"What!?" John says.
"Awww, SHIT!" I say.
John gets out of the truck to look. "Aww, SHIT!" he says.
Behind the trailer is about ¼ ton of shit. The cake/biosolids/sludge is all over the floor. The trailer's gate came open.
We look at each other. Dammit. Time to get the shovels out. He turns off the truck while I get some shovels. We go to the back and look at the gate. We don't know why the gate opened. We shovel out the cake that's on the truck so we can try to close the gate. We push on the gate and manually latch it. We bring out the New Holland tractor (kinda like a Bobcat) and start shoveling the cake into the bucket.
Things are going smoothly. But only for about 5 minutes. The cake that was in the trailer is pushing on the gate. The gate can't take the pressure, and GOOSH! Out comes more! And I mean A LOT more. About one ton total came out. The pictures show how much. It may not look like a lot, but it is.
Now we're screwed.
We close the gate again and put a come-along to it. It surely won't come open again, right? HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, if you thought that, you are naive (just like I was).
John hops in the tractor, scoops up some of the cake and dumps it on the conveyor. I turn it on and clean the belt press while he dumps. So far, so good. We get about half the load in when... you guessed it! The gate comes open again, and dumps out even more sludge!
Now we have to call our supervisor because the gate will not stay closed. He comes down, sees the mess and starts laughing. Meanwhile, it's getting to be close to quitting time. It's about 4:00, and we leave at 4:30. We cannot leave this on the ground. Some of us have to stay over until it's cleaned up.
Guess who? Me, my supervisor and my lead operator. A few of the other guys helped for a while, but left when it was quitting time.
This is how we did it. We used the New Holland to physically push the gate in then used a big chain to hold the gate shut. The lead operator then used the tractor to scoop up the shit and load it on the conveyor (it is too short to reach over the side of the trailer). He scooped, I cleaned the belt press again, and shoveled what fell out of the bucket either on the conveyor or back into the bucket. My supervisor got to hose down the floor.
Around 6:30 we were done. Most of it was back into the trailer. What remained was washed down and sent back to the headworks. We didn't get out until 7:00 p.m. We smelled, we were wet from sweat and the hoses, and generally miserable. The sludge doesn't smell like raw sewage, FYI. It's a sour, earthy smell. Not horrible, but not pleasant either.
The next morning was spent cleaning up even more. I mean it was EVERYWHERE!
It's now a week later, and I still smell it on me. It's in my car, in my hair.. it just won't leave! And I have showered and scrubbed every day. I think it's the polymer that is making it linger.
So that was my anniversary. Also, I am working 9 days in a row (Tomorrow is my last day before my days off! Thank God!! I am exhausted) and I'll have another story about what it's like to clean the aerators in the aerbays. Shit water and a john-boat! That was fun!
So now the pics:
Pics taken with my camera phone, so the quality isn't the best.
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