[LargeFormat] 65mm SA

[Les Newcomer]

roger.urban@exeloncorp.com wrote:
> 
> Ever see any alligators down there in the sewers/water conduits?
> 

When I worked on the sewer side, the tunnels as they are called had
water that was too swift and many time too full for animals.

On the clean side, some of these meter pits were in fields and I did
find my share of oddities. As to animals, one dead mouse, two nearly
dead snakes and one very live one, all harmless garter types.

But I think National Geographic could do a special on the insect life in
one of these pits. Mind you these basements are all concrete top botom
and walls, not a lot of vegitation down there and almost always dark and
wet.  The larger pipes are 12-24" dia and cast iron, the smaller stuff
gets around 4" dia and uses common brass gate valves. The zinc diacast
handles rarely hold up in the damp conditions, eventually a semi clear
jelly will form on the handle and small ants (.125" long) will feast on
this jelly, many times making bridges over things to help others get to
the jelly. Then Godzilla (me) comes along and sweeps them out to
sea/2"-12" of water on the floor.

One such pit near the Detroit River and under some heavy trees was built
with timber (4x4) as a form for the concrete ceiling. They never removed
the wood. 60 years later insects had so infested the wood I thought the
wood was moving. 

The last pit of any consequence was a pit that fed the town of
Melvindale. Melvindale is an industrial town, low income residence and
the municipality is always onthe verge of bankrupcy. The city of Detroit
had been estimating their water use for the last 20 odd years and the
Mayor of Melvidale has yet to pay anything "until they can give me an
accurate bill"  I went into one of two pits that fed Melvindale. It was
always flooded to the top and once I got in there I felt like I was
walking through the Titanic or at least a ship wreck-- there was 3 to 4
inches of black/brown silt covering everything, all of the I beams had
rusted so badly that the scale was comming off in sheets, like cleaving
slate. The meters in there were so old they used multiple dials, like
the gas meter, and the face was made of porclain. The gear train for the
meter had seized many years ago. After seeing that it's no wonder
Detroit estimated the water bill. They meter had been broken for years! 
When I got out the boss asked me what I thought. I told him President
Hoover was here to cut the ribbon on this pit when it was new and
nobody's been back since.


On a related topic, some big trucks were outside my house one day and I
noticed they were running a cable into the storm drain. I had to ask.

They were running a remote video camera through the 8" storm drains
looking for an illegal tap. Apparently testing at the other end of this
arm found fecal coli. The rig was an expensive set up, so expensive,
they parked and chocked the tires of a pick up truck in front and behing
the van that held the video rig.  I asked about vermin. He said other
than an occasional mouse/rat nothing.  About that time they had gotten
near a pond/cess pool when what looked like a very large mukrat came out
fighting right at the camera, he clawed and snapped and the operator
backed the camera up as fast as possible but the rat somehow got around
the camera, a few seconds later, the monitor went blank. OOOOH the
swearing I heared!