Road Wetter

September 12 - 13, 2009

This was my job for two days -- making sure the road dust during Sodbuster Days at Fort Ransom State Park is kept to a minimum. Approximately a mile of road in the park, leading to the Sunne Farm where Sodbuster Days are held, is gravel and hundreds of vehicles, large and small, can create a lot of dust.

This gravity-feed system consists of a 1,000 gallon water tank -- weighing four tons when filled with water -- a flat-bed trailer, an on-off valve, and a “T” of PVC pipe with holes drilled across the bottom. This was the brainstorm of Terry Anderson, head of maintenance for the park. The slower I drove, the wetter the roadway became. For all the passes I made, it took a tank full to go up to the Sunne Farm and back.

After each trip, my job was to refill the tank with water from the Sheyenne River. The location for this was behind the Visitor’s Center where the maintenance staff set up a hose in the river and connected it to a Honda engine driving a water pump. From the pump approximately 30 feet of collapsible hose was attached to a gizmo which was inserted into the tank during filling. This worked great as it only took about 15 minutes to refill the tank.

For the two days I had this assignment, I must have made a dozen trips with this rig. It was a fun job.