No, I had nothing to do with it! There I was, minding my own business, driving down River Road on my way home…when I found two of Bismarck’s finest blocking the road. Being the curious sort, I hopped out and asked what was going on. They gave me permission to go poke around…who could resist?

I guess a pretty big wall of water came flying out of the water treatment plant’s grounds when this whole debacle started. When I left, they were still wondering whether River Road should be inspected to make sure it wasn’t washed out underneath. Lots of dirt from the construction site of the treatment plant itself had been washed away, and there was a reddish brown streak in the Missouri River where the dirt was being deposited. The water was still deep in a few places, but had mostly spread out in about a 75 foot wide flow across the river and the bike path.

Boy, that’s going to be fun to fix. And that isn’t even the water problem! Upgrades to the water treatment plant have been taking place for a long time, and it looks like the road was about to be built. Now they’ll have to do a lot more groundwork before that can take place…and that’s after they repair whatever caused this mess in the first place!

Things got even more interesting; the officer I talked to said that there had been two water main breaks tonight already. I wonder if any of these things are related? Perhaps the water system is similar to an electric grid; when part is shut down, it causes more stress in other places. In any case, if you work for the City of Bismarck and have anything to do with water or digging, you probably got a call Monday evening. Those of us who are city employees but don’t lift a shovel…well, I guess I’ll just take pictures and type, as usual.