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00:00My name is Mike Rowe, and this is my job.
00:05Very slow, very slow, very slow.
00:08I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty.
00:12Hey, Mike, come on out to NASA to see the space shuttle.
00:15Hard-working men and women who earn an honest living.
00:18I'm exhausted.
00:19Doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
00:23Close. Come on, that was right over the money.
00:25Dead on. Close.
00:28Now, get ready.
00:31To get dirty.
00:34Coming up on Dirty Jobs, the American Society of Civil Engineers has given our country an infrastructure report card.
00:41It's not pretty.
00:42Near failing grades in most every category.
00:46In this special episode of Dirty Jobs, we give tribute to the men and women who fight the uphill battle
00:52working on our country's infrastructure.
00:54How high does the water get when you still work?
00:56Up to our chest.
00:57Soldiers in a dirty, heroic struggle that can never be won.
01:01Up on the load.
01:02Against the forces of nature and a disintegrating universe.
01:05Keeping our bridges from falling down, our roads from falling apart, and our toilets from blowing up in our faces.
01:11See, that's way too much toilet paper.
01:13Fighting the good fight to make life just a little bit better for you and me.
01:17Welcome to hell.
01:33Welcome to hell.
01:34Oh, God.
01:35Ah, junior high.
01:37Doesn't this bring back a rush of unpleasant memories?
01:40For me, anyway.
01:42The eighth grade, in particular.
01:44A very difficult time.
01:45There was a lot of detention.
01:47There was a suspension.
01:49And there was a girl.
01:50Or as my mother liked to call her, a distraction.
01:54Naturally, with all these extracurricular activities, my normally impressive scholastic record took a bit of a tumble.
02:00And when my father got a look at my eighth grade report card, his reaction was not entirely unpredictable.
02:09He ripped the television set out of a wall by the cord.
02:13He made me quit the baseball team, and he sent me to my room for about a month.
02:18In hindsight, probably the best thing he ever did for me.
02:21And that's got me wondering, what would my dad do if he were in charge of the country?
02:25And the country came home with an infrastructure report card that bore an uncanny resemblance to my eighth grade report
02:35card.
02:36And that's exactly what the American Society of Civil Engineers gave our country.
02:40And what makes it even worse is I'm not even sure who to blame.
02:43See, that's the part that would really drive my father crazy.
02:46The people that we feature on this show, they work really hard.
02:50The people who tend to our infrastructure, they're really smart.
02:54They're great at what they do.
02:56So obviously, hard work alone isn't going to be the solution.
03:00So what's really the problem?
03:02Maybe the better question is, what's the poop?
03:06Or better still, where's the poop?
03:09On Dirty Jobs, as in life, the answer is everywhere.
03:12And our ability to clean it up is a fundamental part of what makes us civilized.
03:16That's why we honor guys like Les Swanson.
03:20Without Les, the septic tanks and pumping stations in Madison, Wisconsin, would be even less hospitable than they already are.
03:27Damn it!
03:28Whether you're pumping out our porta potties in Alaska or connecting our pipes with Don Brewer in Oklahoma.
03:34If you deal with number two, here on Dirty Jobs, you're number one.
03:40And that includes our good friends in Rifle, Colorado.
03:44Municipal pumping stations help keep sewage flowing to its final destination.
03:49And most people wouldn't think of a pumping station as a place to get muffins.
03:53But this little shop on the outskirts of town serves them up fresh every day.
03:57Look at that.
03:58Wow, that's terrible.
03:59There's your monster.
04:00There's your muffin monster, yep.
04:01The muffin monster uses a conveyor system to separate raw sewage into solids and liquids.
04:07From down below, the solids are brought here, where the monster chews them up and turns them into super-concentrated
04:13muffins.
04:14So this is the muffin?
04:15That's the muffin.
04:17What do you do with these?
04:18It gets buried, landfill.
04:19If Dave doesn't keep the monster clean, the citizens of Rifle might have to deal with muffins of a different
04:25kind.
04:25The muffin monster is really the perfect metaphor for the entire infrastructure problem.
04:30Toilets just keep flushing.
04:32We've got to turn the other pump on.
04:34The whole thing's backing up.
04:35Metal just keeps rusting.
04:37Erosion never stops.
04:38In other words, technology can bake the muffins, but it takes people to clean the oven.
04:44We're going to die.
04:45How much time do we have before the whole town just blows up?
04:51We continue the journey of Pooh in one of the most beautiful cities on earth, San Francisco.
04:57Even under the streets of San Francisco, the view will take your breath away.
05:02Ah, dozens of miles and miles of sewers down here.
05:05This 900-mile network of sewers is over 100 years old.
05:09If it's not continuously inspected and maintained, a sewer line could cave in, causing the street above it to collapse,
05:16and the city would be overrun with cockroaches, rodents, and waste.
05:21Every day, Gene Cruz and thousands of guys like him inspect and repair millions of miles of sewer infrastructure, while
05:28you and I go about our business up in the clean, fresh air.
05:31A network of strategically placed underground cameras and leak sensors could go a long way to give these guys early
05:38warning of potential problems.
05:40But for now, they've got to keep hooking.
05:42You know, you have mortar missing.
05:44What's your biggest fear?
05:45A cave in is what I would worry about.
05:48After you find the problem, you've got to fix it.
05:53I am sealing roaches for an eternity in between the holes of these bricks, which need to be constantly filled
06:01in.
06:02Otherwise, well, the sewers will collapse, the city will go bankrupt, and a lot of honest men and women will
06:08be out of work forever.
06:11Just a few miles away, you'll find one of two wastewater treatment plants in San Francisco.
06:16The end of the line for everything in the city's sewers.
06:19It processes 43 million gallons of raw sewage every single day.
06:25My guide through this monstrous palace of poo is Chuck Copeland.
06:30What's on the other side of the door?
06:32Sewage.
06:33Raw sewage.
06:33What is our job today?
06:35We're replacing a lift pump.
06:36It's a 300-horse, 25-million-gallon-a-day pump that feeds the ozone-side plant treatment plant.
06:42What does a lift pump lift?
06:45Wastewater.
06:46That's bad.
06:47That's the baddest thing I've ever seen in my adult life.
06:50Stand back, everybody.
06:52During the time a lift pump is being replaced, the facility has to be shut down, so every minute is
06:58critical.
06:59Toilets are still flushing on the west side.
07:02Welcome to hell.
07:03And sewage continues to enter the plant.
07:06This is truly the ultimate infrastructure battlefield and the heroic effort to control poo and keep it moving.
07:13Good.
07:14All right.
07:16Chuck and the rest of his crew here fight the good fight for the people of San Francisco 24-7.
07:21That includes making sure the plant is mechanically sound in every step of the process.
07:29Well, it's a whole lot cleaner than it was, but you can't get everything.
07:37Despite all the efforts of our hard-working wastewater foot soldiers, we still have to deal with the painfully unfortunate
07:44consequences when our infrastructure fails.
07:47Mrs. Frazier is an infrastructure student.
07:50Her house is where she's getting an education and the harsh realities of an infrastructure breakdown.
07:56And the men of the Omega Company, Carl, Greg, Frank, and company owner Gary, will be team teaching.
08:02Okay.
08:03Let me show you what we got.
08:04Today's subject, city sewer infrastructure breakdown.
08:07But let's see the basement.
08:09Would have been a good day to play hooky.
08:11What in the heck happened here?
08:12The whole thing backed up.
08:13Her basement is full of the entire neighborhood's...
08:16Sewage.
08:17You have that much sewage, it means that it comes from the street, the city line.
08:21Oh.
08:21And that's what happened.
08:22God.
08:23We got some work to do.
08:24Got some work to do.
08:25Bye.
08:26On the front lines of the battle with the infrastructure, you bring out the heavy artillery.
08:31We're not going to a garden, are we?
08:32No.
08:32There's a million miles of sewer pipe in this country, carrying 50 trillion gallons of raw sewage every day to
08:40different treatment plants.
08:42If that network of pipes isn't constantly inspected, maintained, and upgraded, well, the poo has to go somewhere.
08:49Every year, sewage pollution costs billions of dollars in property damage, medical treatments, and lost productivity.
08:56Without professional teams like the Omega guys, we'd be in over our heads.
09:01Now, see, that's way too much toilet paper.
09:04Like a giant mixing bowl from hell.
09:10Yeah, that was disgusting.
09:13I admit it.
09:14But you had to see it.
09:16Because when it comes to our infrastructure, nothing's more important than what we do with our wastewater.
09:22And when it comes to Mrs. Frazier, you remember Mrs. Frazier and her exploding toilet.
09:28Isn't she kind of like a metaphor for all of us?
09:31We're just trying to get through the day, right?
09:33Never really understanding how vulnerable we are to the second law of thermodynamics that even as we speak is rendering
09:41our subterranean world of pipes into some minefield of random calamity and poopy disappointment.
09:49Aren't we all just seconds away from our own exploding toilet and our own basements full of our neighbor's caca?
09:58The next class is about to begin.
10:01But I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that when it comes to wastewater, we are up to
10:06our waste in D-.
10:10Coming up, 60 feet underground.
10:12I scramble to save interstate commerce.
10:14Holy smoke.
10:15Before I'm carried out to sea.
10:17That'd be bad.
10:18And later.
10:19Holy crap.
10:20We're way up in the air, man.
10:21When you wrangle wires that carry 40,000 volts, I can't afford to be clumsy.
10:27What was that?
10:35I mentioned before that I spent a fair amount of time in the 8th grade in detention, and it's true.
10:40What can I tell you?
10:41I was told I was a bit of a smart aleck.
10:44But here's the crazy thing.
10:45You know where they sent us for detention when I was in the 8th grade?
10:49The library.
10:51What's that all about?
10:52I mean, think.
10:53I learned from the tender age of 14 to begin equating knowledge and learning with punishment and retribution and sanction
11:03and malfeasance.
11:04What kind of message is that to send to a 14-year-old kid?
11:09Is it any wonder I brought home D's?
11:12Sounds like an excuse, doesn't it?
11:14That's what my dad said.
11:15Yeah, which brings me to our infrastructure report card entitled Inland Waterways.
11:21How do you think we did, Dad?
11:24I'll give you a dent.
11:26If our country is a body, our inland waterways would be the circulatory system.
11:32And like a clogged vein, our waterways need a good cleaning.
11:35Who's doing the work?
11:36Well, I could tell you about the fellows at Cash's Scrapyard in St. Louis, Missouri, who let me help them
11:42remove a sunken barge from the mighty Mississippi and cut it up into tiny pieces.
11:47Or there's Joe Ressert, who pulls seaweed out of the Great Lakes and put in Bay, Ohio, so boats can
11:53navigate more safely.
11:54Or there's always Dave Ferillo, who replaces moorings at the bottom of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.
12:00But like so much of our infrastructure, the real struggle goes on underneath the surface, where the action is hard
12:07to see and the work is even harder to do.
12:1112,000 miles of navigable waterways serve 41 states in the U.S., providing vital economic and strategic resources.
12:18But during tropical storms or hurricanes, our inland waterways can be a liability instead of an asset, as in the
12:26case of Hurricane Katrina.
12:28This movable water barrier in Stamford, Connecticut, protects the city in case of high tides that can cause flooding.
12:35Normally it's on the ocean floor. Boats pass right over it.
12:38During tidal surges, we'll raise the gate and we protect about 600 acres outside the harbor.
12:42We're going to be washing it out, changing zinc anodes.
12:45These anodes emit a small charge, which the corrosion essentially attacks the zinc instead of attacking the gate and rusting
12:52the gate out.
12:52The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has to diligently stay on top of corrosion protection of the barrier to
12:59keep it operational.
13:00I'll be squirming through a labyrinth of chambers with Diana, an ex-park ranger who used to protect forests.
13:07She now protects cities.
13:09Every compartment has six anodes, one on the ceiling, one on the floor, and one on each of the four
13:14walls.
13:15How do you know when one of these anodes is ready to be replaced?
13:20You have to do an estimate.
13:22You kind of look at the percentage of what you think is left.
13:25So when do you replace them?
13:27Below 50.
13:28Below 50. All right.
13:3470%.
13:3685%.
13:37Yep.
13:42It's a grimy, cold, muddy job battling seawater corrosion, but it's all part of the day's work for the Army
13:49Corps of Engineers.
13:50Nice work.
13:50That should last us about five years.
13:54Located on St. Mary's River between Canada and the United States, the Sioux Locks connect Lake Superior with Lake Huron.
14:01They're some of the busiest locks in the world, with 4,500 cargo vessels passing through them every year.
14:07Many of the 257 locks still in use in the U.S. are far older than their design life of
14:1450 years.
14:16Their age and deterioration poses a serious threat to our economy and our national security.
14:22Every winter, while the Sioux Locks are shut down, critical underground cleaning and maintenance is going on.
14:29Locks are filled and emptied through huge underground ports that can fill up with debris from Lake Superior.
14:36If the debris isn't cleaned out, it could shut down the locks.
14:40So this is just an accumulation of snow and debris.
14:43Every few years, Bill Campbell and his crew clear five to ten tons of debris out of these laterals, one
14:50bucket at a time.
14:51You're amazed sometimes what you find down here.
14:53Camera, purses, you name it.
14:55You've even had a boat sucked in down here before.
14:57Anybody in it?
14:58No.
15:00Wintertime dewatering and maintenance creates huge headaches and expense.
15:04Ideally, an additional lock will be built someday to both facilitate summertime repairs and also to make sure cargo keeps
15:12moving through the locks in case of a major breakdown.
15:15I thought the lateral ports were the belly of the beast.
15:19I wasn't even close.
15:28Deep well pumps are used to pump water out of the locks.
15:32These cavernous chambers also get a lot of lake-bottom debris that could shut down the pumps if it's not
15:37cleaned up.
15:38How high does the water get when you still work?
15:40Up to our chest.
15:41And if you didn't clean it out, of course, it'd just fill the whole thing.
15:44Well, that's the thing.
15:46That'd be bad.
15:48It's hard to believe that out-of-control debris in this subterranean tunnel could actually shut down interstate commerce, but
15:54it could.
15:54Up on the load.
15:56So, literally, one bucket at a time.
15:58Yes, sir.
15:58Day after day.
16:01Week after week.
16:05Infrastructure report card, inland waterways.
16:07Are you ready for it?
16:10D minus.
16:11You know what that means, right?
16:13That's worse than a D.
16:14And you know what a D is.
16:15According to Webster's, it says it right here, D, fourth letter of the English alphabet, the keynote of D major
16:22or D minor in music,
16:24and in grade school, when used in the context of a report card, slang for sucky.
16:31Shh.
16:32Sorry.
16:33Sucky.
16:36The Army Corps of Engineers maintains and operates the Inland Waterway System, which includes 257 lock systems that move 2
16:43.2 billion tons of commerce annually.
16:45The busiest lock is the Ohio River Lock No. 52 in Illinois, which moves about 96 million metric tons of
16:52goods every year.
16:59The only class I really did well in back in the eighth grade was phys ed.
17:03And even then, I didn't do that great.
17:05It's not like I'm a fabulous basketball player.
17:07It's just that I was surrounded in that particular year by the most amazing group of social misfits in the
17:13history of junior high.
17:15All I really had to do was show up, and I got a B- for my trouble.
17:20Now, my father was not particularly impressed with my commitment to phys ed, nor was he blown away by my
17:26B-, and he expressed his disapproval by beating me at basketball badly.
17:32It was a valuable lesson in the transference of energy, which brings me to our next topic on the Infrastructure
17:40Report Guard.
17:41It's our energy grid, and I don't even have to open it to tell you that it ain't pretty.
17:54Demand for electricity has grown by 25% since 1990, and by 2030, electricity use is expected to increase another
18:0329%.
18:04Unfortunately, our current energy grid is ill-prepared to handle the increased demand.
18:11On Dirty Jobs, we've been in a lot of mines.
18:14Randy Rothamund and his crew in northeast Pennsylvania mine anthracite coal.
18:19Coal-burning plants provide about half of the electricity generated in this country.
18:23But at some point, increasingly more efficient generation, transmission, and distribution systems will need to be added if we want
18:30to share the load.
18:31The crew from Watson Well Drilling in Tennessee also gets energy from the earth by tapping its natural geothermal resources.
18:38It's a clean, efficient way to provide heat for buildings.
18:41And we've met some innovators, too, like Bruce Barber in Washington, who's pioneering ways to use biodiesel.
18:47And Chuck Magic and his crew, who maintain an electricity-generating wind farm in Oklahoma.
18:53All these new and alternative sources work together to help take the strain off our aging energy infrastructure.
18:59But, until these sources develop a real foothold, or have a highway to the grid, we'll have to rely on
19:04the structures already in place.
19:06Hydroelectric dams generate about 12% of the power in this country.
19:11But the average age of our 85,000 dams is 50 years old, as is the age of the Rocky
19:17Reach Dam in Wenatchee, Washington.
19:19Which supplies power to 7 million homes in the Pacific Northwest.
19:23To keep the 11 hydraulic turbines spinning and producing power, the 2,200 gallons of oil each turbine contains has
19:31to be replaced every few years.
19:33We're going below, to the bottom-most part of the turbine, where the blades are.
19:37Behind those gates right there, where the water is leaking in, is the bottom of the river.
19:43We're basically crawling down a blade, over top of water, building a scaffold in mid-air, without a harness.
19:52It's safer to fall in the water, than it is to hang down there, until we can get you out.
19:56Well, there you go.
19:58Not so bad, huh?
19:59Not so good.
20:00Servicing these turbines is a dangerous job, and requires custom-built, floating scaffolding.
20:05That's very sporty.
20:06Without this brave, dedicated team of mechanics doing what they do, millions of people would be tragically denied the pleasure
20:14of watching our show.
20:15A remarkably small, shaky platform will be our working area.
20:19Crap.
20:20You all right?
20:20Come on down.
20:22There you go.
20:23This is a cap we're going to pull off, right here.
20:26Uh-huh.
20:26Ah!
20:29Ah!
20:32Hey, don't spill that on your nasty thing.
20:34That bed's under there.
20:36Oh, this is super convenient, too.
20:38Look at that.
20:39Sure.
20:42All right.
20:43Let's just weigh like 90 pounds.
20:44This is good.
20:45Give or take.
20:47Turn it on.
20:49We're all good.
20:50It's all working.
20:50We're going to pump it tomorrow morning.
20:52Just out of curiosity, why don't you do it now?
20:53End of the day.
20:54It's good.
20:55Oh, it's time to go home?
20:56Yeah.
20:57Oh, I love it.
20:58I think you're off the hook.
21:00If you're done, I'm done.
21:01I love it.
21:02The U.S. has three major grids that electricity is delivered through, but there are also more
21:09than 900 smaller electric utility cooperatives throughout the country, like carbon power and
21:15light in Wyoming.
21:16They deliver electricity through lines that often take power to remote areas.
21:21Here at 8,300 feet, severe weather takes a toll on timber poles that need to be replaced
21:27with metal ones.
21:28So 12 guys, Kelby, basically?
21:30Yep.
21:30Taking care of 4,500 square miles?
21:34Yep.
21:35You're superheroes.
21:38Dave Cuthbert and his crew replace about three wood poles a week.
21:42Holy crap.
21:42We're way up in the air, man.
21:43If even one pole goes down in these isolated rural areas, it can leave a lot of customers
21:49in a dangerous situation.
21:50This is exhausting, man.
21:51This is something you get used to.
21:53Mm-hmm.
21:54Besides upgrading poles, there's also a real need here and all over the country for new
21:59transmission lines to ease the strain on lines that are overloaded or already at capacity.
22:05As the demand for power grows at unprecedented rates, there's an imminent danger of demand
22:10outstripping supply.
22:12When that happens, blackouts occur.
22:14Shutting down transportation, drinking water and sewage systems, interrupting manufacturing.
22:19It can even disrupt some emergency communications.
22:22So, how do you get the little grips in there?
22:25You'll have to screw them in.
22:27You screw them in on the way up?
22:28Why didn't we do that when it was lying down here?
22:30Too easy.
22:31Too easy.
22:31Yeah.
22:32There isn't any spike boot punishment with the metal pole, just foot peg installation punishment.
22:38Is that going the wrong way?
22:39Awesome.
22:40It'll take forever.
22:41A 30-foot metal pole requires the installation of 18 foot pegs.
22:47Lift the wire, put it up on the spool there, Mike.
22:50Yeah, like that?
22:51Yeah.
22:51All right.
22:55What was that?
22:56You do this in zero degrees, huh?
22:58Yeah, fair.
22:59You got big ones, PJ.
23:01All right, the spool's got to come down.
23:03This is now officially obsolete.
23:05Until newer, more localized forms of alternative energy get perfected, we have linemen to thank
23:10every time we flip on a switch.
23:13The American Society of Civil Engineers has evaluated our energy grid and awarded us a D+.
23:20Not good.
23:22But no comprehensive evaluation of an energy policy would be complete, but a grade for new energy
23:30might be just a bit out of our reach for the time being.
23:33Hopefully, that examination will not only heighten our overall infrastructure grade, but illustrate a new commitment to go just a
23:41little further to achieve that which must be done.
23:50Coming up, a beautiful city has an avalanche of solid waste and a river of revolting refuse.
23:58I feel like a little tiny person that has gone into an actual garbage disposal.
24:02And later.
24:03Is there a worse job on the whole bridge than this?
24:06Saving bridges from the ravages of rust.
24:09Holy.
24:09How high are we again?
24:10200 feet.
24:11One death walk at a time.
24:21Ah, the boys' room.
24:22This brings back some memories.
24:241976.
24:25It involves me walking in here, looking around at all the trash and the milk cartons.
24:31Why were there milk cartons on the floor?
24:33Because we were pigs.
24:33But the point is, I used to love to pop these things, because in a place like this, the acoustics
24:39are fabulous.
24:40So I walked up to the milk carton, gave it some of that.
24:44It was loud.
24:45It was so loud that a scream came out of a bathroom stall, followed by one Steve Libanotti, with his
24:51pants down, smoking a cigarette.
24:54I've known Steve for years, but I really didn't know he was in there.
24:57And he looked at me and said, what was that?
24:58And I said, well, I popped one of these milk cartons.
25:01And he said, man, I would love to do that.
25:03Hold my cigarette.
25:05So he hands me his cigarette.
25:07And against my better judgment, I take it.
25:09He approaches the milk carton.
25:12And that one was real loud.
25:14And as soon as he did that, through this door back here comes Mr. Royston.
25:18Mr. Royston was the principal in my junior high.
25:22And on his face was an expression that only a principal could have.
25:26And what he said to me in that moment, as he looked at me and saw my feet covered with
25:31spoiled milk and a smoldering cigarette in my hand, I will never forget.
25:35He said, Mike Rowe, what a waste.
25:39Which brings me to my next point.
25:42Solid waste is not the same as wastewater and hazardous waste is not the same as solid waste.
25:48But together, they are both an integral part of our crumbling infrastructure.
25:52One might be tempted to call wasted.
25:59Since 1986, the number of landfills in the U.S. has decreased by 79%.
26:04With the remaining facilities expected to last only 20 more years, new, innovative solutions are needed to dispose of our
26:12waste.
26:12Our friends at Recology in San Francisco are working to raise the bar for waste management every day.
26:18Pick it up one swing.
26:19Who could forget LJ3, who let me try and keep up while collecting food waste in Chinatown.
26:25Or Dora, who removes old, dry-docked toilets, recycling them for building materials.
26:31And then there's Usman, who collects unwanted paint, recycling what he can and safely disposing of the rest.
26:38But no matter what you throw out in San Francisco, it comes here first.
26:42You're Raul, right?
26:44Yeah.
26:44Mike.
26:45How you doing, Mike?
26:45My job here is to compact the garbage so we can get enough weight in the trucks and just keep
26:52the whole transfer station moving.
26:54Keep it kind of level.
26:55Yeah.
26:56Every day, 2,200 tons of garbage from the Bay Area comes into this station alone.
27:02Recology is working to design enough recycling facilities to get the city to a zero-waste point and no longer
27:09use landfills.
27:10Oh, yeah.
27:11A lot of power.
27:12About 300 million tons of garbage are created nationwide every year.
27:17And about a third of that is recycled or composted.
27:20Some of it's burned in waste to energy plants.
27:23And about 50% is sent to landfills.
27:25That's where this truck is headed.
27:27Kind of wish that's where I was going.
27:28But I'm headed to the pit.
27:29The pit is where runoff from the trucks goes.
27:37Oh!
27:39I feel like a little tiny person that has gone into an actual garbage disposal.
27:44The job down here is fixing a pump that's got everything backed up, which is kind of like the solid
27:50waste infrastructure.
27:51As the population increases, if critical improvements, workers, and resources aren't continuously applied to the entire system,
27:59we could all end up standing hip-deep in something very unpleasant.
28:03The only thing worse would be standing in something that's classified as very hazardous.
28:11It's estimated that about 3 billion consumer electronics products will be scrapped in the next decade,
28:17and about a third of all computers ever sold remain stockpiled, awaiting disposal.
28:23Enter Sims Recycling Solutions in Roseville, California.
28:27They process over 30 million pounds a year of these formerly latest and greatest things,
28:33much of which gets recycled, saving tens of millions of cubic feet in landfills.
28:38And, it ensures that any hazardous materials inside the devices are disposed of responsibly.
28:44Robert's going to show me how to get some things ready for recycling.
28:47In other words, we're going to tear some stuff apart.
28:49This one here, right?
28:50Then your team is all ready.
28:51So you've got different bins over here for just about everything?
28:54Pretty much. There's a lot of precious metals in these things.
28:56What kind of precious metals?
28:58Aluminum, copper.
28:59At the current rate of consumer electronics growth and obsolescence,
29:02there are not enough facilities like this to keep up.
29:05A lot more places, like Sims Recycling, are going to have to be built.
29:17This is the best relationship I've ever had with technology.
29:20Wow.
29:20I really feel like I'm giving it back.
29:22Hey.
29:23How many nights have I sat there looking at these things,
29:25and not knowing how anything works?
29:27Can't download my stupid songs?
29:29Hey, Mike.
29:30Sits there blinking at me, mocking me.
29:32Now you know why.
29:33Who's mocking who now?
29:35It's funny how the excuse machine kicks in
29:38when you're walking to the principal's office.
29:41You know, the way your mind searches for any kind of explanation
29:43to get you out of whatever mess you happen to find yourself in.
29:47Say, for instance, you're in the hazardous waste business.
29:51Perhaps your mind is racing to explain this.
29:55Another D.
29:56Of course, if you're in the solid waste business,
29:58calls for celebration.
30:00Yeah, typically a C-plus is not the kind of grade
30:02you'd put in a frame and hang over your desk,
30:04but in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,
30:07and the C-plus just happens to be the very highest grade
30:10on the infrastructure report card.
30:12Perhaps flushed with victory,
30:14you look around for some sort of celebratory gesture
30:17and spy a golf cart that some irresponsible adult left unattended
30:21and you think to yourself,
30:23why not celebrate with the joy ride?
30:26I mean, what the heck?
30:27If you're heading to the principal's office,
30:30you might as well arrive in style.
30:34Coming up.
30:35I'm actually out on a highway operating a bulldozer.
30:37Making better, safer roads.
30:39Now open it up.
30:42Oh, jeez.
30:43Can kick you right in the asphalt.
30:44That could have been bad.
30:52Modern conveyance.
30:54The business of getting from point A to point B.
30:57It's an essential element to any healthy infrastructure
31:01or civilized society.
31:02Believing otherwise makes about as much sense
31:05as stealing a golf cart and driving it to the principal's office.
31:09Of course, when you're in the eighth grade,
31:11you're young and dumb and you do stupid stuff.
31:14As you get older, though,
31:16and become more dependent on a highly modernized network
31:21of roads and bridges and railways and runways and whatnot,
31:26surely, at that point, you're going to make better choices.
31:30Right?
31:31Yeah.
31:33I'm going in.
31:37Spanning the Straits of Mackinac and Michigan,
31:39the Mighty Mac is one of the ten longest suspension bridges in the world.
31:43While the Mackinac Bridge is in excellent condition,
31:46more than one in four of the country's bridges have been described
31:49as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
31:53Traffic congestion, detours, closures, or even collapses can occur
31:58if bridges aren't sufficiently upgraded or maintained.
32:01Here at the Mackinac Bridge, constant exposure to high winds and moisture
32:05requires that the maintenance never stops.
32:09I'm heading down one of the 200-foot towers to clean up rust and paint steel.
32:13A guy named Stan is supposed to be down here somewhere.
32:18Are you Stan?
32:20We're working in that cell right there at the bottom.
32:25That's horrible.
32:29Like most maintenance tasks on the bridge,
32:31if the steel in the towers isn't stripped and repainted often,
32:35it'll rust, become structurally compromised.
32:38Is there a worse job on the whole bridge than this?
32:41It's a job that needs to be done.
32:43Yeah.
32:43Without guys like Stan doing jobs that need to be done,
32:46we'd all be taking boats across the Straits of Mackinac.
32:49Well, I mean, you know...
32:52It's just a terrible job you got here, man.
32:55That's all right.
32:55We enjoy it.
32:57Bridge maintenance is continuous,
32:59from the very bottom all the way up to the very top,
33:02which is where I'm heading to replace some light bulbs.
33:05Holy...
33:05How high are we again?
33:06200 feet.
33:07A girl scout with a monkey merit badge could do this.
33:12There are 96 cable lights on the bridge,
33:14as well as lights on the very top of the towers.
33:17They're not just decorative.
33:18They alert aircraft to where the cables and towers are.
33:22You're doing really good.
33:23Thanks.
33:24The Mackinac Bridge people do a top-notch job,
33:27but with the nationwide critical need for retrofitting and replacement,
33:31the American Society of Civil Engineers has given
33:33our country's bridge infrastructure a mediocre scene.
33:38We are on.
33:39Congratulations.
33:40That was big.
33:45About one-third of the four million miles of roads
33:48in our country are in poor or mediocre condition.
33:51A poor road infrastructure leads to accidents, delays, congestion,
33:56wasted fuel consumption, not to mention wear and tear on vehicles.
34:00I'm actually out on a highway operating a bulldozer in traffic.
34:04Ninety-four percent of our highways are paved with asphalt.
34:08I'm joining Benny Schamp and his crew from Werner Construction in western Nebraska,
34:12paving an asphalt road that takes a beating from the brutal freeze-thaw cycle
34:17of minus-30-degree winters and 100-degree summers.
34:20Now we'll go get the broom tractor.
34:22The broom tractor.
34:26Come over this way.
34:27There's maybe a zillion steps to paving a highway,
34:30and to get all those steps done before sundown,
34:32Benny keeps the pressure on.
34:35Okay, doctor.
34:36Now what?
34:37Lay asphalt now.
34:38Okay.
34:39The asphalt gets dumped by one truck,
34:42then picked up by another machine,
34:44then laid down by the same machine that picked it up.
34:47Okay, now open it up.
34:49That's good.
34:50Oh!
34:51Oh, boy.
34:51Once the mixture is on the ground, the clock begins to tick.
34:55Slow down!
34:56Quick, right?
34:57The crew has 15 minutes to get it poured, laid down, and rolled.
35:01There's a lot going on right now.
35:03A lot going on.
35:03We just might pave an audio guy before the day is over.
35:06Oh, jeez.
35:07That could have been bad.
35:09In the next eight months, Ben and his crew will pave 600 miles of roads
35:12with 865,000 tons of asphalt.
35:16Then it probably won't be too long till they start all over again.
35:19Clear up as far as it'll go.
35:23And you're paving.
35:24In Germany, they're using a multi-layered rock asphalt
35:28and concrete paving process that's incredibly durable and long-lasting.
35:32The Germans probably would have avoided the D-minus we got in this country
35:36for overall road conditions.
35:38Although companies like Werner are using new technologies
35:41to make our roads safer and more durable,
35:43their work will never stop because people will always want to travel
35:47wherever the road will take them.
35:48You got the idea?
35:50You dump it, you flatten it.
35:52You dump it, you flatten it.
35:53Then they're going to come in and roll it.
35:55It's estimated the federal highway system will have to double in the next 50 years.
35:59Without a whole lot more paving crews,
36:02we're going to be in for some monster traffic jams.
36:04So the next time you pass a road crew,
36:06tip your hat to the folks who work hard for your safety,
36:09turning asphalt into a finely paved work of art.
36:16Coming up...
36:17We're going to be working on this tie right here.
36:19Will there be dancing?
36:19No dancing.
36:20Gandy dancing doesn't sound like a manly job.
36:23Do they have to do that?
36:25But it takes big studs...
36:27That's a lot of wood.
36:28...to keep a train on its tracks.
36:30Out of my way, sinners.
36:40Every bit as important as keeping highways maintained
36:43is keeping airport runways in good condition.
36:46Poorly marked and maintained runways lead to incursions,
36:50incidents involving the incorrect presence of airplanes,
36:53people or vehicles that create a collision hazard
36:57for a plane that's either taking off or landing.
37:00The plane I hear landing is looking down at the runway at your paint job.
37:04All the touchdown bars, aiming points,
37:06anything that's going to guide that plane in
37:08so he knows exactly where he needs to be as he's coming down.
37:11So you're the reason the pilot's able to land,
37:13and in a civilized manner we can all get off the plane alive
37:16and go about our business.
37:17Correct. This is our paint carriage.
37:19We can paint up to a 36-inch wide pattern on it,
37:21and we can paint all the way down to a 4-inch line off of one gun.
37:26Well, this is our wash bay.
37:27We tend to use high-pressure washers to wash out some of the paint.
37:32First, we're going to be taking off these paint filters.
37:34Phil and Kevin operate this truck.
37:36Maintaining it may seem pretty routine and ordinary,
37:39but the lives of thousands of passengers and crew members
37:42depend on the job this vehicle does every day.
37:45It's a critical part of aviation infrastructure in every single airport.
37:51Don't you love that?
37:54Okay, what we got here is obviously some dried up crusty paint on the sides.
37:58We need to start by using putty knives to try to scrape what we can off,
38:03any excess that we can.
38:08Good job.
38:10The updated air traffic control system, among other things,
38:14gives aviation an overall grade of D.
38:17Can you still see what you're doing, Mike?
38:19Not a thing, thanks.
38:20In Phil and Kevin's world, the stakes are high.
38:23Innovations in runway marking durability
38:25will hopefully make runways everywhere a whole lot safer.
38:29This here ends up in a holding tank at the bottom of the wash bay
38:33which we will inevitably have to clean out
38:36now that we've cleaned this paint truck into it.
38:38You should think about not calling me when that happens.
38:40Really?
38:43Trains have been and still are the backbone of this country.
38:47About 43% of everything in a typical home has been on a train
38:51at one time or another.
38:52Around 70% of domestically manufactured vehicles are transported by rail
38:57as well as nearly 70% of the coal that's used in power plants.
39:01One of the ways to make sure the country's rail infrastructure is in tip-top shape
39:05is to use crews called gandy dancers.
39:07Shane Grumpf will be my dance instructor today.
39:11We're going to be working on this tie right here
39:13and you can see the ends all frayed out and it's just in bad condition.
39:17Do we repair the tie or do we replace the tie?
39:19We replace it.
39:20Will there be dancing?
39:21No dancing.
39:21Some of the 200,000 plus miles of rails in this country are 30 years old.
39:26Considering the estimate that by the year 2035
39:29there'll be an 88% increase in tonnage traveling on them.
39:33The gandy dancers job is critical for people who like their cars delivered on time.
39:38So the next process is to remove the ballast between the ties.
39:42The ballast, this stuff.
39:44It keeps the ties from moving and it stabilizes the railroad track.
39:49There are over a billion of these cross ties in today's rail system.
39:53And this is one of the ways they're replaced.
39:55It's tedious, back-breaking manual labor.
39:58These guys do it every day.
40:02Do they have to do that?
40:04You know, if they care, they can slow down.
40:06Hop out, pick up a shovel, make an honest day's wage.
40:09No, they're all busy delivering freight.
40:12Yeah.
40:18Heavy.
40:19New ones weigh on average probably 300 pounds.
40:21That's a lot of wood.
40:23Time to install the new ties.
40:27Oh no, you're not going to tell me this is our hammer.
40:29You can use a big end.
40:35Uh-oh.
40:38Oops.
40:39Anything else to do?
40:40Well, just a test.
40:42The test?
40:43This would be the test the chain's talking about.
40:50The need for improvements to rail networks and systems, signaling technology, and heavier rails
40:56are all reasons why the American Society of Civil Engineers gave our rail system a C minus.
41:02And with constantly increasing traffic and heavier freight loads,
41:06crews like the gandy dancers have their work cut out for them.
41:09Blow your horn a little bit.
41:11Out of my way, sinners.
41:16Is there anything more annoying than having someone spell out a metaphor?
41:19Probably not.
41:20But I'm going to do it anyway.
41:22Because as my junior high school principal explained to me those many years ago,
41:26on the day I stole the golf cart, son, the stakes are high and your future is on the line.
41:31So, metaphorically speaking, I have come to the principal's office today
41:36because I would rather be here than in Mrs. Frazier's basement waiting for my toilet to explode.
41:41I am in the principal's office today because I'd rather be here waiting to get my wrist slapped
41:47than I would sitting on an airplane waiting to taxi down a runway that might have some potholes in it.
41:52Or sitting in my car waiting to cross a bridge that hadn't been inspected for decades.
41:58Or living on the wrong side of a crumbling levee waiting for the next hurricane to come off the coast.
42:05I'm here in the principal's office because this report card is our report card.
42:10This grade is our grade.
42:13And I have no idea how to make it better.
42:16I can tell you that the people we feature on Dirty Jobs are not a part of the problem.
42:20In fact, those are people who prove that hard work and diligence are not enough to get that grade up.
42:27And we're talking about our infrastructure.
42:29This is our ability to compete internationally.
42:32This is our economy.
42:34This is national defense.
42:37Kind of a big deal.
42:39Anyhow, I don't know what the answer is,
42:41but the American Society of Civil Engineers says we need $2.2 trillion to make it better.
42:47I don't have $2.2 trillion.
42:50And I don't know where to find it.
42:51I just figure if we don't start talking about it soon,
42:54we're going to be having this same conversation in detention.
43:00And I'd hate to see you there.
43:20Slang for sucky.
43:24Dave, what's the sound we make when I say sucky?
43:27Oh, shh.
43:28Good.
43:28Sorry.
43:29One line, not even a line.
43:31Just a sound.
43:32I'm sorry.
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