Seth Sovde, lead worker with Met Council Environmental Services, poses for a portrait at the Met Council Regional Maintenance Facility in Eagan on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. Photo by Nicole Neri for Minnesota Reformer.
On this day of feasting and gratitude, Americans will consume more than 46 million turkeys and many million pounds of russet and sweet potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, mac and cheese, pie and wine.
While most of us are gorging and masticating and digesting and then resting before another round, about 30 or 40 public workers will be operating the metro area’s biggest water reclamation plant during 12-hour shifts. The Metropolitan Plant in St. Paul processes about 135 million gallons of water a day, according to Karla Karls, who helps run operations at a couple smaller west metro plants.
Seth Sovde will be on call in case anything goes wrong. His official title is “interceptor operator lead worker,” but he’s essentially a foreman of a crew of seven, unblocking pipes to keep the water running. They also clean what are called lift stations, which are pumps at the low end of a gravity line, as Sovde explained to me.
“I make sure our pipes flow to the plant so the water can get there,” he said.
If something goes wrong in the seven-county metro area today, like if a sewer line gets plugged with oils and grease, Sovde will head out in a truck with a jetting hose. His team will remove the blockage with high pressure water, and then vacuum out the debris.
Here are some tips so Sovde and his team can enjoy their Thanksgiving without getting called out: Don’t deposit turkey grease down the drain. And “flushable” wipes are a lie.
Sovde, who lives in Farmington with his wife and two children, originally planned on becoming an electrical engineer. “It dawned on me — I don’t think sitting at a desk is for me,” he said. So, 19 years ago, he got an apprenticeship at the Metropolitan Council, the regional agency that runs our water reclamation system.
Consider how lucky we are thanks to the work of Sovde and his colleagues: “In 1940 nearly half of houses lacked hot piped water, a bathtub or shower, or a flush toilet,” according to James D. Lutz of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The metro system includes nine plants, servicing 110 cities with over 600 miles of interceptor pipes. Sewage can start in Anoka and travel all the way to St. Paul thanks to pipes that can be 10 feet tall.
“It’s a river of sanitary water flowing 100 feet underground,” Sovde marveled.
How often do you consider this when you turn on the tap and potable water flows?
“You see a hatch and you don’t know what’s beneath it,” Sovde said.
Which reminds me of a saying that makes the rounds occasionally: “Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don’t appreciate or understand.”
The observation, however, is too narrowly focused on libertarians. I’d argue that it applies to most Americans, many of whom are comfortably nestled — and oblivious.
We’re all heavily reliant on vast and complex systems staffed by public workers at the federal, state and local level. These workers oversee the electric grid. They respond to medical emergencies and crime scenes. They direct the thousands of commercial airliners above us to safe landings. They teach kids how to read. They care for people who can’t care for themselves. They provide weather forecasts down to the ZIP code so we can plan our day — and our plantings and harvests. They roam the seas in aircraft carriers for months at a time to deter hostile foreign powers. They test drugs for dangerous side-effects. They make sure your aging parents get their Social Security checks and Medicare coverage.
The professional lives of all public workers are about to get more challenging. People who don’t know and don’t care about their work are about to be their bosses, especially at the federal level.
Like if the proverbial house cats suddenly took over your home.
So in this season of gratitude, maybe learn a little about what these folks do to keep our hard-won civilization flourishing — and thank them.