Operating a tanker hauling ‘dirty’ water in the Bakken fields, we spent a lot of hours at disposal sites. A lot of hours.

It wasn’t uncommon to sit 12+ hours waiting.

There were 2 hook up spots at the disposal site we usually used…and a whole long line of trucks waiting to use them. We took turns.

Unlike some of the other drivers, I didn’t mind this at all. It wasn’t strenuous – the lines moved very slowly so you could take a nap or fix something to eat, or even go in and chat with the disposal site operator. You could do all three and have time leftover. You just had to plan accordingly. The guys in the day-cabs had a much harder time. I was fortunately in a sleeper-truck and self-contained with a bed, fridge, microwave, coffeepot and computer. (I never had to worry about lodging or legendary Bakken rental costs because of this – I just stayed in the truck).

And unlike over-the-road driving, we got paid to wait. In fact, it was such a weird thing to not be ripped off and treated fairly, some of us who had come in from over-the-road would get antsy and have to remind ourselves it was okay, we were being paid (!) for all that time spent on a loads’ behalf.

Human conditioning is a funny thing. Most drivers grew so accustomed to exhaustion and running like their heads were on fire and their asses were catching that they felt crabby if that wasn’t happening. But in over-the-road, you only make money if you’re moving.

In the over-the-road environment some of us came from you could sit for hours in a dock, free of charge. You are still responsible for the truck, and the load but you are not paid for that time. You can’t walk away or leave the truck, or see your family or run errands, take a shower, etc., etc. When that waiting-pay finally kicked in, usually after several hours, it was a pittance, not even equal to minimum wage for all the time that you just burnt on a loads’ behalf. To put it in perspective, 2 loads could hold you for 3 hours each for free, eating 6 hours in your day away on a companies’ behalf, but you are not paid for it.

We sat for long hours in the disposal sites, axle-deep in mud, in the middle of Bumfuck, ND like grubby dirty-water soldiers patiently in queue. When something happened, it was an event. We’d all rub our hands together and lick our lips in anticipation and gather around eagerly, like mud swallows swarming a barn rafter.

We were a weird little family; we knew almost every other driver that came in because we all spent so much time there. The truck I was operating stuck out like a sore thumb, a bright yellow and black W900 and owned by a friend and dubbed the Bumblebee. In it’s former life it had hauled a race car and had a matching trailer. “I see yellow…here comes Magicwolf…” You’d hear drawl on the radio upon approaching the disposal.

Lonnie had a truck similar to my beloved former Kenworth T800 Studio, white and chrome, except his was a W900. He pulled in to the waiting area and pulled his brakes. The bank gave way with a grunt under the weight of the trailer and the truck promptly sank. His trailer kept on leaning and leaning, apparently seeking to become intimate with the power pole. Or the truck was simply desperate for a nap and getting comfortable, like the rest of us.

Oops!

It wasn’t his fault, and there wasn’t anywhere else he could put the truck. We usually packed in like muddy sardines. The excessive rain that year had rendered things a mess. Mud pits, flooded roads, you name it. A common question was “Gotta rope?” usually posed from a weary driver who couldn’t get loose from the mire. It was almost like the disposal site entrance pass-phrase. If you got tired enough, you half-expected a little bridge troll to pop out and demand the pass-phrase before allowing you to enter the mud-laden site. A good tow-rope can set you back hundreds of dollars.

The actual mud situation is difficult to convey through the pictures that I have. My at-the-time Blackberry’s camera wasn’t that good, and it simply didn’t show depth and scale well. You could literally have your boots sucked off of your feet by this stuff and fall flat on your face, as the disposal attendant found out to her chagrin. She described it as something out of a slapstick comedy show, where you see things like walking-out-of-your boots happening but you don’t expect that in real life, so when it does happen, coupled with being tired you end up with a serious case of the midnight hysterics.

Over the radio we heard a plethora of colorful phrases explode from Lonnie. Oh boy! Excitement! Entertainment! We all gleefully piled out of our respective trucks and waddled our way through the mud in our sewer boots over to stand around the truck chattering, and to good-naturedly hassle poor Lonnie – and do something before his truck took out the power pole and we had real problems.

The closer you get, the further I lean…

Lonnie’s trailer had to first have the dirty water pumped out and offloaded onto other trucks. Drivers scurried around to make that happen, pumps humming, keeping a watchful eye on the precarious tilt of Lonnie’s trailer.

Another driver, Clark, (with the red trailer) helps Lonnie out by taking on some of his load.

Because all the trucks in there were mostly already loaded (sans any that might be coming off the hookups) it would take several trailers to get that done.

It’s not easy being leaned.

Once the trailer was sufficiently lighter then he could be yanked backwards and out and things would die down…until the next driver got stuck somewhere!