The Hazards Of Offroad Trucking

Currently, I work as a night shift water truck driver for a well services company in Garfield County, Colorado (see my song #22, Boom Town Perspective). The only thing worse than having to go to work is not having a job when you need one, and I freely admit my employer is (in my not so humble opinion) the best in the business. If I DO have to work (and short of a major PowerBall lottery win, I do), then I'd have no other job.

But there are dangers that, quite simply, come with the territory. Our endeavors involve water hauling services for gasfield drilling rigs and completed wells in steep, mountainous terrain. Many of the roads are wisely posted with speed limits of no more than 25 mph, often as low as 15 mph, and they do have it right: Any more than that puts people at risk and tears up equipment. Did I mention that these are DIRT roads, with steep switchbacks and all too often "washboard" surfaces that test a driver's skill level to the max?

Despite our company's Safety training and staff, plus an excellent record in personnel selection, we have had accidents that were not exactly beneficial to the trucks involved. Nor do I except myself: In the spring of 2007, deep during one pitch black night shift, I cut a corner too tightly and smacked a heavy steel fencepost with the tail end of my tanker trailer--and it was not even my first time on that route. Though the damage was relatively minor, it DID get my attention!

However, some of the MOST embarrassing "Hazard Encounters" out there have (thankfully) involved OTHER trucking companies. For example:

All of us in this area draw water from the Colorado River from time to time, and one popular grab-some-water point is at the Una Bridge near the town of Parachute. It's a simple process, with room to turn around and back in, not to mention a fairly gentle slope down to the water. All a driver needs to do is back up CLOSE to (but not into) the water, set the truck's brakes, hook up a hose with a screen on the end of it, set the truck's pump to "vacuum", and watch the truck do the rest of the work.

Unless.

One morning, finishing my shift just at first light, I was coming back across the Una Bridge and got on the CB radio:

"Pilot Car, you got a copy?" (We get piloted to various points in that area for the sake of safety and traffic control.)

"This is Pilot Car; go ahead."

"Just wanted to know, you're up on the fact that there's a bobtail on its side, about sixty feet downstram from the bridge?"

"Yes, I am. Happened about 8:30 last night. They had all kinds of cops down here...."

How'd you like to have to make THAT call to your boss?

"Uh, Boss, I, uh, kind of got too, uh, close to the river, and, uh, it turns out a new Kenworth isn't a very good boat...."

Turns out that truck was only TWO WEEKS OLD when the Colorado claimed it for its own.

A bobtail, by the way, is a truck that does NOT have a trailer attached. In this case, it described a truck with a mounted tank that can hold up to 80 barrels of water. Since the driver is backing the actual DRIVE wheels up to the river, the bobtail is much more vulnerable to "water suction" than is the transport (tractor trailer combination).

The above photo is of the actual truck described, the bobtail "swallowed" by the river. Originally, you could see NOTHING of the cab, not even that front tire, but the water level has dropped significantly as summer has progressed. There have been several attempts to get the vehicle out of there, but apparently the problem is a sticky one.

Human curiosity has been highly active, however. It was just this morning that I hiked down through the brush to take pictures of the wreck specifically for this Hub. Sure, there were plenty of mosquitoes (can you spell "West Nile Virus"?) and jungle-thick vegetation...but the journey turned out to be easier than expected. Other human feet had beaten down a path to the riverbank, dozens if not hundreds of reporters and curious civilians angling for a good angle.

Oh sure, they COULD have been on a different errand. Fishing, for example, or simply admiring the stunning western Colorado scenery. But we get plenty of that (scenery) without trying around here. Wild bear, deer, elk, coyotes, mountain lions, the works...and of course landscape views like the following, which was taken by turning ninety degrees to the right from the shot of the wrecked truck:

When the truck got pulled into the swift-moving current, it began quite a little journey. Only a few hundred feet at most, true, but adventurous all the same. Starting from above the Una Bridge, it was not only rolled over on its side but moved to well below the bridge. One result of this impromptu travel: Landowners on either bank are reportedly not giving permission for heavy cranes and/or other machinery to crunch around on their property.

Result: No good angle for anchoring the truck and/or pulling it out.

The sort of trucking we do out here has many dangers, not just the Colorado River. Getting too close to the edge of a too-soft dirt road can roll your rig in a hurry. Among a group of highly professional drivers, too, there are always a few who are not well qualified--in some cases, illegal immigrants who run from the scene of an accident, as happened last year after one such lost control of his water tanker and smacked into my water tanker, after which he and his partner disappeared from the scene.

Not to mention muscle strain from slinging heavy tire chains loaded with many pounds of mud...the struggle to stay awake at the wheel, especially on night shift...sleeping mountain lions on remote gas well locations (one man recently saw a huge Tom sleeping between water tanks in the middle of the day)...a highly concentrated bear population,,,even simple mechanical breakdown from the pounding every gasfield truck takes.

Plus...although I'm not one to badmouth "civilian" drivers, one little red car did its best just a few weeks ago to commit suicide by jumping across two lanes--right in front of my truck. My rig was doing 65 (the speed limit), and the four wheeler had been running in the fast lane to my left. It suddenly slowed and dove for the exit to my right. No contact; I did manage to miss running right over the top of his foolishness.

Although I do admit to laying on the air horn after it was clear we had avoided contact.

Even so, the truck in the water exemplifies the results of even one moment of inattention. So much so that you-the-reader deserve one more photo of the bobtail, this time a closeup:

Although I'd much rather be a member of the "idle rich", I will admit that working in this part of western Colorado is never boring. Two nights ago, while loading water at a mountain spot known as Forever Young Pond, I sensed movement out there in the dark. Barely seen, just up the dirt road from my truck's location, a magnificent young bull elk had just stepped up onto the roadway. He seemed rather startled to find Man and Machine in the vicinity and quickly decided to trot back downslope.

Not too much adrenaline involved. He was not, after all, a bear...or a truck in the river.

A semi-final note about the Una Bridge incident: As of this writing, the Una Bridge is closed to us water haulers; we must load our tankers elsewhere. Some of us (our company and a few others) frequent the newly available water-grabbing spots near the DeBeque Bridge a dozen miles downstream. Why is the Una Bridge closed? Safety considerations:

Losing an entire bobtail to the River did, quite clearly, get the attention of the energy industry. Construction is in progress. Concrete barriers now block any truck from getting TOO close to the water, which is going to present a problem in and of itself: The Colorado is not a water tank as such. Its WATER LEVEL fluctuates by several vertical feet from season to season. It's obvious that, in late summer before the fall rains, a single 20-foot hose may not be able to reach from those barriers to the water at all!

Add to that the fact that during spring runoff, high water levels may nearly BURY those big chunks of concrete, rising well above their on-ground level (though probably not above their tops in a "normal" year), and it could get...interesting.

The powers that be are even adding some gravel/soil buildup that looks like, in the end, we'll have more of a "level bench" on which to park, and a longer drop to pull water, meaning a slower loading process....

Not to mention that they've finally added a PortaPotty as well, something that had frequently been requested but never provided until now...:D

On yesterday's news (7-23-08) there was a story about a lady who was attacked by a bear in this area while walking her dogs. She survived, and drove her bleeding self to the hospital. She was not a truck driver, but we commercial drivers ARE definitely "out amongst 'em" on a daily basis. Or, for us night shift folks, a nightly basis...where a black bear is about the same color as the night itself....

It is, at least, never boring.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32