Press Release
If one has ever seen the ads and information for Waste and Water Logistics, a company that is based in Helper, Utah one might just think it is a firm that shuttles around porta potties all day, because their main claim to fame is “Got Poop?”
But according to Jesse McCourt, the owner and entrepreneur who started the company in 2003, the growth of his business goes well beyond, well, going.
“We offer a large range of services,” he said as he sat in his office that sits aside his complex on Highway 6. “We offer a lot of services that are unique to our company.”
When McCourt and his wife started the business, it was a part-time endeavor. McCourt was working for Nelco Construction at the time and he labored to do both jobs. That went on for about a year as the porta potty business started to grow. Then, in 2004, he left Nelco and ran with it full time while still holding down a part-time night job driving a truck for Savage.
“By 2005, we were making enough to live on and I also purchased our first pumper truck,” he said, which was the beginning of more than just portable units.
Suddenly, he was in the business of pumping out septic tanks and sumps. He got busy, so he hired the company’s very first employee, which has now grown to 16 workers who make their living performing the many functions of the company.
In 2007, his company purchased BW Trucking in the Unita Basin and suddenly, they were not only in another market but found themselves in the business of hauling potable water to drill pads, some in very remote areas. The operation grew quite quickly, but because of the energy downturn in the Uinta Basin, McCourt said they closed the shop in November of 2015.
“But that doesn’t mean we are still not working there,” he said recently. “We are still doing business there, just not enough to keep a shop open in the area.”
Over the years, McCourt found himself and his crews doing a lot of backtracking. One truck would go to an industrial site to provide water, but they also needed to pick up waste as well. He added pup trailers to take care of that, but with the addition of more specialty vehicles, it meant some of them sat in the yard a few days a week, while he was paying for insurance, maintenance and taxes on them. Then, he got into the hook lift trucks.
“With those we seldom have a truck sitting in the yard not being used anymore,” he said.
A hook lift truck allows different body payloads to be hoisted up on a truck. In the morning, a truck can be used to haul water and by afternoon it can be used to pump out someones septic tank. It was a real cost saver. It also allowed the company to provide better and faster service to customers.
Today, the lines of service the company provides is long. People may know them for their porta potties, but many have found they are also there when they need them for sewer emergencies.
“We do drain cleaning with snakes, but we also have a high pressure jetting system that can use hot or cold water and can clean everything from a two inch sewer pipe to a 20 inch main,” he said. The company has been hired at times by some municipalities as well as private companies and residents to clean drains.
Waste and Water Logistics can also analyze what is wrong with a drainage system because they have cameras to do inspections and observations about what might be causing a drainage problem. McCourt’s stories about drain cleaning are many, but his favorite is one about a toy that held everything up, literally.
“There was a client who had a plumber snake their lines and the system would work for awhile and then it would plug up again,” he said. “The plumber told them to call us and we went in with our high pressure machine and cleaned it out. After that, we sent our camera down to see what the problem was. As we got just a few feet from the main, there was a GI Joe doll with its arms raised and feet extended wedged across the drainage pipe. It looked like it was holding the pipe up.”
The GI Joe was removed and the drain has worked well since.
Probably the service that the company provides and is least known, but can save people a lot of grief, time and money, is the trenchless sewer line service it provides. It works like this:
A lot of old pipes tend to break apart or collapse. When they do, no jetting or snaking can keep them open. In the past to replace lines that fail like that, the entire line would have to be dug up and replaced. Waste and Water Logistics has a system that is called a pipe burster. The companies personnel dig a hole near where the line enters the main and then dig a hole either along the foundation of the house or in the basement where the line runs. They then insert a device that looks like an arrowhead and it follows the track of the old pipe, pushing it apart while a new sewer line is drawn behind it.
“This system basically saves anyone from spending more money than they have to on a sewer line replacement,” said McCourt. “The pipe that fills the space is a high density poly pipe that is guaranteed to last 100 years. Because of the way the machine works, it actually allows a pipe the same size as the one that was in the space before to be pulled through so there is no drainage capacity lost.”
He said that one homeowner that needed a pipe replaced was 124 feet from the main and the line traveled not only under asphalt on the street for some distance but also went under large sections of concrete. With conventional means that would have been dug up and then replaced with new cement.
“The estimated cost would have been about $22,000,” he said. “We did the replacement for $6,000.”
In addition, the new pipe is all heat welded together with no joints. That way tree roots, one of the most common problems that homeowners have when their lines become plugged, can’t get in.
“I saw one house we worked on where the tree roots reached right through the house system to the toilet bowl,” he said.
With a lot of septic tank and sump pumping, the company faced a challenge a few years back that most people would not think of. They wanted to offer 24/7 service to their customers, but unless the treatment plant in Wellington was open, they couldn’t dump what they pumped.
“And in Duchesne County we not only had that problem, but the city fathers there increased our fees for dumping from $200 per month to $200 per 1000 gallons,” he said. “The answer was to build our own treatment plant.”
And so they did. It sits inside the shop and can hold up to 25,000 gallons of sewage. The process is similar to what is used at a large municipal plant, but on a smaller scale.
“We separate the solids and the treated water goes into the sewer system,” stated McCourt. “We then put the sludge into big bins that can be loaded on trucks once the sludge is completely dewatered. Then we dispose of the sludge at ECDC.”
While the equipment to treat the sewage was expensive, it saved his company 85% of what it had been spending on all the travel, lost hours, etc.
The company also provides other services including the demolition of septic systems and installation of new ones. They also rent out Conex containers for storage and install temporary chain link fencing for construction sites and other venues. They also offer dumpster services, including some unique solutions.
“I like to think we offer customers what they want,” he said. “One client wanted a large truck sized dumpster, and traditionally the kind they wanted were open topped. But they wanted some that had a top so we found and purchased some that have screens over the top. That way the birds are not scattering trash all over from the unit.”
But back to the original business, porta potties. McCourt said it is still a good part of the firm’s business and he is trying to innovate.
“This year, we brought in urinal only units,” he said as he showed them off just outside the north end of his shop. The units look like gray pedestals with partially enclosed urinals on each corner. He said they are something people seem to be having a hard time getting used to.
“They just get nervous standing there in the open,” he said. “They use them all over Europe, but people are a little skittish about them here.”
McCourt said the urinal pedestals would help with a couple of old school problems that people have with the standard porta potties. Because they are built just for men, it would free up the other units for the women where long lines often form during busy events. The pedestals also have a capacity of 150 gallons, while porta potties can only hold 75 gallons.
“I have often been called out to events late at night with the complaint that the porta potties are overflowing,” he said. “This would help solve some of that.”
And if you are wondering how porta potties and the new urinals get cleaned? Here’s the answer.
“We not only clean them everyday when they are on site at an event, but when we bring them back here they are pressure washed from top to bottom with anti viral cleaning agents,” he said. “We have devices that can be set inside the potty and even inside the the tank that do it without even the worker getting a drop of anything on him.”
Now, the company is working with the Castle Country Business Expansion and Retention program to expand their business once again. They just filed a Fast Track Grant application for $50,000 to expand even further.
“In the last few months we have moved to doing business along the Wasatch Front,” said McCourt. “We have between 60 and 90 porta potties situated everywhere from Salt Lake to Eureka.”
The company is also now providing another service for cement contractors: getting rid of excess concrete and the residue that remains in trucks when pours are being made at construction sites. In the past, many contractors would just dig a hole in the ground at the site and rid themselves of the extra concrete but that is no longer legal. Now, they have to get rid of it and McCourt said his company is moving toward providing boxes where that material can be poured in then they will take it to a proper disposal site. The new Fast Track Grant will help with this expansion.
“We are always looking for new ways to serve our customers and to find new business that we can provide,” said McCourt.
Because of this, some good management and intelligent financial moves, Waste Logistics continues to grow in the face of economic downturn in eastern Utah.