CITY WATER SUPERINTENDENT TO LEAVE POSITION UPON 20 YEARS OF SERVICE

Waukon’s Water and Sewer Superintendent, Butch Kessel, will retire June 30 after thirty years of service to the City.
He came to work for the City on May 15, 1970, after working as a carpenter with Dale Robey and Bob Stilwell. “I enjoyed the carpentry business, and I still enjoy woodworking,” he said. “But it was seasonal work and I would be laid off in the winter. I was looking for a year-round job.”
Needless to say, water is a vital element in the lives of all living things, and an incident before Butch started working for the City reflects the attention and interest people place on the quality of their drinking water. Waukon was one of the very first communities in Iowa to add fluoride to the municipal water supply. The date that fluoride would first be added to the water was well publicized in newspapers and on radio stations in the area. The day arrived, and a technical glitch prevented the commencement of the process that day. No fluoride was added. That didn’t prevent the citizenry from reacting to this new process. The telephone at the water plant rang and rang, all day long. Goldfish were dying! Plants were wilting! Cats were getting sick! The water was tasting awful.
It was in this important and potentially emotional environment that Butch found himself working. He read meters, fixed leaks, got bit by dogs, installed new water lines and performed many other duties over the years. One day while reading meters, he came around the corner of a house and was met by three skunks. He backed away, but the little critters were apparently more friendly than he wanted them to be. They continued toward him. Fortunately, the lady next door yelled over to tell him that the skunks were pets, and had been de-scented. “I went ahead and read the meter,” he said.
After about three years on the job, everyone else in the department had died. “I began to wonder if this was such a good place to work,” he said. He persevered, and was promoted to his current position after about three years on the job. He still read meters and performed many of the routine chores he had always performed.
With the untimely departure of his previous co-workers, almost the entire history of the location of water lines and mains within the City was lost. They had it in their heads. “Today, we have electronic locators to find water lines,” he noted. “But back in earlier times it was not uncommon to see us out with witching rods trying to find the lines we needed to work on. Most of the time it worked pretty well, getting us to within a foot or two of the line. I made sure that everything we did was recorded. The big oak trees and fence posts used as locating points in earlier times, were, for the most part, gone.”
Butch noted that over the years, society and the demands of his job changed significantly. In the earlier years, almost all water meters were inside the buildings, and there was very seldom a problem in getting to read them. As time passed, it became increasingly difficult to gain access, and many extra hours were spent contacting residents and coordinating times after normal working hours to get the meters read. Now, the new metering system allows meters to be read electronically from the outside. With the new meters, many customers noted significantly higher water bills. “There was a lot of work done in houses to fix leaks after the new meters were installed,” Butch noted.
The demands of the superintendent’s job itself have also changed. “Things were simpler in the earlier days,” Butch says. “There were not so many rules and regulations, and it seems like every year the rules change. There is much more paperwork, more testing requirements, and many more reports required by the various State agencies and the EPA. Workers at water and sewer treatment plants must attend schools, pass tests and be certified to work in the plants. Every two years, we must complete continuing education requirements and be re-certified in order to retain our licenses.”
Not too long after he became the Water and Sewer Superintendent, Butch had an unexpected Sunday visit from Mayor Joe Deeney. “You don't know what is wrong when the Mayor comes to your house on a Sunday,” he said. As it turned out, the Street Superintendent, Earl Neverman, was retiring, and the Mayor asked him to take over the Street Department, temporarily, until a replacement was found. The “temporary” extended for years until DuWayne Snitker took over the streets job about 10 years ago.
Looking forward to retirement, Butch noted that “There are still things that need to be done.Some of the water mains still need to be looped, and within the next ten years the City will probably need a new treatment plant. I will miss being around the people. I won’t miss the middle of the night phone calls in the dead of winter or after heavy thunderstorms when something has gone wrong.” He went on to note that the employees of the Water and Sewer Department, Brian Deeney, Robert Campbell and Pat Burckart, have all been there for some time, know what needs to be done, and do it extremely well. He will also miss working with the people in the City Clerks office.
In retirement, Butch and his wife, Lorraine, plan to take some longer trips to the Bluegrass music festivals they enjoy. Butch also expects to do some work around the house and get in more trout fishing than he has been able to do in the past.
A replacement for Butch has not yet been identified. Perhaps the Mayor has someone in mind who would be willing to take on the job, “temporarily.”