Sewer connections ahead of schedule

The crew that is making sewer connections has been moving along at a fast clip.

Local contractor Gary Tewalt is earning high marks as his crew hooks up Sisters businesses to the new sewer system.

Tewalt & Sons has been installing the "service laterals," the connections from each local business to the curb. The laterals from the curb to the sewer line are already installed.

Nearly 45 hook-ups were expected to be completed by March 21. Casey Kendall, representing contractor CRM Contracting, Inc., said he could have hired subcontractor crews from almost anywhere in the Northwest to do this work. Kendall insists that no one could have done the job better than Tewalt & Sons.

The Tewalt family has been in Sisters since in 1958. "Six generations of my family have lived in Sisters," said Gary Tewalt, from his great grandmother to his own grandchildren. He and his father started Tewalt & Sons in 1975.

Sisters Public Works Superintendent Gary Frazee said that Tewalt & Sons has all 120 of the commercial hook-ups to do, and has been completing three or four connections per day. The work is ahead of schedule.

"He is doing a good job...he's been working around people's schedules, and every one of these hook-ups has been different. He is finding unbelievable ways people have installed their septic systems over the years," Frazee said.

Tewalt agreed with that.

"We made a plan, but it never goes according to plan. We're finding lines under garbage bins, under decks and buildings, under heat pumps, every one of the connections has a glitch," Tewalt said.

Tewalt has five men, four machines including an excavator and a mini-excavator from McKenzie Cascade on the job.

He credits the smooth job to experience. "The years of all of us doing this are coming into play. Our sewer and septic knowledge is coming into play. Everybody just knows what to do," he said.

"We are trying to only have (businesses shut down) for about 15 minutes, if we can make the cut and hook

the line and test it. That is surprising everybody," Tewalt said.

Public Works Superintendent Frazee said that Tewalt has been willing to help business that have had special problems, moving his crew to hook a business up sooner if their septic system has failed.

"He's been flexible, cordial, and helping people," Frazee said.

The crews will head down to Sisters schools to get those buildings connected over Spring break, which began last Friday.

Tewalt said that the businesses have been great to work with.

"All the business people have bent over backwards to help us out and get it to run more smoothly. Everybody has been real polite, and nobody has given any trouble at all," he said.

However, there has been one concern.

"I have to watch out, I think the crew is gaining weight from all the doughnuts, hamburgers and pot stickers that everybody's been giving them," Tewalt said.