David McRaney  |  Journalist

Wasteland

The one image that put more fear into us than the millions of gallons of swirling, crusty, human fecal matter below us was the life preserver attached to the far wall of the administration building; one could only imagine the need for such a thing in a place like this.

Let me back up.

A few years ago I worked for a company specializing in installing and maintaining control panels for water systems and other industrial uses.

I drove around the Mississippi countryside with a crew of men, fixing and installing incredibly complicated electrical systems that were often uncomfortably near water.

Cars and trucks filled with freshly showered men and women would pass us in the mornings as we dug trenches, pulled cable and soaked up rain while smoking, cursing and bleeding.

It was a strange job because it required you to be smart, efficient and skilled with electronics, but your life was often in danger and there was a lot of digging and heavy lifting. We were construction workers crossbred with a bomb squad.

Of all the things I braved, the most absurd and grand adventure I ever had working around electricity and water was the time I spent a few weeks in Meridian, Mississippi at a human waste disposal plant.

In this advanced century of breezy comfortable evenings spent in the living room chewing on a Hot Pocket while watching your favorite sitcom, it's easy to allow entire days to fade away without any thought forming in your mind concerning where the contents of the toilet go when you jostle the handle and send your unwanted debris hurtling into the unknown.

Unfortunately, I know.

I remember arriving on the job site in our usual manner. Our three-man crew plus our supervisor drove onto the grounds of the processing facility before the sun had cleared the horizon. Our trucks bobbed across the railroad tracks that separated the entrance from the highway that crossed in front of it, and we parked at the buildings that housed its offices.

The offices, exceptionally mundane and official looking, did not alarm us as we unloaded from our vehicles and lit cigarettes in preparation for the go ahead to begin working. Our boss disappeared into the main office, and we stretched out our legs to relieve the cramps that come from riding for hours in the crowded cab of a work truck.

That was when I saw it. That was when we all began to grasp what we were getting in to. That was when I first saw the sign by the curb of the sidewalk that read, “All employees must clean their shoes before entering,” standing next to a series of crank driven brushes facing inward at foot level. I asked myself what could warrant such a device. I remember looking at my own worn out work shoes and wondering what they were about to be subjected to. When our boss came back, I asked him what exactly the brush contraption was for.

He succinctly replied, “To get the shit off your shoes.”

There’s a peculiar sort of fear that creeps into a person when they realize they are about to work around feces. We had all worked on sewer lift stations before, and we thought that they had been the worst things we had ever been exposed to. Lift stations are little more than concrete cylinders buried underground. They fill with sewage from a small community and then pump themselves out into places we dared not consider. We never thought we would be working at the end of the line.

We loaded back up and drove around to the back of the facility. Looking out the window I remember seeing concrete slabs, machinery, railings, tanks, decaying buildings and sheds. These were the typical accouterments of the type of work we were in, so despite our apprehensions, nothing had yet been revealed. It was that moment in the horror movie where the cast first arrives at camp or the haunted house and starts to develop the feeling that things are getting creepy. We parked at the rear of the site where a large dump truck was already sitting underneath a chute of some sort that was dropping what appeared to be topsoil into the back.

When we unloaded this time, we were all hit with the pungent aroma that would grace our every minute at work for the next two weeks. It was the smell of burning tires and fresh asphalt somehow mixed proportionately to the aroma of chicken houses and dirty diapers. It made our eyes blink and we kept our mouths closed from fear of tasting the air itself.

We grimaced and put our shirts over our faces as we entered the structure that housed the press. A quick glance from the boss made us drop our makeshift masks and just deal with the stench. Later on, we would find out that the smell clung to our clothes when we went to lunch or to our hotel rooms. For the moment, it seemed impossible that we were going to be breathing in that nasty odor for more than 15 minutes. Still, we said nothing as we approached the press.

The press itself was a large green many-leveled machine from the ‘40s which, through a series of belts, gears and mechanisms, squeezed the juice from refined human waste and then deposited semi-dry cakes of the same material onto a conveyer belt that tirelessly delivered the final product into the enormous dump trucks outside. The press was about as wide as a blackboard and three times as tall, with intricate windings of a flat canvas-like ribbon that was completely covered by a terrible, slimy chocolate. As it loudly ran the mess round and round inside, a frothy steam emanated from the narrower parts of the contraption, and for a few feet in every direction of those parts, a dense fog hung in the air like a poisonous vapor. Eventually, the waste matter reached a precipice where it plopped down to a smooth belt that traveled at an incline through an opening in the wall to the trucks that took it to places I’ve often pondered, but never received a satisfactory answer about.

We discovered that our job was to remove the outdated controls and wiring to the obsolete press, and then we were to install modern controls and wiring to the fresh, unused, new press that stood beside it slowly collecting condensation from its neighbor.

Also inside the dilapidated press room was a small machine that looked to be of a more recent technology that emitted a thin, white goo that had to be stirred and poured into the press. I never actually saw this being done, but apparently the goo was a polymer that helped maintain consistency for when the waste products were dried. We walked around the press, carefully avoiding contact with everything, especially the large stream of dirty water from a leak that flowed from under the press and out into the lawn. There was a doorless exit to the left of the steam room that opened onto the main grounds of the waste disposal plant. We each came out into the open only to find that the worst had yet to be witnessed.

Before us were three football field sized concrete pits, about forty feet deep, and filled to the brim with chunky, brown, gurgling seas of raw human waste. There was so much of it I could barely cope with what I was seeing. Enormous coagulated masses of green and burgundy would have millions of small bubbles foaming up at the corners, and in some places thick-skinned boils would be several feet across. Odd bits of flotsam and jetsam could be made out, like perverted driftwood. While I was there, I saw floating along the bog dirty tampons, potato chip bags, audiotapes, used condoms and candy wrappers of all varieties. Deep within the bubbling gravy were massive churns that turned horizontally to help break up the constantly congealing matter. Above the tides and eddies of foul, dark liquid were a system of gangways and bridges that allowed a person to walk over the entire area to do whatever things they did to it.

We were speechless at first, but as the days went by we found ways to help ease the anxiety as we worked. We told jokes about Shinola and what would happen if we fell in, and we pondered the history of things like the audiotape that never seemed to go away. I remember throwing peanuts into the soup for a quick laugh, and we laughed at every pun we could think of that would describe our conditions. Still, you can only make so many shit jokes before you just want to go home.

While there, I was able to meet some of the employees who work year round at what we came to know as the shit plant.

They all wear the standard blue work clothes that janitors and garbage men alike tend to have. Most of them seemed like they wouldn’t fair well in public situations. They had slurred speech and strange mannerisms; one had a strange growth in his chest that protruded out from his shirt without explanation. Several times I walked across the stench to the administration building where, ironically the only toilets were. Inside, one couldn’t help but be floored by the stark contrast between the clean, freshly mopped floors and hygienic offices with attractive flowers and cheap prints from artists around the world, and the disgusting, awful, noisy swamp just outside.

Just as we were finishing the job and preparing to leave the site for the final time, I saw the one image that is burned into my mind for the rest of my days.

For a day or two, they had drained a portion of the pit and a few men in hip waiters were sloshing around at about waist level in the muck. I don’t know what they were doing, but it seemed commonplace and none of the employees ever commented on it.

Later on, I had just finished putting all the tools into the truck and had pulled off my rubber gloves. I was walking to a trashcan when I saw that one of the men I had seen drudging about in the dung pool was sitting on an upturned bucket. This man had removed his soiled rubber pants and shoes and was now peeling off a soaked, squishy, brown sock. He took this sock, wrung it like a dishrag over the ground and then put it back on. I turned around, held back the contents of my stomach and loaded up inside the truck.

When we left the Meridian Human Waste Disposal Facility, we had successfully installed a modern and efficient button driven control system to the updated liquid press.

Also, we had managed to survive the whole experience without being splashed on or dipping a single appendage into that dreadful gunk.

Since then, I have told the story and described the environment over and over again to the horror of many people, and each time I start to contract that unpleasant sensation that only five or six hand washings can dispel.

I fully respect the glorious living conditions afforded me by the grand design of our modern plumbing systems, and each time I complain about school or work I can think back to that sad soul with the brown sock and count my blessings.

Part of managing one’s happiness is realizing that a bad day for one person can be equated on a scale of the bad days had around the world. I can say, without question, I’ve never had a day in which any part would stand up to the feeling one must have as they put on a soggy, brown sock, soaked in other people’s urine and feces and then go back to work.