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SUNDAY, JANUARY 1, 2017 |
magicvalley.com
SOMEBODY’S GOT TO
ISP helps Gooding family after crash ALEX RIGGINS
ariggins@magicvalley.com
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Gerald Knutson butchers two hogs Oct. 31 at his mobile butchering truck on a Twin Falls farm. Knutson calls himself an artist with the knife and brings a little humor to his craft. The slogan on his truck: ‘Here comes Killer K.’
If you want to eat bacon and pork chops, somebody has to butcher the pig. Today the Times-News honors endings and beginnings by featuring a few of the people who do dirty or difficult jobs. One is a mortician whose clean, respectful cremation of a human body closes a chapter for a grieving family. Another deals with feces and bite risks for the sake of offering abandoned dogs a new chance at life. Other jobs are just plain nasty, but they’re all about making your daily life safer and more sanitary. Somebody’s got to do it. See the stories on E1.
New Idaho director of Correction plans to further prison reforms Idaho’s new director of Correction aims to keep prison reforms going RUTH BROWN
Idaho Press-Tribune
BOISE — Amid a two-year flurry of prison reform in Idaho, Henry Atencio faces the challenge of maintaining that momentum within the Idaho Department of Correction. In December, Atencio was named the Department of Correction’s new director, succeeding former director Kevin Kempf, who during his tenure oversaw a whirlwind of reform. Kempf left the department to take a new position as the exec-
utive director of the Association of State Correctional Administrators, reported the Idaho Press-Tribune. His two years as director have been marked by dramatic changes in Idaho’s correctional system, from reductions in the use of solitary confinement to changes in prison standards and releasing hundreds of non-violent offenders into parole programs as part of the state’s Justice Reinvestment Act. The reforms began when Idaho dropped its private prison contractor, Corrections Corporation of America, amid a slew of allegations around staffing and poor prison standards that led inmates at the Idaho Correctional Center, the state’s largest prison, to call it “Gladiator School.” Around the same time, in 2014,
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this Dec. 14, 2016 photo, Henry Atencio, who has been promoted to the director of the Idaho Department of Corrections following the departure of Kevin Kempf, speaks in Boise. the state passed the Justice Reinvestment Act, which sought to
If you do one thing: Go swimming from 1 to 4 p.m. at the YMCA/Twin Falls City
Pool, 756 Locust St.
$3.00
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Volume 112, Issue 66
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A Lee Enterprises Newspaper
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Copyright 2017
BRIDGE CROSSWORD DEAR ABBY
GOODING — Tom Edwards was asleep in his home in Wheatland, Calif., when his doorbell rang at 2 a.m. on Dec. 20. When he opened the door, his heart dropped. Standing on his doorstep were deputies from the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department. “You just knew it wasn’t a good thing,” Edwards said. The deputies delivered the terrible news. Edwards’ son, 33-year-old Gooding resident Joseph Edwards, was killed in a crash; his wife, Shauna, 33, was in critical condition. The couple was driving about 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 19 on Interstate 84 in Jerome when Joe lost control of his 2001 Nissan Pathfinder, Idaho State Police said. The SUV crashed into the median on Interstate 84 and caused a four-vehicle chain-reaction crash involving two semitrailers that blocked westbound lanes for nearly four hours. Joe Edwards died at the scene. Shauna Edwards was taken by ambulance to St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, then flown to St. Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise. On Friday, nearly two weeks after the crash, she was still listed in critical condition. One of the troopers who responded to the crash that night was Sgt. Julie Donahue. “We deal with fatalities all the time,” Donahue said. “But it’s worse around Christmas.” Donahue and Mike Pohanka, a volunteer chaplain with the ISP, went to work finding Joe Edwards’ next of kin. “It took me hours to try to notify the family,” Donahue said. “We had a heck of a time trying.” Finally, she found Tom Edwards in northern California and asked deputies from his local sheriff’s department to contact him. Soon, it was clear Joe’s death and Shauna’s critical injuries would have a far-reaching impact — the couple had two daughters together and Joe had a son from another relationship. “Christmas is a time for kids,” Donahue said. “I cannot imagine, just days before Christmas, losing your dad and having your mom in critical condition.”
Please see PRISON, Page A6
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Times-News
THE BIG STORY
Sunday, January 1, 2017 | E1
Sunday, January 1, 2017 | magicvalley.com | SECTION E
Somebody’s got to do it: 6 nasty, dirty or difficult jobs
I f you want to eat bacon and pork chops, somebody has to butcher the pig. Flush rags down your toilet, and somebody must extract them from the sewage stream. Today the Times-News honors endings and beginnings by featuring a few of the people who do dirty or difficult jobs. One is a mortician whose clean, respectful cremation of a human body closes a chapter for a grieving family. Another deals with feces and bite risks for the sake of offering abandoned dogs a new chance at life. Other jobs are just plain nasty, like scooping roadkill or managing septic tank sludge at a landfill. But they’re all about making your daily life safer and more sanitary. Somebody’s got to do it.
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
Idaho transportation Department technician Beau Pulse picks up a dead raccoon Oct. 24 along Interstate 84 near Bliss. Pulse has the stomach for the job. ‘I’ve only found one carcass that really got to me,’ he says. ‘We went to grab it and the legs came off of it, it was so rotted.’ Watch the videos: Photojournalists Pat Sutphin and Drew Nash also documented each of these
six jobs in video. On Magicvalley.com, you can watch these workers scoop up roadkill carcasses, saw through a freshly butchered pig or gingerly remove sewage trash from wastewater equipment, for example.
More photos: The photographers for this project
really got into it. See lots more images from these dirty or difficult jobs in a gallery on Magicvalley.com.
A ‘Killer K’ visit is the price of pork chops TETONA DUNLAP
tdunlap@magicvalley.com
TWIN FALLS — The brown pig perked up its wet snout when it heard Gerald Knutson approach with a gun. The pig greeted Knutson at its pen’s barrier. It sniffed the air, grunting softly. A black and white pig noticed, too, and trotted over. Moments later, the crack of a .22 rifle broke the stillness of the chilly Oct. 31 morning and silenced the grunts forever. The black and white pig was the first to die. Knutson aimed for the spot between its eyes. That way the pig wouldn’t feel anything when he slit its throat. Knutson made the wound quickly, and blood gushed from the hole, like water spurting from a broken pipe. There were no high-pitched squeals, only the sound of the pig’s legs kicking frantically, mixing blood with mud. The brown pig didn’t squeal either, as it stood in the back of the pen. Soon, the crack of the gun would seal its fate as well.
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PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Jerome wastewater operator Nathan Cernyar helps lower a pump into position Nov. 10 at the Jerome Estates lift station.
Wastewater workers know what you flush NATHAN BROWN
nbrown@magicvalley.com
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Gerald Knutson saws a butchered hog in half Oct. 31 at his mobile butchering truck on a Twin Falls farm. “It takes a minute,” Knutson said, holding the bloody blade. “They aren’t feeling the pain at this point. That’s what I wanted. Please see MEAT, Page E4
JEROME — Jerome city wastewater operators Nathan Cernyar and James Long pull up to the small lift station that serves the Jerome Estates subdivision Nov. 10. They open a panel in the ground that accesses the lift station’s pump, attach a cable from their boom truck and lift the pump out of the ground. It’s covered in a thick, wet, white buildup — the congealed remains of rags, hair, paper towels, tampons and cloth flushed downs toilets. Wearing gloves, Cernyar cuts away the buildup with scissors and throws it onto the concrete
next to his feet. After a few minutes, we see one of the reasons for removing it so carefully — Cernyar removes a syringe from the pump. “Top 10 reasons not to use your hands,” Cernyar says, holding up the syringe. Just in 2016, two of the city’s pumps had to be repaired due to damage from improper items flushed down toilets, according to the city’s November newsletter. Jerome’s Wastewater Department is trying to raise awareness of the problem via the National Association of Clean Water Agencies’ “Toilets Are Not Trashcans” campaign, driving home the message that toilets are only meant for toilet
paper and human waste. Items like feminine hygiene products, cloth, wipes and cotton balls should go in the trash, not down the toilet. Paper towels, which can contain cloth, are a frequent culprit, said Dennis Gross, maintenance supervisor for the city’s wastewater system. People think they can flush them down the toilet or down the drain, but they don’t break up completely once they get in the pipes. You can tell whether a paper towel is disposable, he said, by putting it in a jug of water, shaking it, and seeing whether it starts to break apart.
MORE INSIDE: Mortician says cremation is ‘cleanest way to go’, E3 | Roadkill patrol cleans up crushed coyote, bloated raccoon, E3
Please see SEWER, Page E4
BIG STORY
Times-News
Sunday, January 1, 2017 | E2
Feces? Bite risk? Euthanasia? Nope, worst part is bad owners LAURIE WELCH
lwelch@magicvalley.com
RUPERT — The acrid smell of ammonia mixed with dog feces hangs in the morning air as Minidoka Joint Powers Animal Control officer Ken Mort and his staff arrive at the shelter’s kennel building to begin their day. The blended shrieks of a dozen dogs leave the ears ringing and announce the animals’ frustrations over being cooped up — and their excitement at seeing humans enter. “I have brought in earplugs before because it really does get loud,” part-time employee Deanna Byington says Nov. 14. Colleen — a young female black Lab picked up over the weekend on a road north of Rupert — is taken to the office where Mort weighs her, administers dewormer medicine and a dose of vaccinations and scans her for an identification chip. Long-legged and coltish, she dances around the office sticking her nose up to anyone offering a friendly hand. As Mort finishes the paperwork, his cellphone ringtone asks, “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Someone’s border collie-heeler cross went missing over the weekend, so Mort jots down the pertinent information and goes to the kennel building to see if it is there. The staff begins to move the dogs from the indoor kennels to outside pens so the cages can be cleaned. A slightly aggressive dog is first, lunging and snarling at the dogs it passes. After the dogs are outside, the excrement is shoveled into pails and the cages sanitized with bleach. “You kind of have to put up with the smell in the morning, especially when you have a large group of dogs. You get some that won’t mess in the kennel and others that will play in it,” Mort says. But that’s not the hardest part of the job, he says. Having to euthanize a dog is worse. Last year the facility euthanized only one of 538 dogs. A dog is put down only when it is injured or ill
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
Faithful volunteer Tina Retzloff cleans out a kennel Nov. 14 at the Minidoka Joint Powers Animal Control shelter near Rupert. and a vet determines it will not have quality of life, when the cost for treatment is prohibitive, or when the city or county determines a dog is vicious. Mort must remain certified in euthanasia, so he has to participate in one at the testing site for each three-year credential. Because the Rupert shelter puts down so few dogs, its phenobarbital tends to expire before it is used; it’s more cost-efficient to have a veterinarian perform the procedure on the few occasions it’s needed. “One of the toughest parts of the job is trying to catch them, especially the little ones,” said Mort, paid $29,910 a year. “And it can be really dangerous. I’ve been bit several times.” Once, a serious bite came within a centimeter of piercing his eye. “Even with the bite glove on,” he said, “you can still get bruised when they bite you.” Mort carries a Glock .45-caliber handgun on duty, taking it out of the holster only at the gun range and to clean; the possibility always remains that it might be needed. He’s also armed with pepper spray, poke sticks and tranquilizing dart guns. Animal control officers retrieve passenger dogs from crash scenes, clean up the remains of animals
hit on public roads, and pick up injured dogs hit by cars. “As I’m going out there I try to prepare myself for the worst and pray for the best,” Mort said. Once he picked up a dog with mangled hindquarters. It couldn’t be saved. Calls like that, he said, leave a mark on a person. On Nov. 14, Byington and employee Debbie Heinze gathered the metal water buckets and food bowls from the indoor kennels to run through the dishwasher. “Some days are rewarding,” Heinze said. “Other days you just want to go to bed, pull the covers up over your head and forget everything that happened that day.” Getting attached to the animals takes the biggest toll, said Heinze, who can tell which dogs were abused by how they act. Heinze often takes dogs home with her when the kennels overflow or when a dog requires medication. As the morning progressed, Byington’s black shirt became marked with muddy paw prints. “I make it worse because I like to get down and play with them,” Byington said. Petting and playing with each dog helps the staff determine its temperament. People often show their worst
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
A dog the Minidoka Joint Powers Animal Control shelter named Kiko barks Nov. 14.
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
Ken Mort, chief animal control officer for Minidoka Joint Powers Animal Control, talks about his job Nov. 14. ‘You kind of have to put up with the smell in the morning,’ he says. side when dealing with an animal they no longer want or when their dog, running loose, is brought to the shelter. And Mort has to check an unused facility in Paul because
people tie up animals and abandon them at the vacant building without food or water. “Dealing with people,” he said, “is often the worst part.”
Only landfill workers know what a ‘moo-goo geyser’ is MYCHEL MATTHEWS
mmatthews@magicvalley.com
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MURTAUGH — “Dead” cows coming to life. Marijuana covered with human sludge. A man shooting cows with a rifle. These are all things workers have dealt with at the Southern Idaho Solid Waste District’s landfill on Milner Butte east of Murtaugh. “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m a ‘garbage man,’” said Josh Bartlome, executive director of the district. “But we all love our jobs. It’s more about engineering than garbage.” It was a bitter, cold day Dec. 5 when the Times-News visited the landfill, which workers fill with 800 tons of trash each day. No flies buzzed over rotting food scraps, but gulls had a heyday. “Flies really aren’t the biggest nuisance — birds are the worst,” Bartlome said as he stood on a 150-foot-high mountain of garbage watching truck driver Jeff Poole maneuver a trash trailer into place and front-end loader operator Barry Whitesell smash and pack broken chairs and bags of garbage. “Voles were a real problem the summer before last, but gulls took care of them,” Bartlome said. Poole backed his truck onto a “tipper,” unhitched the trailer from the cab and uncoupled the air lines. He pulled the cab forward and punched a button on the tipper, which then stood the trailer on end. Twenty-five tons of trash came crashing out. Thirteen drivers haul loads into the landfill from 15 sites in seven counties, six days a week. Landfill manager Paul Sterner said he had many stories too gross to tell, but he offered up a few dead-animal tales. “Before we got the tipper, we had to dump the trailers ourselves,” Sterner said. “I had a dead horse almost fall on me.” Disposing of animals is always tricky. During the mad cow disease scare about 15 years ago, he got a call from an excited landfill worker. “He said, ‘There’s a guy up here shooting at cows with a rifle,’” Sterner said. The “guy” was an inspector testing for mad cow disease and had to put the animals
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Kraig Nisson puts a new input shaft into a truck transmission as part of a clutch repair Dec. 5 at the Milner Butte landfill.
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Barry Whitesell uses a front-end loader to even out the trash Dec. 5 at the Milner Butte landfill in Murtaugh.
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
‘We all love our jobs. It’s more about engineering than garbage,’ says Josh Bartlome, Southern Idaho Solid Waste District executive director, pictured Dec. 5 inside the workshop at the Milner Butte landfill. down just seconds before taking a blood sample. The landfill doesn’t get a lot of dead animals — mostly from small family operations. Dead cows from feedlots and dairies are usually hauled away by contractors in the hide and tallow trade. “We had another guy bring in a load of dead calves,” said Bartlome, who has been with the waste district for 11 years. “After he drove off some of the calves stood up and walked away.” Occasionally a dead cow will create what landfill workers call a “moo-goo geyser.” As the body begins to decompose, it turns into a gooey glob that spurts
when a loader drives over it. Maybe that’s part of the reason the workers average nearly $18 per hour. A short distance from the main landfill cells, sewage from Jerome’s wastewater treatment plant is piled in rows. “It’s as if Crisco and Jell-O could make a baby,” Bartlome said. The sludge is sometimes used to dispose of marijuana confiscated from pot-growing operations. “Marijuana disposal is sporadic,” he said. “One year $30 PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS million of pot was buried at the landfill and covered with sludge.” Trash is dumped Dec. 5 at the Milner Butte landfill in Murtaugh.
BIG STORY
Times-News
Sunday, January 1, 2017 | E3
Mortician says cremation is ‘cleanest way to go’ JULIE WOOTTON
jwootton@magicvalley.com
TWIN FALLS — Mortician Heidi Heil headed to her Twin Falls garage to begin a cremation and turned on the natural gas that heats her cremation chamber to 1,650 degrees. Heil, who owns Serenity Funeral Chapel in Twin Falls, pulled what looked like a collapsed cardboard box away from a wall. She put it together on a rolling metal table and secured the corners with zip ties. “Zip ties, they’re like my favorite thing,” she said on this mid-October afternoon. The heavy-duty box, called an alternative container, is rated to hold up to 500 pounds. It’s where Heil puts a body for cremation. “It’s the cleanest way to go,” she said. The cremation chamber, called a retort, emits such low levels of chemicals they’re exempted from regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency. “All you really see coming out of the stack is heat waves.” Heil’s family lives on the funeral home property. As she worked, her children helped their grandmother clean at their nearby house. Being a mortician is a tough career for many to fathom, but it’s something Heil is passionate about. As a child in Castleford, Heil turned her mother’s garden into a pet cemetery, creating an elaborate wooden cross with a Bible verse for each cat’s or dog’s grave. “I memorialized all of them we lost,” she recalled. Another childhood project: cleaning and preserving the carcass of a dead hawk. When she was 12, she announced to her mother that she wanted to be a mortician. After graduating from mortuary school, Heil launched her business in 2004. Now she has three children — ages 2, 4 and 12 — and is pregnant with her fourth. During a pregnancy, Heil uses a respirator when embalming a body and gets help with lifting. “I usually work right up to when I deliver,” she said. Heil wants her children to understand the cycle of life and death. “I’m just trying to edu-
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Funeral director Heidi Heil prepares a body for cremation Oct. 14. Bodies designated for cremation are placed in alternative containers that burn cleanly. cate them that death is nothing to fear.” That afternoon, Heil opened a large refrigeration unit in the corner of the garage. She put on latex gloves and adjusted a rolling table to the correct height before removing the body of a man who had died three days earlier. This time, because TimesNews staffers were present, the body was covered by a white sheet. Typically, a body is cremated in whatever it wore when it arrived at the funeral home — such as a hospital gown — unless the family requests something different. “The cleaner, the better,” Heil said, adding it’s important to avoid items with metal. After lining up two tables, she pulled the body into the container and used zip ties to secure the two remaining corners. She rolled the table to the retort, near her covered Mustang parked in the garage. “Unless they’re very large, they go feet first,” she said. Heil opened the retort, slid the container inside and closed the door. Once the body is inside, the retort runs for 30 minutes before the more powerful cremation flame ignites. Most cremations take about three hours, leaving red-hot remains of bone fragments. Once the cremation finished and the machine cooled, Heil planned to
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
A light indicates ignition flame in a crematory machine Oct. 14 at Serenity Funeral Chapel. It takes about an hour for the chamber to reach the required 1,650 degrees.
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Funeral director Heidi Heil cremates a body Oct. 14 at Serenity Funeral Chapel in Twin Falls. A cremation takes about three hours once the chamber reaches its required temperature. sweep out the remains before she went to bed. Later, she’d do finer sweeping. “I want to get as much as possible,” Heil said. Then she’d use a heavy-duty magnet to take out any metal and sift through the remains by hand. She’d put remains into a
processor that reduces human remains to a powder and, finally, into an urn. It’s a tedious process. And being a mortician is an around-theclock venture that often interrupts holidays and family time. For years, Heil paid herself only $5,000 per year. She in-
creased that to $15,000 in 2015, and she was aiming for $25,000 in 2016. Heil has worked for corporations with higher pay. But she wanted to own her business and raise her children without putting them in day care. “It’s a blessing for me.”
Roadkill patrol keeps the road clear HEATHER KENNISON
hkennison@magicvalley.com
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BLISS — A pile of fur, flesh and bone along the shoulder of Interstate 84 was all that remained of this lone coyote. Beau Pulse’s shovel scraped against asphalt Oct. 24 as he collected the remains. After depositing them neatly out of sight behind sagebrush, he offered this advice: “Stay upwind.” Roadkill isn’t the most enviable part of the job — nor is picking up the assortment of shredded tires and other things that fall from passing vehicles. But transportation technicians like Pulse carry out an important duty for the Idaho Transportation Department. “Most of the time we’re the ones in people’s way making life difficult,” transportation tech Joe Sabala said. “But without us, they wouldn’t be able to get to their job in a timely manner.” On the afternoon of Oct. 24, the pair set out later than usual due to a morning training session. Often, they’ll get out as soon as the sun rises — when traffic might be lighter. Traveling I-84 at 35 mph, their pick-up route took them from Bliss to Glenns Ferry and back, a 40-mile round trip that for them can be up to two hours. Lights on top of the truck flashed a warning to nearby traffic. All the while, Pulse and Sabala kept their eyes peeled for traffic hazards and animal casualties. Not all of the roadkill carcasses get picked up, they explained. “It’s usually gotta be bigger than a coyote,” Pulse said. “Anything smaller than that is usually a grease spot by the time we get there.” Nor does every stray bit of trash constitute a safety hazard or an eyesore, for the purpose of this job. Typically, Sabala and Pulse work as a team to clear the shoulder and roadway of anything longer than a foot. Smaller animals, like the coyote, were deposited in nearby foliage, out of sight from the road where nature can take its course. Even on the shoulder, these an-
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
A crushed coyote carcass is scooped up and hidden behind sagebrush along Interstate 84 on Oct. 24 near Bliss. imals could be flattened in less than a day, often intentionally, by motorists. Shoveling up dirt, Pulse said it’s important to clean the shovel after dealing with deceased animals — or risk smelling the decay in the storage shed later. The ITD technicians have to carry large animals like deer and elk out of sight, then return with heavy equipment for on-site burial. Cleanups like the Oct. 24 shift happen only once a week — twice in summer. This one yielded a considerable haul. Most of what’s picked up is garbage — strips of rubber and entire tires that weigh close to 80 pounds. But this day’s collection included a sleeping bag, a cooler, a camper shell, a log and a pair of overalls. Stopping every couple of minutes, Pulse watched his side mirror closely as cars zipped by up to 85 or 90 mph. “It was bad enough when the speed limit was 65 to 70 because everybody was already doing 80,” Sabala said. When the coast was clear, one man or the other opened his door and rushed to one of the shoul-
ders, sometimes crossing lanes of traffic, in a bright-orange reflective vest. Near mile marker 132, with gloved hands, Pulse sprinted across the interstate to pick up a bloated raccoon by its bushy tail. When traffic cleared again, he ran back, tossing the carcass into bushes. Sabala expressed surprise that the animal didn’t split open — which can happen if you disturb something with gasses building up inside. In summer, heat speeds up the decay process. “Nothing stays good for very long when it’s 130 degrees on the road,” Pulse said. This job is about enough to turn anyone vegetarian, he said. But after 14 years in the ITD job, he isn’t fazed. “I’ve only found one carcass that really got to me,” Pulse said. “We went to grab it and the legs came off of it, it was so rotted.” Sabala recalled one of the hardest tasks of his 10 years with the department. Several stray horses had been hit during the night, and he had to help move them out of the road until the landowner could dispose of them. “The worst ones for me are
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
Idaho Transportation Department technicians Joe Sabala, left, and Beau Pulse pick up a truck bed shell Oct. 24 along Interstate 84 near Bliss. the cats and dogs; that could be somebody’s pet,” Sabala said. “It gets me every time.” Of the large animals, mule deer are most commonly reported. Maintenance crews reported fewer than 10 deer carcasses along this stretch of I-84 in 2014; in previous years, it’s been much higher, including nearly 30 deer in 2013. Salvage laws have made a dent in the number of animals ITD has to bury, Pulse and Sabala said. In fact, the crew has even had people pull over and ask if they could have a deer carcass. Of course, it’s at their own risk if they don’t know how long the animal has been dead. Not all hit animals are killed instantly. When ITD comes across a
live but injured animal, the techs have to wait for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game or a local sheriff’s office. “That’s the one time you wish you could carry a gun,” Pulse said. After reaching the Bliss maintenance shed, the afternoon’s load of garbage would be transported to a transfer station in another town. When Pulse and Sabala aren’t on trash and roadkill patrol, they might be fixing potholes or driving snowplows. Starting pay for a transportation technician at ITD is $13 an hour, and techs can work up to $18 an hour within five years. The job brings good benefits and retirement. “It’s not glamorous,” Sabala said. “But somebody’s gotta do it.”
BIG STORY
Times-News
Sunday, January 1, 2017 | E4
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
‘Here comes Killer K,” reads the slogan atop Gerald Knutson’s mobile butchering truck.
Meat From E1
I didn’t want any squealing pigs today.” Knutson, 71, has worked as a butcher for more than 30 years. He started out as a carpenter in North Dakota, but it didn’t pay enough, so he went to work cutting meat at his brother’s butcher shop. When Knutson moved to the Magic Valley, he worked as a butcher at Safeway, before the building housed Magic Valley High School. When Safeway left Twin Falls, he opened his own butcher business, Knutson’s Kustom Kutting in Filer. He runs it with his wife, Twila; none of their four daughters are in the business anymore. “When my daughters were growing up, they helped me,” Knutson said. “As soon as they were old enough, they found other jobs.” In the fall, Knutson travels to farms and fields to butcher animals seven to 10 times a week. “I’m an artist,” Knutson said, “instead of a worker.” After the pigs’ bodies stopped jolting, a hook inserted into their mouths pulled them to the back
Sewer From E1
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“If your paper towel is not breaking apart, do not put it into your wastewater system,” he said. Trees can also cause headaches for the city’s wastewater workers and make it more likely that a pipe will clog; if a root grows into the pipe, paper or other materials that shouldn’t have been flushed get caught on the root. Many pipes in Jerome are older, Gross said, exacerbating the problem. “If you plant a tree, that tree’s root system is going to look for water,” Gross said. Not all of the materials that shouldn’t be flushed are visible. Flushed medication, Gross said, eventually enters the water system in the effluent the plant discharges. “There’s not a lot of training out there on what should and shouldn’t be put down,” Gross said. The Jerome Estates lift station wasn’t the only point that day where workers dealt with buildup caused by unwanted materials getting into the system. That morning, other wastewater operators used a vacuum truck and hand tools to clean out the headworks that the sewage passes through before it enters the treatment plant. And before Jerome Estates, Cernyar and Long visited the Eighth Street lift station — the last stop for waste generated by much of Jerome’s industry before it reaches the wastewater treatment plant — to clean off the pumps there. The station is due to be replaced by the
of Knutson’s truck. The front of his yellow and white truck says: “Here Comes Killer K,” and “Give us a call, we kill them all.” “Now we’ve done everything dirty,” Knutson said. “We got to keep everything clean at this point.” He cut a pig from the slit in its throat up through its snout. Then he cut down the belly and across the front legs. “Not too many mobile butchers when I first started,” he said, peeling the skin away with his blade. The muscles in the cheeks and jaw still twitched as he made his way down the rest of the body. Knutson put two hooks in its back feet and lifted the pig using the pulley system attached to his truck. The pulley squealed under the weight. Blood drained out dark red, almost black, as the animal rose into the air. Knutson is self-employed, but the Idaho Department of Labor reports butchers make an average of $32,780 a year statewide and an average of $37,248 in south-central Idaho. Wade Rast, the pigs’ owner, hires Knutson every year to butcher his pigs. “I know how it’s raised,” Rast said. “I know what it’s being fed. I get the meat cut and done the
end of 2017 as part of the city’s ongoing sewer upgrades financed by a $35.8 million bond issue. “You can see the jumble of wires in it,” Long said as he pointed to the control panel. “It’s been added to and taken away from for years.” Long checked the air with a gas monitor before opening the hatch, revealing the feces-filled water underneath. Workers have to be careful due to the hydrogen sulfide gas that comes from decomposing organic materials and builds up in the sewer. Years of gas have eaten away at the sewer’s concrete walls, Long said. “There have been cases of people opening the latch and ... falling in from blacking out,” Long said. The gas has also eroded, over time, the wires that power the lift station. “Eventually you don’t have a connection or a continuity between them,” Long said. There are times when wastewater workers need to go into the wet well to work. That day, though, they just had to clean off the grease, hair and rags that had built up on the floats that tell the pump when to turn on and off. “You kind of see what should not be flushed just from that one little example,” Cernyar said as Long cut off the buildup with scissors. Gross said you need a strong stomach to work in wastewater, and you need to know you’re going to get dirty. Some people, he said, have no problem working around animal waste but have a different reaction to human feces. “It’s a psychological thing,”
way I want.” Rast estimated the two pigs are a year’s worth of meat for him and his family. They started out as runts, but the black and white one ended up weighing 250 pounds, and the brown pig more than 300. “I want someone who cleans the meat well,” Rast said. “He’s done 50 percent of all my meat.” Though the slaughtering of his pigs is a bloody job, Rast said, it’s how you get bacon, pork chops and ham. “The drawback to this thing is that people think meat comes from a tray and a gallon of milk comes from a store,” he said. The price to kill a pig on site: $35. The price for cutting it up: $130 to $140. Curing the meat: an additional 50 cents a pound. “You’re going to see him spill his guts,” Knutson said, slicing open the pig’s belly. Purple, bloated intestines emerged from the slit. Knutson pulled the entrails from the carcass and flung them without looking toward a blue barrel. The guts landed at the bottom with a wet, heavy splat. He pulled down the hide the rest of the way. Blood clots spilled out of the carcass in gelatinous clumps; that’s what happens when blood gets into the lungs.
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Gerald Knutson loads a butchered hog into his mobile butchering truck Oct. 31 in Twin Falls. Then Knutson powered up his splitting saw and cut the carcass down the middle. He sprayed it down again, bloody water mixing with gravel and grass, as the sun peeked out from behind clouds. The job comes with occupational hazards. Knutson has cut off the top of a pinkie and sliced into other fingers. He has a scar behind his ear where a bull kicked him in the head; it required stitches.
He typically butchers beef, pigs, lambs and goats but has also done an ostrich, emus, llamas and bison. And he’s not without a sense of humor about his job. He’ll sometimes let little boys chase their sisters with severed cows heads to scare them. He’s even offered eyeballs to onlooking children standing next to their frowning mothers.
PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS
Tucker Scott, a pipe layer with Granite Excavation, helps maintenance technician Oliver Phipps, right, maneuver a large vacuum to suck debris out of a sewer pipe Nov. 10 at Jerome’s wastewater treatment plant. Gross said. “Waste is waste.” Jerome’s wastewater treatment operators start at $15.35 an hour. Ones who get certified and move up to a higher classification can make up to $23 an hour. The city’s employees, including those in wastewater, generally get yearly raises based on performance and certifications earned. Gross said his profession is an important one and one for which there will always be a need. He encouraged anyone interested in learning more to visit and maybe shadow one of the workers. “It’s a great profession,” he said. “It’s never going to go away. You’re always going to have the PAT SUTPHIN, TIMES-NEWS need to protect the environment.” A needle sticks out of debris at the Jerome Estates wastewater lift station.