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Going with the flow: Sludge boat sailors keep tanks, Delta clean

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 25, 2009 at 8:12 am

From Stockton’s Record:

The phone won’t shut up. But that’s to be expected on a holiday weekend. Thornell Washington answers as his 24-foot boat plows through heavy wake along the Stockton Deep Water Channel.

“Yeah, we can be there in 12 minutes,” he tells the caller, and veers off toward Paradise Point Marina, where the Don’t Worry About It needs to relieve herself, septically speaking. On the way, Washington – who never thought he’d own a boat, much less service them – listens to the blues, toots the horn and waves at familiar faces.

Pumping sewage from houseboats may not be glamorous, but then again, Washington’s Septic Brothers office is a 700-square-mile playground, and his clientele are carefree folks who, well, aren’t worrying about it. And when Washington makes his rounds this Memorial Day weekend, he sees a world many city dwellers can’t even fathom.

It starts Sunday morning not with hoses or tanks but a stranded motorboat, which stalls and is pushed against the rocks near Village West Marina in north Stockton. Washington tows him to the dock. The man is not deterred. “It ain’t over yet,” said Mark Soran of Modesto. “I still got food and beer.”

Read more from The Record by clicking here.

May 25, 2009 · Filed Under Other Delta Issues

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