Cleaning beneath the surface

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- In case you heard that buzzing noise on Minnesota Street in front of New Ulm Telecom last week and didn't know what it was -- it was one of New Ulm's newest businesses doing one of the things it does best -- cleaning out underground spaces.

There was a bow in a sewer line in the steam tunnel underneath the sidewalk. The bow was plugging up the sewer line.

That's where Jason Kuester of New Ulm comes in. A supervisor for M R Paving & Excavating for eight years, he recently created South Central Vacuum Locating, 56554 446th St., New Ulm. He opened for business this January.

Kuester and his employee, Jerad Schmidt of Courtland, removed about 7 cubic yards of dirt from the steam tunnel, lifting the sewer line back up to its normal position.

The business specializes in exposing utilities with water. It will vacuum in any soil type. It service area is a 90-mile radius of New Ulm.

It also does mud removal, cleans out storm drains, man holes, road culverts, meter boxes, car and truck wash settlement pits, emergency road spills, saw mills, lift stations, rock and dry sand, conveyer chutes, rain gutters and clean-burn pits. The business installs fence posts and removes and replaces utility poles.

Kuester explained other benefits of his new business.

"By better-exposing utilities, we create safer and more productive job sites," Kuester said. "We can eliminate crew delays, utility damage and guess work."

Business has been good. The firm has recently done work in Le Sueur, the Waldbaum egg plant in Gaylord and the City of Winthrop.