jbulger@journalnet.com

POCATELLO - In a way, it might be said that Cindy Campbell owes her job to an angry mob.

Campbell, an engineer and technician with the Pocatello City Water Department, smiles when she recounts the history of the city's water supply. In 1911, she explains, an angry mob stormed the offices of the then-privately owned water company, angered by the seeming indifference to the shoddy service provided by the absentee Montana mining magnate who owned the company.

"They weren't very happy with the water proprietor," Campbell says in smiling understatement.

No blood was shed, but by 1916, the water company's ownership reverted to the city, where it has flourished. From its inception, where groundwater from Gibson Jack Creek was piped to a reservoir on the west bench, Pocatellans now get their water from one of 14 storage units that dot the hills above the valley floor. Tanks ranging from 300,000 to 5 million gallon capacity keep the taps flowing with water pumped to them from the 250- to 300-foot wells in the valley floor.

Campbell, 54, has worked for the department for approximately 27 years, beginning as a draftsman. Her duties now include keeping accurate records and mapping of the system. If a section of pipe is replaced or repaired, Campbell's office records that information for posterity.

Campbell's duties also take her outside the office to work with contractors in the field.

"I like to say I'm going to go play in the dirt for a while," she says.

Campbell recalls one of her first field inspections in a major development back in the 1970s. Just in her early 20s, she was called upon to inspect approximately 2,000 feet of newly installed water line. She walked the line, noting a small leak at a joint. She apprised the contractor, a major player in the construction business in Pocatello, of the necessity to attend to the leak. She continued to walk the line and found the end was covered with concrete where it branched off at 90 degrees, making inspection of the joint impossible.

She walked back to the man, who joked about the "gusher" of a leak. She told him about the more significant problem involving the concrete obstruction.

"So what do you want me to do about it?" she recalls the man asking her gruffly.

Campbell stood her ground.

"I want you to jackhammer it out," she recounts telling the burly contractor so she could inspect the joint, "and then repour it."

"Okay," the contractor meekly agreed.

"That was my little moment of glory," she says, laughing.

In addition to her office and field work, Campbell works in the department's educational project, teaching school children-and adults- about the need for water conservation.

Although the aquifer sufficiently covers the city's water needs, Campbell points out that our current water use closely parallels what the aquifer can provide. The aquifer spews forth approximately 5.5 billion gallons of water each year. She notes a July 4 several years ago when use topped out at 38 million gallons, a record for one-day use.

Pocatello's water is largely pristine, Campbell says.

"The only thing we do is chlorinate it at the well site," she says.

Campbell still enjoys her work, but she is eyeing retirement in the next few years.

"I never planned on retiring," she says. "I never thought I was going to be with the department long enough to think about retirement."