Sep. 8—In 2023, when Missouri American hosted the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce’ Morning Brews event, its new $9 million high pump station was preparing to go online. It pumps water to all of the company’s service area in Southwest Missouri.
On Friday, at the latest Morning Brew, Missouri American’s Director of Operations Matt Barnhart cut the ribbon at the 135-year-old former high pump station and announced it would become the Robert Clark Safety Training Center. It is named for an employee from Baxter Springs, Kansas, who was killed in an accident in May 2021.
“So, in his honor, we’re going to create a facility that’s hands-on safety training before our folks go out in the field,” Barnhart said. “That was our high pump station for over 100 years and as costs have gone up and we’re always looking to be more efficient, we’re going to change that building into a repurposed safety facility. The idea is to have two safety classrooms where you can have meetings for employees and we’re doing this instead of building a new building.”
Barnhart said he hopes to have the training center ready to host the Morning Brew crowd at about this time in 2025.
The backdrop for the meetings and classes that will be held in the safety center will be one of Missouri American’s oldest pieces of equipment, an 1880’s-era steam pump named Allis, for its maker, Allis Chalmers. It served the city for almost a century before being taken out of service in 1983.
“That’s the neat thing about safety classes in here, you’ll be able to say this is how we started out,” Barnhart said. “You see the footprint of this machine and then you find out there were six electrical pumps in here and there were two diesel and two gas motors in here. We’ve had everything in here, and it was just seeing that evolve. You see this machine and then you go over and see the new facility and it’s amazing the different technologies that are reflected.”
Grant Alumbaugh, engineering project manager at Missouri American, said he’s fascinated by the old steam pump and how it worked.
“There was a huge smokestack out south of this building and a boiler that powered the steam pump in that area,” Alumbaugh said. “I love this machine. Just comparing the technology then to the technology now, not only is it so different but the simplicity of this is so exciting. And the fact that with a little bit of money, it has that eye appeal to it.”
Barnhart said the building still needs a new heating and air conditioning system and some old walls removed to rearrange space in the building. They also need to restore the classic old tin ceiling in the old pump house.
“Right now we don’t have a building big enough to house all the employees at one time for a meeting so why not use this?” Barnhart said. “It’ll teach them the history of where we’re at, where we’ve come from.”
Alumbaugh said the space for safety meetings and classes will be valuable for the company.
“We intend on having confined space training here. We’re going to have an apparatus that will winch people down into a confined space,” Alumbaugh said. “With safety being a key emphasis of Missouri American Water, just having a space like this that’s dedicated purely to safety is amazing.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-08 11:32:00
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