September 11, 2026
This week’s photo is courtesy of White Mountain Operating, LLC- Pinedale, WY, USA
9-11-2001
Twenty-five years ago this morning, 2,977 people from 90 nations were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93. Most of them were starting an ordinary Tuesday. They went to work, boarded a flight, or answered a call, and never got to go home.
While thousands made their way out of the towers, first responders went in, knowing they were putting their lives on the line to save others. The FDNY lost 343 members that day. On Flight 93, passengers and crew learned what was happening and bravely fought back.
Then came the long work. Tens of thousands of men and women, ironworkers and laborers among them, came to Ground Zero from across the country and around the world. They worked day and night for nearly nine months, removing approximately 1.8 million tons of debris. Thousands of responders and survivors have developed 9/11-related illnesses, and more than 400 FDNY members have died from illnesses linked to their rescue and recovery work.
Please, don’t forget what came after. Strangers helped strangers. Flags went up on front porches and fence posts. This country, which had been hit hard, stood back up and faced those who would harm us.
Hold onto that today. When your crew gathers this morning, take a moment of silence before the work begins. If someone you know answered the call that day, or worked the pile in the months after, tell them thank you. If you know someone who lost someone they loved that day, let them know we will always care.
We love this country.
We stand proud.
We will never forget.
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Health Focus
Part 1 of 2: Your Back
This week's safety topic was manual handling on the job. This is the personal side of the same story: your own back, on and off the clock. Low back pain is one of the most common reasons people miss work, and it hits our trade hard. NIOSH reports that more than 1 in 4 working adults (about 26 percent) have low back pain, and unsurprisingly, workers in construction occupations report it more than most.
Your back is built to move, but it takes a beating from repeated bending, lifting, and twisting, plus long hours standing on a rig floor or kneeling over a pump. OSHA describes two ways backs get hurt. One is a single traumatic event, the one bad lift you feel right away. The other is gradual microtrauma, small strains that build up over years until an ordinary movement is the last straw. In this trade, a lot of serious back trouble is the second kind, quietly earned.
Know the warning signs OSHA lists: pain when you try to stand up straight, reduced movement, and pain when standing or rising from a seated position. Add the ones that matter most: pain that radiates down a leg, numbness, tingling, or weakness in a leg or your grip.
This is general awareness, not medical advice. If pain is severe, radiates down the leg, or comes with numbness or weakness, see your own clinician. Loss of bladder or bowel control with back pain is an emergency; get care right away.
Key Takeaways
• More than 1 in 4 working adults have low back pain, and construction occupations report it more than most.
• Backs get hurt two ways: one bad lift, or years of small strains adding up.
• Pain standing up straight, radiating leg pain, numbness, or weakness are signals to get checked.
Sources:
• MedlinePlus (NIH): Low back pain: self-care and when to contact a provider
The Week in Review
Safety Focus, Manual Materials Handling and Ergonomics:
• Overexertion is one of the leading causes of days-away-from-work injury, and on a rig it usually comes from the routine lift, not the dramatic one.
• The lifts that hurt you are the awkward ones: far from the body, near the floor or overhead, twisted, repeated, or hard to grip.
• The NIOSH Lifting Equation starts at 51 pounds under ideal conditions and drops fast for every bad factor; keep the Lifting Index at or below 1.0.
• OSHA sets no lifting limit, so your employer sets the standard, with the crew: aids staged first, team lifts with one caller, rotation, and no reliance on back belts.
Knowledge Share, Steady-State Flow Equations:
• Steady state is when the cone of depression stops growing and drawdown holds, because inflow to the well equals the pumping rate.
• The Thiem equation ties pumping rate, transmissivity, and the head difference between two points through the natural log of their distance ratio.
• Pump at a steady rate and read drawdown in two observation wells, and you can solve the Thiem equation backward for transmissivity.
• Thiem assumes true steady state, a uniform confined aquifer, a fully penetrating well, and no boundaries, so treat its answer as a starting point, not the truth.
Keep a running notebook this week. Writing points out by hand helps them stick. If you cannot say a line to a helper without looking, you do not have it yet.
New Vendor Highlights
New Vendors Added This Week:
• Mudpuppy Corporation | Home of the MudPuppy®
• Numa Hammers & Bits
• Mincon
• Republic Drill Co.
• Downey Drilling Inc
Keep checking back on Fridays, when we list the newest vendors, and highlights of existing vendors. You can also visit WaterWellResource.com to view all current manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers.
New Job Opportunities
New Job Opportunities Added This Week:
Keep checking back on Fridays, when we list the newest vendors, and highlights of existing vendors. You can also visit WaterWellResource.com to view all current manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers.
Vendor Directory
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Work Hard. Work Smart. Stay Safe!
