The Water Table

#133 | Perspectives on Pipe Quality: Delivering Generations of Yield

• Jamie Duininck • Episode 133

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This first episode of Perspectives on Pipe Quality opens a critical conversation about building drainage systems that truly last. Host Jamie Duininck sits down with industry veteran Tony Kime, Senior Advisor to Soleno, whose 40+ years in the corrugated pipe business have shown him what it takes to deliver a 50-year service life and what happens when quality falls short.


Tony draws on a lifetime in the industry, including a story of pipe installed in 1971 that is still performing today. He explains how resin selection, manufacturing practices, and rigorous testing protect farmers’ long-term investments and the reputation of the entire industry. From the “Wild West” days of untested products to the importance of third-party certification, this episode dives beneath the surface to show why getting it right the first time matters for generations.


Chapters:

00:00 - Welcome & Series Introduction
02:07 - Tony’s Background & Industry Experience
04:02 - How the Industry Expands, Contracts & Learns
07:10 - Why Testing Matters in Pipe Manufacturing
14:22 - The Cost of Cutting Corners
20:30 - Standards & Third-Party Certification
28:06 - A 1971 Pipe Still Performing Today
32:05 - Drainage as a Conservation Practice
35:00 - What’s Ahead in the Series


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Tony Kime (00:00):

It's relatively easy to buy the equipment to make drainage pipe. It's not so easy to make great drainage pipe every day. I tested a piece of four inch out of my dad's farm that was made in 1971 and it was in great shape. We know that plastic can be made to last a really long time, but we also know plastic can be bought that doesn't last a long time. I really truly believe that drainage is a conservation practice.

Jamie Duininck (00:38):

Well, welcome back to The Water Table podcast. Today I have Tony Kime with me. Tony's a long-time friend of Prinsco and of me personally. He currently is senior advisor to Soleno out of Quebec, and Tony has a long history in the corrugated pipe industry, especially on the agricultural side, although he has extensive knowledge on the storm sewer and storm water side also. But Tony has been part of a family business back in the '80s and '90s and early 2000s in Ontario. Then he spent some time in the equipment side. He owned a company called Bluewater Pipe, which he's still part of, is part the Soleno Group now. And Tony is trying to find a way to retire, but he has so much knowledge in this industry that there's always a place for him in different settings and that's why we're talking today is... First of all, welcome to the podcast, Tony.

Tony Kime (01:42):

Well, Jamie, thanks very much and I just love all the topics you pick on this series. It's, I think, really helpful for our industry and for farmers who are really our principal customers. And I hope this podcast and the series that you're running on this topic can get out to a very large group because... I'll let you go into it.

Jamie Duininck (02:07):

Yeah, I appreciate that. And we're going to start with, this podcast is going to be a short series on quality of pipe and why quality matters. Tony was just featured in a article on Farmterio newspaper, which is a very popular, if you're in Ontario, very popular publication for the farmers. And the article was really specific on why the quality of farm drainage pipe or farm drainage, tile corrugated pipe matters. And we're going to get into that. And then I want to do a series in regards to this topic with a few others as we go here. We'll also link this article to this podcast platform so people will be able to read the article, but I think we're going to get into details on what that article stated. The author of it is Matt McIntosh.

(03:03):

So Tony, this is a few weeks back, but you were quoted in this article and as one of the pipe experts, and I think as the people that they had talked to and interviewed in regards to this were highly educated in our industry and experienced in our industry, you being one of them. And just wanted to talk to you about maybe let's start back at your experience in the industry, just kind of really quick, on how long you've been in this and how long you've seen our industry evolve. Because I know you've gone through several iterations of expansions and retractions within the industry too, and I think that's part of what we're talking about is we're kind of in this new area of expansion again, and that's part of why we're concerned or why this article was written about pipe quality. But let's start kind of with your experience.

Tony Kime (04:02):

Well, Jamie, just like you, I grew up in a family business. My dad started a company in Canada called Big O in 1967. I was seven years old at the time and I've known black bumpy Pipe since then. So through all these years, I now have the benefit to look back and see what have we done, what's happened, what's worked, what hasn't worked. So at the age of soon to be 65, I get to reflect an awful lot and talk about at least my thoughts on what's right, what our industry should do, what our customers are expecting.

(04:40):

Today we have an expansion of our industry, we have a lot of small companies that have started up. I think this is in my memory, maybe the third time we've seen an expansion. So after each expansion we tend to have contractions. But there was a lot of companies started up in the '70s to make drain tile. Then in the '80s, big companies bought those guys. It wasn't so easy for them. We had the same thing happen happened the '90s where there's a lot of more companies, again, started up. Then there was a consolidation. And in the last five years we've had more small companies start up. It's relatively easy to buy the equipment to make drainage pipe. It's not so easy to make great drainage pipe every day.

(05:33):

You know what Prinsco does? I know what Soleno and Bluewater Pipe do, and I know all the major companies who are making drain tile for a long time have learned what works and take a lot of precautions not to do what doesn't work. And when I say works, what I'm really talking about is trying to make a pipe that will last a long time. Plastic is a complicated material, but it's actually very similar to steel or iron. I like to use iron in some of the analogies I do. I think everybody has seen iron piles that are rusty and degraded and iron will rust pretty quickly. But you start to throw some chromium and alloys into that and all of a sudden you're making a steel that can last, sit outside forever and ever and ever and not rust.

(06:28):

In the plastics industry, we have the same mode. Plastic will oxidize. If we don't put the proper additives into the plastic, then oxygen attacks it and grabs electrons from the polymer chain and our plastic will start to degrade and crack and eventually not have any structural integrity anymore. So it really comes down to we know that plastic can be made to last a really long time, but we also know plastic can be bought that doesn't last a long time. So those of us who make pipe and follow the specifications that have been written for our industry, it forces or ask us to test our products that we buy and also the products that we make. And that's just built into all the manufacturing systems of companies who make pipe and have done it for a long time.

(07:40):

So if you're a startup company, the systems and processes and equipment you need is not something you think about because you're focused on the corrugator and the extruder and the blender and just trying to figure out how to make it. So it's not typical that a company starts making four inch corrugated pipe and that they put the lab equipment in that's necessary to do the long-term testing. They might have a machine that will test how strong it is, the compression test or the squish test or the good old farmer thumb test or they stomp on it and see if it cracks. But those are not the tests that test for long-term oxidation or stress crack resistance or the two or three failure modes that plastic has.

(08:28):

So the problem all of us have is this is a super complicated thing to explain to people and people just don't think about it. They think, oh, it's black, it's bumpy, feels good, going to be good. But you don't really know that unless the manufacturer who made it has done the testing. So, I'm sure you have some thoughts on this, What's your quick version as a pipe manufacturer because you have customers that expect you to send them good stuff?

Jamie Duininck (09:05):

Sure. And I appreciate it. There's a lot of things going through my head as you're talking and one of them is just, you and I have both been around this industry long enough now that we remember certain times in the industry. And one of the things I was relating this to, which is different than the quality of pipe, but the same scenario is maybe 25 years ago, it was pretty close to when I was starting in the industry, not many years later, it's kind of the advent of what we call the farmer plow. Where farmers were buying plows that could connect to the back of their large tractors and they could plow pipe in and was competing with the contractor. And there was a lot of tense conversations during that time because the contractors saw that as a threat, they were going to lose some business and they would talk a lot about the quality of the installation.

(10:00):

And there was a lot of, especially in our area of rural America here in the northern part and into the Dakotas was so wet at the time that they could plow in pipe with these machines and even before they had it perfected to where a lot of these pull behind plows do and can do a great job as long as you know what you're doing. But even before they knew what they were doing, people were plowing in pipe that first year the pipe was going to run, there was so much pressure in the soil, in the soil profile that even if it was off grade, they were going to look at the outlet and there was water coming out of it. It must be good. Well, what happened is once they got that first initial pull down of the water, then all of a sudden they realize some of that stuff wasn't working. I'm not at all being critical of a farmer plow from the standpoint of people have learned and they've perfected that industry.

(11:00):

The same is true when we're talking about pipe is we have, you and I have been around the industry long enough that we've seen iterations from our own businesses, from our own families where we've made some mistakes at times and we've learned from them and from some of our competitors or from new people in the industry, and then hopefully they learned.

(11:23):

But one of the other things that stuck with me as you were talking was the idea that all of us that have been in the industry for a while or for quite some time, we do test the product. And every month, even though we are ordering a specific product, we get product that we end up rejecting because it doesn't meet our specifications. So if you're not testing it, how do you know what you're getting? And that's a big part of what this comes down to. It's not all of it, but that's a big part of it.

Tony Kime (12:00):

Oh, but Jamie, let's go the next step on this. What happens in our industry? Our industry is a low cost, low margin business and all of us try to buy our plastic at the cheapest price. And we can run a lot of different plastics and if we have the expertise and the know-how, we can blend a lot of plastics together and make a fantastic compound of it when some of the original materials were not that great to start with. But it takes the know-how and what are the additives that need to go in. But it also takes the ability to test to make sure that what you did was what you thought the results should be.

(12:41):

So you, me, lots of companies when we receive a rail car of resin, a rail car of resins, I think 440,000 feet of pipe, somewhere in that area, it depends I guess how big the rail car is, but we check it so we know what the stress crack resistance is. We can check the OIT. We can check all these little characteristics that are important to know. And if it's not where we want it, we'll decide either we're going to ask for a discount or please don't send it to us. Now if the resin company or resin supplier chooses not to sell it to us because we want a discount, guess where it's going to go? It's going to go to a company where they know they're not testing it., And that company is going to use the material. They'll just use it and they're going to make corrugated pipe.

(13:36):

So if you are a manufacturer making corrugated plastic pipe to protect yourself from having bad stuff sent to you, you really should be investing in the equipment to do the testing. Just hoping that it's good I don't think is good enough for your customers. So super complicated because a lot of the smaller shops that have started up, they're small family businesses and they make nice pipe, they work hard every day, they're trying to do a good job, but they don't go that next step and spend the money and have the talent to do the work that it really takes to be in this business.

Jamie Duininck (14:23):

Yep. And I sit and listen to you explain that, Tony, and I think, okay, what is a listener thinking about here? The listener knows that I am in a business that makes corrugated pipe, you're in a business that makes corrugated pipe, why do you care if your competitor makes a poor product? Well, the reality of it is, in the end that might be good for those that making high quality pipe. But there's a long time between today and the end and it does make a bad impression on the industry, on everybody in that industry.

(15:03):

And we're really here, number one, to listen to our customers and support our customers. And if our customers don't know what we're talking about today and they put in a product that is supposed to last a lifetime, we'll talk about lifetime here in a minute, what does that mean? But it's supposed to last generations and it doesn't, what does that do to that customer's ability to grow? The ultimate customer being the farmer ability to expect, I'm going to spend this capital on this farm on this project and then I'm going to start seeing returns from that next year and significant returns that then I can go and invest in the next farm and the next farm.

(15:47):

If that only lasts him 3 years, 5 years, 15 years even that is not what the expectation was when he invested in that and it really does hurt the opportunity that that farm family has to continue to grow if it doesn't last that when we're talking single wall corrugated pipe in farm drainage applications, we're really talking like 50 years, which is two generations.

Tony Kime (16:17):

And on that 50 years, the Land Improvement Contractors of Ontario four or five years ago at their annual meeting made a motion that they expect that the tile manufacturers supplying them pipe in Ontario should be designing the pipe to last 50 years. So that number's a real number and it's a number that I think makes a ton of sense to me. We can wreck land in a lot of other ways and have bad drainage. We can compact it. We can overwork it. We can do so many things that wrecks the field. Farm drainage really does help us in soil health and avoid compaction and do all these things. But 50 years, a farm family... I know if I put drain tile... I just came in for this podcast, I was out, we were installing some drain tile this afternoon. That's actually going around to house foundation. I would expect that pipe to last 100 years because that foundation's going to be there at least that long. Now this is a pipe I made, so I'm pretty comfortable when I'm putting in.

(17:27):

So anyway. But it is so weird, it really is confusing to me when I think about our industry. I go and buy pipe, PVC pipe or black water pipe, and yesterday we put in a whole bunch of black water pipe for Geothermal. It had certification marks on it was CSA approved, it had the geothermal codes on it and everything. And that meant something to me. I know that and it had a resin code on it and I know that resin code, it's a top-notch last forever resin that that pipe was made out of. I feel confident, but I know a lot about this. If you are not a person that knows much about plastic or plastic pipe, you're assuming the manufacturers are just taking care of you.

(18:25):

However, if you go into Home Depot, most of the pipe in there is going to have a certification on it. It's going to have a NSF or it's going to have a CSA or it'll have a UL if it's electrical. All those codes mean something and it means that that manufacturer is under a third-party audit compliance program. In Ontario we have third-party audit compliance now, and I was just looking at the compliance website and all of the major companies right now in Ontario and eastern Canada and even going into Western Canada are third-party certified to BNQ 3624-115. That's a national standard across Canada for four inch corrugated farm tile.

(19:14):

If you're under the license and third-party certification, you are allowed then to put the mark on the pipe. So at Soleno, all of our plants put the BNQ mark on our pipe. ADS, Armtec, same thing. They have the ability to put the certification mark on their pipe because they're on a third-party audit program and it means they're doing the testing. There was a bunch of company names that were not on that list that I just looked at, and that means that they're just making pipe and it may be good. The problem is, they don't know if it's good and they're just saying, trust me, it's good pipe. I just don't think that's right. I don't think that's fair to the people who are trusting them to make the products.

(20:00):

So it's a conundrum and I'm not sure how our industry gets out of it, other than a lot of communication and that the buyer should just ask a simple question, are you testing the plastic that you made the pipe out of today and do you know what is coming into my field was tested and meets the long-term characteristics, not the strength, not the impact, but the chemical makeup of the plastic? It's really, I guess we just have to spread the word. That's how we get people to demand that people who make pipe do the right stuff or do the right testing.

Jamie Duininck (20:43):

In reading the article that you were quoted in, Tony, the Why Tile Matters. There was something that struck me that you had said in there, and it was around paying a couple cents a foot more for pipe because it's been tested. And that's really a reality maybe some people listening to this podcast that aren't close to our industry may not understand. But, a farm drainage job, usually around 80% of that job is in the lateral pipe, the cost of that job is in the lateral pipes, which is usually three or four inch pipe, and that's sold in cents per foot. Because, let's just say it's 35 cents a foot, the most you would ever see because margins are low, would be a nickel difference and that would be a drastic from, usually it's just a couple of cents.

(21:39):

However, when you look at that, is it worth for not having that assurity that it's going to last a couple of generations? Is it worth saying, I'm going to buy this for two or 3 cents a foot less? And what if you only get 15 or 20 years out of that product where you could have gotten 50 from someone else? And the other thing about that I just want to state is these standards at 50 years are just saying that's a 50 year service life. If it's designed to meet the 50 year service life, what that really means is you're going to have most of your systems that are going to go much longer than that.

(22:23):

It's no different than every old airplane you see in Northern Canada is probably out of its specs from the standpoint of airframe airworthy hours. And most of those are 12,000 hours and they're flying them at 20,000 hours. They might not get insurance on that airframe anymore. All it's saying is we're specing it to this, but we designed it to last a lot longer than that.

(22:49):

And so that's where I see is if we have a 50 year service life. I've been around half of that time already, actually, sadly to say a little more than that in this industry and everything that we sold in the mid '90s is still working very adequately, wonderfully. I assume that's going to be throughout the rest of my career and well beyond, but to have everyone on the same playing field of saying we're going to have a 50 year service life or a spec that says you are doing the things to provide that is just the right thing to do for the end user that doesn't have the time to research all of this and understand, are they meeting that or is it just a good salesman?

Tony Kime (23:35):

Yeah. Well, I do caution us all to be... The 50 year service life is very hard to get into. You and I both know there's tests that we can do that will help validate service life. And I understand you're going to interview an authority on this as part of this little series.

Jamie Duininck (23:55):

Yes.

Tony Kime (23:56):

But what I do know is the BNQ 3624-115 has been around for over 30 years and the resin spec has never changed in that we've all been compliant or been making products that exceed the resin spec in that standard ASTM F667s, which is the one you manufacture to and actually in Canada we do too as well. That one's been around... It was preceded by F405, that spec goes back until, I was a kid when that spec was written. And the resin requirements and those specs have been the same.

(24:35):

As I said, I'm lucky, or you and I both have been in this industry a long time, me longer, I tested a piece of four inch out of my dad's farm that was made in 1971 and it was in great shape. That was made out of a Dow resin that was a brand name resin at the time and had all of the stuff in it that would last a lifetime. And that pipe was in fantastic shape. I've got pipe samples that we made, we being the people at Big O in the early '80s, that was crumbling. And that was the period of time when homopolymer dairy milk bottles started to come into our industry, and those are not a great material to make drink tile out of if you're going to use a high percentage of them. Milk bottles aren't made to last. They don't have the additives in them that are going to make plastic last a long time. The shelf life of a milk bottle is two weeks, if it's that much. So why would they put anything in it that is going to help it last a lifetime?

(25:50):

Yet our industry started to grab onto that material in the '80s. And if you used it at very high percentages, and it was cheap, you make really nice looking pipe, but it would not last. Yet today I could go and buy that resin in a wide spec version and get a rail car of it. Virgin homopolymer dairy resin, if I made my pipes out of that material by itself, I am not even close to compliant. That stuff might not last three or four years before it starts to crack. Yet some people might do that by not knowing what they're buying.

(26:34):

So not being able to validate what you're getting is really not a good thing for anybody that makes drainage pipe or any pipe. I think we're the only industry left in North America where there's not really strict compliance, radiant fluorine pipe high compliance, black water pipe high compliance, PVC pipes high compliance, all these have certification programs. Every pipe you see and use, you're going to see certifications and certification marks on the pipe. Yet our industry is out there still doing whatever we want. It continues to be the wild west sometimes.

(27:16):

When it was in a post-consolidation period where it's the majors that are making pipe, everybody knows what they're doing. But again, we've been in an expansion period. So it's a great industry, it's a fun industry, but it always has little hiccups I guess, for the industry and we're into one of those right now.

Jamie Duininck (27:42):

Yeah. And I think that's probably typical amongst all industries. But Tony, I want to just digress here a little bit because one thing you've been in this industry for over 40 years is probably one of the ultimate promoters of the industry. And you're really doing that right now by just saying, "Hey, we need to have high quality in this industry." But you just kind of brushed over. It wasn't a big deal. And I want to go back for our listeners on how big of a deal that is that you dug up some pipe from 1971 in your dad's farm that was still operating exactly as it was intended. It was in the ground. It had its integrity. It was round. It was draining water, storm water out of fields since 1971.

(28:33):

And you think of that, and let's just talk about that just for a second because we talk about this often on The Water Table, how from my perspective, how much of an honor it is to work in an industry where we make that kind of difference. The difference that was made as every year since 1971, the crop that was growing right above that pipe was growing at 15 to 30 bushels an acre more than if there was not pipe there. And you think about the impact that's had all the way to the fact of feeding the world, really, it's pretty awesome. But the more localized impact of what that does, if you're make 15 to 30 bushels an acre more there just for that farmer, the person that owned that land and how much more money they're putting in their pocket, which then goes to paying taxes, which goes to building roads and bridges and hospitals in their schools and their local communities is pretty spectacular.

(29:33):

So I didn't want to miss that story and take over where you were supposed to be in that, which is the ultimate promoter. But it's an amazing thing that I know how long 1971 is because I was born in 1972, so 54 years, and that's pretty [inaudible 00:29:50]-

Tony Kime (29:50):

Well, Jamie, this particular area on the farm was between two hills. So it was a valley section, 15 acres and you say, what? 15 to 20 bushels or a yield. We couldn't farm that area. When dad drained that, I was 11 years old and that's where we used to skate every winter. But we didn't skate there in '72, there was no friggin' water out there in the spring. It was a nuisance. But we could then farm that section. But it was unfarmable because there was heavy clay ground that captured all the water. There was nothing that you could put down there that would make you any money.

(30:40):

You and I know that people who drain, a lot of the benefit is because the 10 or 15% of their field that is under-producing because it's water catchment areas becomes highly compacted and it's really unfarmable and it's the best areas of our fields. But once we get tile in there, all that land, the whole field is now running at high, high yield. Both of us digress to why should you drain it? But luckily in Ontario today you don't really have to teach farmers why they drain. They know it. They've experienced it. They're re-draining. They're splitting drains. The value of land and the cost of inputs, just the list is so long as to why the first thing you do is if you're going to spend money is put the tile in the field. Every dollar you spend on farming, if you haven't got tile, it's just you're marginally farming. So, anyway.

Jamie Duininck (31:44):

And just here on The Water Table, we just did an episode with Ducks Unlimited and what they're doing today. It was just a really good episode, I encourage people to listen to it. But we're entering another time and agriculture is so cyclical and right now we're entering this time again where agriculture is a tough place to make money right now. And so people are thinking, okay, what do I have to do for the long-term success of my farm? And I think when you start talking way back to 1971, there's so many different things that have happened in America since then where they're paying farmers to drain areas like that, to 1985 swamp busters where it's illegal since then to drain a wetland.

(32:30):

However, we're having more conversations around the idea that if you have a whole field and there's a nuisance wetland in an area of mitigating that and putting it over here where you can create a larger wetland and a larger area and it makes that whole section or quarter or whatever it is, easier to farm. And those are the kind of things we need to continue to have as a conversation.

(32:58):

But this all comes back to what we're talking about, which is we're going to have all those conversations, but those are difficult conversations where you have stakeholders on both sides and we as an industry have to provide good pipe because we're having all of these conversations that matter and then we're going to have one chance to do it right.

Tony Kime (33:18):

Absolutely. And our industry, we're lucky to be in the industry, agribusiness will continue for forever. We need food, we're part of that food cycle. We improve land. You talked about conservation, and I really truly believe that drainage is a conservation practice, but we do need to do it in the right places and we do need to keep habitat in place. So remaking our landscape, humans have been doing it for millennium, drainage is just another technique that does it. But we need to have an industry that contributes, makes great products. If you're going to make a product that's supposed to last for a long time, then you should make sure it is going to last for a long time. And I know all the major companies do that and I just hope that all the little companies that are coming into our industry take the time to learn what they need to do to tell their customers that they are making a good pipe and not that, hey, it feels good because that doesn't tell a story.

Jamie Duininck (34:43):

Yep, that's right. That's right. And I hope that this series will share that in a very specific way. And I appreciate, Tony, you being here to start this, kick this series off. And like you said, we got an expert here in Tony Kime that's been here for 40 plus years. And then we're going to have Dr. Michael Plummer talk about the specifics in resin from a very technical standpoint. And then I'm also going to interview Paul Schrupp from Prinsco, who's been involved in our quality initiative at Prinsco, and why standards matter and the standards that we can maybe apply in the US. What we haven't really talked about here is how these standards... And we talked about them very generally in this conversation, but through LICO, which is the Land Improvement Contractors of Ontario. And in the states we have LICA, Land Improvement Contractors of America, and we have that by state. So each state in our drainage areas of the Midwest have their own LICA representatives. And these are just things that need to have a broader discussion. And like many of these initiatives is, this one too, is being led by Ontario, which has always been on the front edge and the tip of the spear on drainage issues in North America.

(36:17):

So appreciate LICO and your involvement in that, Tony.

Tony Kime (36:23):

Yeah, it's a great association. Ontario's highly drained, lots of reasons for that. And that creates opportunities to develop technology, improve technology, push the efficiencies of things up. So a lot of innovations have come out of the Ontario market. But, your market through Illinois, Iowa, into Minnesota, lots of good stuff happening. In your controlled drainage area, conservation area, you guys are actually leading us. So there's many, many times now I'm hearing people refer to stuff that's coming out of your three or four major states, and you've got some fantastic researchers in your colleges.

Jamie Duininck (37:18):

Yeah, for sure. And we've done a lot of episodes here on The Water Table, on drainage water management, what's happening in Iowa with a lot of the projects there.

(37:27):

So Tony, I appreciate your time on The Water Table and let's keep this conversation going here around quality and the quality of pipe and why it matters.

Tony Kime (37:39):

Well, Jamie, thanks a lot. Your contribution to the industry through this effort of yours has been fantastic. You're giving way more than you're taking, so thanks a lot.

Jamie Duininck (37:52):

Well, thank you. Thanks for joining us today.

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