America’s Land Auctioneer
Captivate and celebrate the dynamics of rural America, American Agriculture and inspire and teach others how to live a bold and abundant life in rural America. Background: The intrigue, endless opportunities, and romance of rural life in America have never been more on the minds of Americans. The recent pandemic and civil unrest have Americans of all ages earning for a more peaceful, less hectic life. Even billionaire Bill Gates is now the largest crop landowner in America. As many Americans look for peaceful refuge in the rolling hills and wheat fields they are faced with a richness of opportunities. But where do you begin to look? This show will highlight and feature endless opportunities in every state. What is it that is so unique about rural America, the land and what it produces? How can I live that life? The American Land Auctioneer will tell stories and weave into those stories a place for you to dream, live and enjoy the abundance of all that rural America has to offer.
America’s Land Auctioneer
Building the Red River Valley Diversion
Beneath the expansive North Dakota skies, a transformative mega-project is reshaping the landscape and future of the Red River Valley. The Fargo-Moorhead Flood Diversion Project stands as one of America's most ambitious civil engineering undertakings – a 30-mile channel designed to protect communities from the devastating floods that have repeatedly threatened homes and livelihoods.
Gil Gilbert from ASN Constructors takes us behind the scenes of this monumental project, revealing the staggering scale of operations that most observers can barely glimpse from nearby highways. "We're moving 45 million cubic yards of excavation," Gilbert explains, painting a picture of massive earth-moving that would cover the entire NDSU campus with several feet of soil. The $130+ million investment in locally-purchased equipment includes specialized excavators so large they require five separate truckloads just to transport to the site. These machines operate 24/7, accumulating 8,000 hours in just two years before retirement – a testament to their relentless workload.
What makes this project particularly fascinating are the extreme challenges overcome through engineering ingenuity. Construction continues year-round despite temperatures plunging to -50°F, where metal components crack under stress and excavation equipment battles ice chunks that can cause $100,000+ in damage with a single impact. The Red River Valley's notorious clay soils present their own obstacles, requiring specialized techniques like discing mud to facilitate drying. Surprisingly, winter operations often achieve higher production rates than summer work, thanks to expertise brought in from mining operations in Northern Canada. The project employs a diverse workforce, including local farmers during winter months, international experts, and NDSU graduates through internship programs.
When completed in 2027, this infrastructure marvel will deliver far more than flood protection. The diversion channel will feature recreational trails and parks, creating lasting community amenities alongside its primary purpose of eliminating the need for flood insurance in Fargo-Moorhead. Though designed to be used for flood protection only once every 20-50 years, its daily impact on regional resilience and quality of life represents a blueprint for how modern civil engineering can transform environmental vulnerabilities into opportunities. Ready to witness this extraordinary transformation firsthand? Take a drive along I-94 or I-29 to glimpse the future of Fargo-Moorhead taking shape before your eyes.
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Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Christian Miller, hosting alongside Jack Pfeiffer this week. Jack, we have got a guest on this week that is going to talk about iron.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, I'm excited, Excited to learn about a very relevant project going on in the area today.
Speaker 2:Folks, we have Gil Gilbert on with ASN Contractors. Gil, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4:Thank you, I appreciate that, and it's actually ASN Constructors. People you know sometimes don't get that right and when I don't get the email I'm thinking okay, it's constructors, not contractors.
Speaker 3:Correction time right After a good start.
Speaker 2:That's right, absolutely Well, gil, you know I've had the pleasure of meeting with you before and we've had some dinners and I wanted to have you on and learn a little bit more about what you do and where you're from, and a little bit. You have an interesting project going on out there. But talk to us a little bit about where you're from and some of your life experience. Have you always been in the iron field or have you done other things throughout life?
Speaker 4:field, or have you done other things throughout life? Yeah, no, I've been, you know, a mechanic all my life and doing, you know, executive construction management, probably now for the last 35 years. So I'm originally, I'm born and bred Coloradoan, so, but I've spent a lot of time all over the United States doing different projects for different companies. But, yeah, it's what I love to do. I tell everybody I'm like a little kid who gets to play with the real Tonka toys.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely yeah, and I know the project out at the Red River Valley there. Can you for the people that don't know? I think the people here in Fargo are pretty familiar with what the diversion project is, but I know with my travels throughout the state I run into a lot of people that they aren't fully aware of what's going on here and the scope of the project. For those who don't know, would you, could you, fill us in a little bit on what you're doing and what's taking place out there?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the Fargo-Moorhead Flood Diversion Project is a project and you're, right up until about a year ago I didn't even know about this and I stay pretty well up on some of these big mega projects, but it is basically a flood diversion channel and that's what they call it. That's 30 miles long, it has 19 bridges and two aqueducts that let the Maple River and the Cheyenne River flow over the diversion project. So it started in. I think the planning's been going on for several years, but construction started basically in 2022, late 2022, into 2023.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and it's been pretty amazing to see, you know, driving on the on the major interstates, just seeing how much earth has been moved and and just see the the size of the project and and really how quickly things have have been getting done. So, right, yeah, at this point in the project you know what percent completion are you guys after? You know where are things at in the total process.
Speaker 4:I think with the excavation, or plus 50 percent. So, ok, yeah, I don't know the exact number because I don't really, you know, deal with that part of it, but sure, at the end of the day, yeah, I think the numbers that I'm hearing, it's 50% plus, very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so when this started, talk a little bit about do you mark it off section by section and you try to complete X amount of feet every week, or how are you doing the entire 30 30 mile stretch kind of at one time? How does that work?
Speaker 4:No, they've got it broken up into what they call reaches. So they have reaches from one and I think it goes up to 12 or 13 or 14, something like that. But they do a section at a time and then they're they'll move around from the bridges doing the different bridges and stuff. So it's really it's almost like, uh, you know a dance, you know they get one part of it done, then another crew moves in and starts doing some of the structure work and the bridge work and as they get the you know channel done and get it into the low flow area, they'll move on to the next channel and then to the next uh reach in the next reach. So it's all done in phases and and reaches.
Speaker 2:So okay, and when you, let's say, you move on to the next reach, what is the first piece of iron that arrives on site? Are you bringing big excavators and and opening it up with that, or what are those phases?
Speaker 4:the initial startup, from what I've seen, is you know, they'll go in and they'll have to do ground clearing. Of course that's usually done with dozers and stuff. But then they take the first 6, 8, 10 feet off with wheeled scrapers and pan scrapers and then they'll keep going down with that and they'll use dozers with rippers to rough it up, and then they'll use a lot of excavators, especially big excavators, to start hogging out the main material and then they load that all up into these 40-ton haul trucks and those haul trucks will take it up to a levee and that's what they build the levees with.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, I see. And these haul trucks, would they be side dumps or what are they?
Speaker 4:primarily no they're all big in-dump haul trucks. So they're the big John Deere, they're 40-ton. We've got several 60-tons haul trucks out there, so they're not babies, Sure absolutely.
Speaker 2:They're big rigs. Probably people that are familiar with mining equipment would see something kind of similar for those haul trucks, the style of what you're talking about to move that dirt. Is that something similar that they would use for mining?
Speaker 4:when you see those big where they're one unit, the haul trucks- so most mining operations, big mining operations, they get 110 tons, so it's not quite that big, but bigger than most civil construction projects. Now, ASN is very fortunate in the fact that it's three joint venture partners. The A stands for Asiona, out of Spain, and the N stands for North American Construction Group, who is a huge mining company, mining operation company. So a lot of the equipment that was specced and brought in and everything was originally set up by North American. So those guys move a lot of earth and they know how to do it. And then the S stands for Chenin Benyu, who I actually work for and I'm a project or basically a partner hire that oversees this project.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been pretty incredible to see just the size of some of the equipment out there. I mean, it's just not equipment that we see on a day-to-day basis and certainly not on like civil projects you see around town. So it's been, yeah, pretty interesting to see just the size and scope of the entire operation. It's been pretty incredible.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when I came out here initially, when S&B asked me to come out and take a look, I mean, just the sheer amount of excavation that needs to be done, right, and then getting in that big equipment man, I'm telling you I was semi-retired, you know, basically, but I was like, wow, this is really cool and the fact that you know, at the end of the day, when this project is complete, it's going to do so much for this community. I mean, I've seen, you know, read, some of the stories of some of the flooding and stuff like that, and I'm being I've been told that when this project is completed, it will help residents here not have to have flood insurance, right, so that's pretty cool help residents here not have to have flood insurance Right, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, there's definitely been some major ones in the 90s and then the last one in 2009 was a really bad one. That you know. Pretty much everyone in the community spent time sandbagging and doing all that stuff to try to prevent some of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they have a book there in the office that highlights that, that flood and everything everybody did and I met that. I read that and I'm like, wow, right, that's impressive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so to have a permanent solution in place is going to be, yeah, great for the community and but yeah, it's just interesting to see how it's, how it's all going to work. You know, even someone like me that's kind of local here, I kind of understand the path of it. But yeah, to hear you say the amount of bridges and then the two aqueducts and stuff too, you know it's going to be interesting to see how all of that stuff works and just kind of the logistics of the whole thing, I guess.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I did some checking on it. The amount of earth they're moving 45 million cubic yards of excavation.
Speaker 2:Is that right? Yeah, wow.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of earth.
Speaker 4:I think I read once in one of the articles that all that dirt that's coming out, all the excavation being done, would cover the entire NDSU campus with several feet of dirt Right. Yeah, yeah, I believe it, it's a huge project.
Speaker 2:Are there any other projects that you're aware of going on right now that are similar to that, or would you think this is one of the larger projects going on in the United States right now? I?
Speaker 4:would say it's probably one of the bigger projects going on in the United States. A civil project, I mean, it's not structured buildings and stuff like that, but just the amount of excavation being done is absolutely huge and, like I said, I've been doing this for over 40 years and when they called me about this, it was the first time I heard about it and then I started reading and studying about it and I'm like, wow, Right right, yeah, it is a massive project.
Speaker 2:And a lot of benefit to the Fargo community having, like you had mentioned, with the flood insurance and with the amount of laborers coming into town and working on this project and the impact on restaurants, hotels, apartments, those sort of things to house everybody and feed everybody and those type of things, a lot of benefits to this Fargo community. I know there's a lot of people excited about this and to see what completion will look like and that's something that, as we get further on into the show, we'll probably talk maybe about when a completion, if there is a completion date in sight and those sort of things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, fingers crossed. You're exactly right.
Speaker 2:Gil, I'm sure there have been some challenges and things along the way.
Speaker 4:I miss my wife and my dog dearly.
Speaker 2:We can attest to those things, can't we Jack?
Speaker 2:A lot of time spent away from home and it seems like big projects require that they take a lot of dedication and and and there's a lot that goes into it and that's why we wanted to have Gil on today is to cover some of those topics and and talk about some of those challenges. And so, as we go into our next segment, I think we have some questions that we're going to dive into a little bit deeper on this diversion project, but we do want to. We do want to thank our sponsor today Piper's auction, realty and land management. I have Jack Piper alongside of me today hosting Jack is heavily involved with the real estate and uh selling farmland and recreational property at auction and at listings, and so we want to thank Piper's auction realty and land Management for sponsoring us. We'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Christian Miller, hosting alongside Jack Pfeiffer today. Jack, how's it going?
Speaker 3:Oh, it's going good. Got a very good guest here today and got some interesting topics to cover. You bet we have.
Speaker 2:Gil Gilbert on from ASN Constructors Gil. We ended the first segment talking a little bit about some of the benefits to the community and we just briefly touched on some of the equipment. But I know during the break we were discussing a little bit more about what type of equipment is being used out there and, of course, when you talk about machinery, the big question that comes to mind is what did that cost? And so we were discussing that and I was going to ask you that same question what is the amount of machinery that's out there, the types being used and where's some of this stuff being sourced from?
Speaker 4:So at the beginning of this project, the ASN, constructors and the groups decided you know the big benefit to spend as much money as possible locally. So on the equipment end of it, to date we've spent roughly over $130 million just purchasing equipment here. Now, one of the other things that was very important is, you know, maintaining that equipment. So not only did we buy the equipment all here local, but we teamed, we partnered with all the major dealers here and did full maintenance and repair contracts, total maintenance and repair contracts so that, you know, was fairly expensive, but at the same time, you know, it really, I think, put a big influx in with all the dealers here, you know, and builder service departments and stuff like that, absolutely.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, I mean, the only time we've really gone outside is if we had to get a real specialized piece of equipment or something like that. That wasn't really available locally. So, sure, and with that being said, you know there was a lot of time spent prior to, you know, construction operations is in ordering that equipment and getting that equipment, because at that time I was right during, you know, midst of covid, so there was you know big delays, yeah, so there was big delays, so, um, the team that put that together did a terrific job and we were able to get most every piece of equipment that we needed on day one.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is remarkable.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was impressive.
Speaker 2:To partner with those local groups. I mean, that's a big statement right there for what that does for local dealerships and machinery places here. And so how many pieces do you know offhand, how many pieces you weren't able to get locally? Were there a few?
Speaker 4:I think there was probably only maybe two pieces, three pieces that we didn't buy on the heavy-duty side. On the light side there was probably maybe a half a dozen Wow that's surprising.
Speaker 3:You'd think, like we were talking about before. Driving by and seeing some of this major equipment, you'd think there would be a handful of pieces that would be kind of hard to source locally. So that's impressive.
Speaker 4:Well, and, like I said, I think it was all in the planning when they finally got the notice to proceed and so on and so forth. And you know, good people put their minds together and said, ok, this is what we need, this is when we need it and we know this is the time it's going to take to get it there. So there was a lot of planning.
Speaker 3:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:And for the on the heavy duty side, the pieces you couldn't get were those big excavators. Is that what it was, or were they haul trucks? I?
Speaker 4:think one was cranes. Oh sure, we got 15 cranes on this project. So, cranes, we had a couple of loaders that we went outside and got stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So, like I said, not many pieces, I'd say 99% of it was all purchased, sure, and then they were disassembled and then hauled on to the project.
Speaker 4:Is how is that how you got got them to the, to the diversion, or yeah, I mean, um, everything that would come in, that would come into um fargo, that was bought from the dealers here. Sure, then, of course, the the dealers did their PDIs, but I'm fairly certain I wasn't here at the time but I'm certain that most everything was dropped, you know, on site and assembled on site, absolutely, because some of these cranes, I mean that's, you know, that's seven loads, right, is that right? Oh, yeah, wow. And we've got a couple of 1250 excavators, commonser 1250s that are five loads and it takes a day to disassemble them and reassemble them.
Speaker 2:For the people that don't know the scope of the project. That kind of puts it into perspective when you have five or seven loads of iron to put a piece of equipment together. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's pretty incredible. And we have to have cranes, putting cranes together, is that right? Yeah, and we actually have one.
Speaker 2:And that's a tower crane would be on a permanent structure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so it's on a fixed mount, okay, it's a fixed mount. And then it's got the big arm, like you see, you know in downtown and stuff like that. Where's that one at? It's at the Cheyenne River Aqueduct, okay.
Speaker 2:And is that lifting in big, heavy pieces of concrete?
Speaker 4:No, no, it's all poured in, but it's mostly formwork and they do you know all that's done with rebar and everything else, so it's constantly moving, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Now you were talking about maintenance and when you got into the studio this morning you had mentioned that you go out personally and inspect some of this equipment from time to time and watch how they're operating it. Maintenance is a big deal and how it's being operated is a big deal for resale value and to, I guess, control depreciation basically on the equipment. Can you talk a little bit about that, what that would look like when you're out, and about inspecting these sites and looking over the equipment?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so fortunately I have a real good team of technicians a few that we do some of our in-house repairs and most of the equipment that was purchased to do the channel excavation, most of that, all that equipment is maintained through the dealers. But then we kind of oversee that, making sure that what's getting done and basically scheduling different repairs and maintenance and stuff like that. So we work intensively with them. Most of the structures, equipment building the bridges and the aqueducts is all self-performed. We perform a lot of that stuff ourselves. So not only am I going out there meeting with people and looking over, making sure this is getting greased, that's getting greased, and really kind of looking at the channel and how it works and how it operates. You know what they're doing with this equipment.
Speaker 4:Having you know, my background for the last 20 years has been in oil and gas, okay, so big pipeline projects and stuff like that. So I have ideas about things that maybe other people didn't think about, or they're doing things that I've never seen before. You know, when you get an old guy like me and I see something new and I'm like, wow, that's cool, you know you can teach an old dog new tricks right, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And and maintenance is a big deal. I mean, we, we talk about that a lot in the auction business of when we have equipment that we're going to to resale, and that's a big part about what we talk about, jack, isn't it?
Speaker 4:on right on the advertising, the reputation of where it came from, sure that that it matters yeah, one of the things that, uh, when we're auctioning off a piece of equipment, we get houred out and we retire a piece of equipment. One of the things that we make sure auctioning off a piece of equipment, we get houred out and we retire a piece of equipment. One of the things that we make sure is mentioned is that it was bought new and it's all dealer maintained and we can easily get the records, all the maintenance records, and that speaks volumes to guys not quite sure when they see that kind of stuff. That gives them a little bit more insurance.
Speaker 2:Absolutely For sure, and when you're spending that dollar amount that matters. I mean, a repair can be what? $20,000, $30,000, depending on what.
Speaker 4:On them wheel scrapers, if you have a transmission go down or something, or even on the big haul trucks, it's a hundred grand. Wow, yeah, it's big trucks, big bucks.
Speaker 2:That's a chunk of change. Yeah, maintenance is key there and they are getting work. I mean, this isn't a light-duty project. I mean these pieces of iron are getting work and in order to make sure that they're functioning at full capacity, that maintenance is a big deal on that stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and our channel side they. They operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day, so that equipment is constantly going. And on some of the bigger track equipment and excavators we uh, they're set to retire at 8 000 hours. You think about a machine getting 8 000 hours on it in two years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's working, yeah so it takes a team of really, really good people, not only operators but superintendents, and then the maintenance teams and working partnering with your different dealerships. You know, making sure that this is taken care of, that's taken care of, because you know, shut those machines down it can be a problem. Sure, you shut a lead machine down. Everything behind it sits, absolutely Right.
Speaker 2:Folks, this is Christian Miller alongside Jack Pfeiffer. We are nearing the end of another segment here. We want to thank Gil Gilbert for his input and teaching us about what the diversion looks like. Folks, gil has agreed to stick around for two more segments here and we will be right back after this break. Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Christian Miller, joined alongside Jack Pfeiffer. Jack, we have a great guest on today with Gil Gilbert from ASN Constructors.
Speaker 3:Yes, we do, Yep, and we're learning a little more about the diversion project here in Fargo. So I guess the one question that everybody's probably waiting for is listening is you know, is there an expected completion date or timeline for when this is actually going to be completed?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the substantial completion date is October of 2026. Okay, so that's when you know 98% will be finished and then there'll be some punch items and stuff. It's expected to be completely done and turned over by March of 2027. Gotcha.
Speaker 3:And so that's when they'll expect to actually be able to use it fully and have water flowing through the diversion.
Speaker 4:That's when, yeah, that's the expectation. So if the opportunity presents itself, then you know I hate to wish flooding on anybody, but you know that's the time that we'll see that this is, you know, been a very well-planned project.
Speaker 3:Right, right and is that kind of the? You know, the plan for the entire project itself is to just be kind of used in emergency situations when the river gets to a certain level.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I read and nobody officially has told me this, but I just think I read it in one of the articles that, um, they expect one use per every 20 to 50 years. Okay, wow, so. But one of the other really cool things about this project is not only they building the diversion. There's a host of trails and parks and everything else that's going to be involved in it.
Speaker 2:So, oh, is that right?
Speaker 4:yeah, that's something I didn't know yeah, yeah, there's a ton of uh recreational areas that are going to be involved in part of building the project.
Speaker 2:Well, I think there will be quite a few people in Fargo that will be happy to hear that Some new opportunities to have jogging trails and that sort of thing. Yeah that's great. Walk the dog, jack. You can take the dogs out for a walk and go look at the thing. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's great.
Speaker 3:Walk the dog, jack you can take the dogs out for a walk and go look at the diversion Right, right, yeah, that's pretty exciting, yeah, and well, and you know the Fargo, and especially Horace, are such, you know West Fargo, such big growing communities. So it's kind of nice that you know some of this infrastructure will will already be in place and you know, kind of kind of gives them room to expand around some of the things that come along with this big project. So that's pretty exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with a project of this scope, have there been challenges, gil, that you were not expecting? Has there been any big challenges that your team has had to sit down and navigate, or has everything kind of flowed according to plan?
Speaker 4:Well, I can't really speak about the operational side of it because I've not really been involved that. But I can tell you that when I first went out to the channel and watch some of the excavation and then the soil material when you get down so far, I mean it is a mess. I've never seen anything like that. So I think part of the challenge was making sure that one. You know, we had to get some bigger flotation tires for some of these machines so they wouldn't sink. Some of the machines we had to get wider track pads. Is that right, you know? And just sometimes it gets to a point to where you know, some of the equipment just isn't going to be able to produce like it was anticipated, just because of the types of soil. And then you get a weather event, you know, and it's, you know, you're shut down for two or three days until things dry out.
Speaker 4:One of the things that was really cool and one of the superintendents I deal with, super, super nice guy, but he's one of the big mining guys, right, and I was out there with him one day and they're discing this mud up, you know, and it's kind of sloppy and everything. I said, well, why are you guys doing that, you know? And he goes you've got to get it up so it dries out. Sure, which I've never seen before. Huh, you know, and he had my team make up what they call a tire drag and I said what is that? So we would take some big motor grader tires that had worn out, they buckle them together and they drag them on the chain on the haul roads because it adds it. They do that in the wintertime because it hardens the frost in the ground. It's amazing.
Speaker 4:And you think about those little tips and those little things that happen. It's like man, that's really cool. Who thought of that?
Speaker 2:You know. So that's pretty neat Talking about having expertise from different areas different experiences. You had mentioned, he was kind of a mining guy and that's interesting having to navigate those different soil types. And I know, jack, you're heavily involved in land, you can probably attest as well as anybody. The soil types here in the Red River Valley are very diverse here.
Speaker 3:Right they are, and probably the one that I could see being the biggest issue for you guys would be just the thick clays, especially when you get down there. I can see that being a problem, especially after a rain event, where that's the stuff that's not drying out and just seems like it's kind of chronically wet. It kind of seems the same way on the farming side. The thick, heavy clay soils are what seem to give people the most problems, and there's a lot of it here in the valley, yeah, and very hard on equipment too, I bet.
Speaker 4:Like I said, they operate 724, so their best time to operate is when this stuff is frozen. The problem with that is then that causes more damage. I mean, you know you get some of these big ice chunks come up and you know, take out a cylinder or take out you know something, and you know it can't be prevented, but it happens right.
Speaker 2:Sure Right. That kind of leads me into the next question. Aside from the soil challenges, has there been big machinery challenges related to cost? You talked about a cylinder being taken out. Did it stress your budget at all, your operation budget, as far as having machinery challenges with, like you said, an ice chunk coming up and wear and tear on the machines? Has there been any challenges along that side with the machine?
Speaker 4:Well, I think some of the biggest challenges, like I said, you know and I experienced for the first time this last winter, you know it gets 50 below out there and blowing like that I mean metal stresses, it'll crack. You know buckets crack and stuff like that and a bucket on some of these machines you know it's 40 grand Is that right you know, and you know it's 40 grand right.
Speaker 2:Is that right you know, and trying to get?
Speaker 4:it trying to get it repaired and stuff like that. Um, you know, big chunk ice come up and, uh, you know, punch a hole in a transmission pan and one of these big haul trucks. Well, like I said, it can't be prevented, but it happened, right, sure? So the transmission and replacing that transmission is 110 000 dollars, wow. So, yeah, to say that they budgeted. Every good estimation budgets in a factor right here is did they make that fact or not? Um, I wasn't involved in that part of it, but I can tell you that some of those things can get very expensive, and you know, not to mention just the repair itself, but the downtime, right, yeah, you know, yeah, you know, yeah. So downtime is critical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you talked about that. I mean with being operating 24 seven, the minute a machine isn't going. I can imagine that's a big concern for you guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is yeah, yeah, and so in the, in the winter months, you know how does that? How has that changed the project? I mean, what all are you guys? Have you been able to get done in the during the winter months? They?
Speaker 4:get more production in the winter, really On the excavation side of it, than they do in the summer, or especially the spring, just because everything turns to mush, right yeah. So they're actually able to do better production in the excavation portion of it in the wintertime, whereas the bridges and the oxyduct, what we call structures, you know, in the summertime they can get further ahead Because pouring I don't know how many millions of yards of concrete, and you do that in the wintertime, and then you've got to heat it and let it cure, right?
Speaker 2:So there's a lot to it. Yeah, and did they pour any concrete at all over winter? I mean they did, oh yeah, and how do they heat something like that? I mean, are they building a structure around where they're building the concrete?
Speaker 4:I've only seen it from afar, but I can tell you that we rent probably 50 of those big ground heaters and they channel that heated air into a tent-like area and they just keep it heated. Wow, Wow, it runs 24 hours a day.
Speaker 2:That's pretty incredible, that is Talk about a challenge. I mean, we all know what North Dakota winters are like here, and the fact that you can continue to do excavation is impressive. I mean People in North Dakota. We don't do much here in the winter. I mean, if you're not inside, as far as agriculture goes, or even other projects, those things generally come to a standstill, and so the fact that this diversion project continued during those temperatures, that is mind-boggling.
Speaker 4:Well, you think about it, you know, I thought about that too and I had one of the North American people tell me you know, well, think about you know, we've got mines in northern Canada, you know, in some of the coldest areas in the world, Right, so yeah, we know how to work in this stuff.
Speaker 1:And I was like, wow, you know, I'm thinking when it warm yet it ain't cold yet, what are you crying about? I'm like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so. They did bring people down from some of those areas then that had worked in those colder environments then to work on these projects.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you know North American Construction Group is you know like we talked about mining. North American Construction Group is you know like we talked about mining? So you know they bring in some of their specialists and some of their people to you know, do the, you know the estimation and calculations and all that stuff you know and oversight of the project management you know just as well as you know SMB, the company I work for. They're really big into bridges so they're the ones that you know that are leading kind of the path on the bridges and the structure stuff. So they bring in highly experienced, highly knowledgeable people to start this and everything. But as we was talking about and you said, nothing really happens here in the winter. A good portion of our operators in the winter are people, the farmers and stuff. They come and operate for us in the wintertime.
Speaker 2:Oh is that right yeah. So there have been some local hires then.
Speaker 4:Oh, many local people yeah, Tons of local people. And then we've had other people that brought in that love it here and plan on staying.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:That kind of goes back to our conversation in the first segment with the benefit to the community. I mean, having that many local people involved, that's a lot of money going into local pockets as well, and that's I know for Jack and I are very familiar with this that there is a lot of downtime here in the winter and for people to have the opportunity to put extra money in their pockets where they might be, um, not have much going on, is that.
Speaker 3:that's really great to hear that right and great experience for guys who get to get to work on a project like this.
Speaker 3:That's pretty cool big resume builder absolutely for operators yeah yeah, well, folks, we are uh nearing the end of our third segment here, so I do want to thank our sponsors, pyfers, auction and realty, for sponsoring today's show. Feel free to reach out to them for any of your land or equipment or land management needs. We've got Christian Miller here on the equipment side and I'm Jack Pfeiffer. I deal mostly on the land auction portion of things. But yeah, we've got a great show and nearing our last segment and we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Christian Miller, your host, alongside with Jack Piper today, and we have Gil Gilbert on from ASN Constructors. We're on our final segment here, and we still have a little bit to cover, don't we Jack?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's been very informative so far. So thank you so much, Gil, for coming in and teaching us Appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big learning experience for us. We get to see it from the road, but that's about all we know about it. Right, right, we were talking about we've covered equipment, we've covered maintenance and and I in one of the earlier segments we briefly touched on on when this equipment hour is out. But we we did talk a little bit more about it over the break and, gil, could you elaborate a little bit on what it looks like when the equipment hour is out for you and what types of equipment hour out at what time frames?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so all of our major excavation equipment, with the exception of the big articulated case tractors, the 620 case tractors which pull pans and box blades, we hour those out at 4,000 hours. But all the excavators, wheel scrapers, dozers, everything like that, goes to 8,000 hours. It's designed to go to 8,000 hours.
Speaker 2:Is that based on when you feel like that it stays pretty with regular maintenance it stays pretty reliable during that time frame, that it can withstand that heavy use and regularly maintained to be reliable for your team?
Speaker 4:Yeah, actually we're in the process here in the last year of really evaluating especially some of these dozers and we've opted to extend the life of those dozers up to 10,000 hours, which helps save costs and so on. So if I have a new one, we put some money into one of these and then we'll extend out the warranty and the maintenance contracts and keep running them and so far we've had really good luck with that.
Speaker 2:A testament to good maintenance. You can extend the life of a machine significantly, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And you said on average. You know the stuff that goes to 8,000 hours. That'll last about two years to put on that many hours.
Speaker 4:The stuff that works in the channel is 724, yeah, so it generally goes to. You know, the original package you bought was two years 8,000 hours. We've had to extend because you know to get those warranties back up and stuff, sure, but yeah, they operate heavily.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty incredible, that's a busy project.
Speaker 2:Yeah, We've just never seen anything like it and I know when it was announced that the diversion was coming through, I think everybody kind of wondered you know what's this going to look like? And it has been remarkable to see it take place. I know Jack and I both drive along I-94 and also 29, going north and south there, and so we get to see it from a few different angles and just to see the scope of this project and to hear that there's local people involved and people from Northern Canada and Gil, you come all the way from Colorado.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, we have people. So Asiona is based in Madrid, Spain, so we have a lot of those people here for cost controls, and Shenu Benyus is out of Israel, so we have a lot of. It's probably one of the most diverse projects I've ever been on. I mean a lot of diversity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty incredible that is remarkable. Yeah yeah, and's pretty incredible. That is remarkable, yeah yeah. And going back to some of the local benefit you talked a little bit during the break about, you know kind of your guys' intern program or.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so ASN Constructors has a very vibrant, very good intern program and most of those students come from NDSU and in fact have done a full you know internship with them and are hired to come in after graduation. So we have several NSDU graduates actually working on the project right now.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's a great opportunity for local students. That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a short drive to work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Right right.
Speaker 4:He was talking about the look of the project. When you guys drive by, I fly in and out of Fargo two, three times a month, right? Sure, see it from the air. Yeah, I'm telling you, that's when it's impressive, right? You really get to see that. Oh, yeah, you get a view from the air.
Speaker 2:How big it is. Right, that is amazing. Yeah, you know. That kind of leads me to my next question, gil. You know, if you ever were presented an opportunity like this again to do another project of this magnitude, would you do it again?
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely. One of the things that, shanig Ben, you hired me for is you know, I've had 47 years' experience doing this stuff. So they do a lot of what they call P3 projects and but they're all mega projects, you know, two, five, $10 billion projects. They've got another couple of projects coming up in other areas and other parts of the country that I'm involved in helping. You know, set up the equipment for now and then I'll oversee the operations of that equipment and stuff as long as I want to. So they told me I can't retire for at least 10 more years.
Speaker 2:You didn't know what you were getting yourself into, did you? That's right, from semi-retired to back at it full time again. Yeah, no, I know when the few times we've had dinner we've kind of discussed some of this. You said semi-retired and that you know I was going to ask you when you're done with this project, what does life look like for you? Are you going to continue flying across the country managing projects or?
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, I'll probably stay doing it for at least another, at least another seven years or so, and wherever S&B would like me to go, I'll go. I have no problem with that. But after that, yeah, I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time with my seven grandchildren and my four kids, and I'm an avid mountain biker and love kayaking and enjoy the Colorado wilderness a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Good for you, that is. That's really great. Colorado is an adventure filled place, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah, a lot of opportunities. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Well, thank you, gil for for coming in today. It's been awesome to to learn kind of the equipment side of the of the diversion and you know just overall the entire scope of the project, some of the details that go along with it. So thank you so much. We're very appreciative.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Gil. I appreciate the opportunity, guys, thanks, yeah. Well, we do have some upcoming sales that Christian and I wanted to touch on Christian. I'll let you start with some of the upcoming machinery sales that Pifers has. Yeah, you bet.
Speaker 2:We've had a busy spring here at Pifers and we'll touch on some results later. But we have the Buttenhoff sale coming up May 15th in Barnesville, minnesota, and we also have the Steichen sale coming up out in I believe that's in the Dawson area up in Kidder County and the O'Neill sale will be in June and we have the Ketterling sale in the middle of June as well. And if you're looking for farm or agricultural equipment and there's also some heavier pieces on there Great opportunities to buy equipment at those sales, well-maintained items, whether it's ranching or for your grain operation, great opportunities there. And if you have questions on those sales or if you're looking to book a sale, you can reach out to Jim Sabby. Jim is based out of our Bowman office on the western end of the state, along with John Sorrighty. Jim and John are both located in that Bowman office out in Bowman.
Speaker 2:And if you have questions here on the central part of the state or on the eastern end, you can reach out to Chris Prochnow or Cameron Docter, as well as Cliff Sanders. And if you're over in Minnesota in the Fergus Falls area, we have Troy Johnsrud down there in Fergus Falls. You can also reach out to myself, christian Miller, I am based out of Minnesota. I travel a lot of North Dakota and Minnesota on a regular basis. If you have any questions related to those sales, don't hesitate to reach out to our agents and ask questions. We always welcome phone calls and we're more than happy to talk to our clients about equipment and upcoming sales.
Speaker 3:Yep, and I've got one large land auction coming up here in May that I'd like to highlight as well. It's the Ferguson Farm Sale in Trail County. The land is a little bit spread out. We've got, let's see, parcels 1 and 2 are in Caledonia Township, there in Trail County, just northeast of Hillsboro. Parcel 3 is located in Hillsboro Township, just south of Hillsboro, and then Parcels 4, 5, and 6 are down in Kelso Township, just north of Grand and North Dakota. So some really nice productive Red River Valley farmland there. Again, that one's coming up May 21st and that'll be live online with the live auction held here in Fargo at the Holiday Inn. But you can always log in and bid online.
Speaker 2:Jack, if they want to get a hold of you, how do they reach out to you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, feel free to give me a call. My cell is 701-261-4762. Otherwise, you can find my profile on the website and contact me through there as well. And how about you, christian, if?
Speaker 2:you want to give me a phone call 218-330-0852. If you're looking for equipment results or upcoming land and equipment sales, make sure you go to pyferscom. Once again, we want to thank our sponsor, pyfers Auction Realty and Land Management for being our sponsor this week. And thanks again to our guest and Land Management for being our sponsor this week. And thanks again to our guest, gil Gilbert, for being on the show today. Folks, that is our show for today. We will see you next week on America's Land Auctioneer.