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Septic Pumping
Locating Septic Systems
Uncovering Septic Systems
Certification Inspection Report
Jetting of Drain Lines
Septic Installation Leach
Field Repairs
Pumping of Carwashes
RV Pumping
Portable Toilet Rental Service
Field InstallationLeach
Man makes his business out of others’ waste
GLAMIS — Don Ruth’s proud to be king of the hill, even if the hill smells a bit.
He’s worked for the last seven years pumping the sewage out of RVs and public toilets from Yuma to San Diego.
“It’s a lot of hard work,” Ruth said. “It’s a dirty job.”
So dirty that he’s had two workers quit on him in the last two months.
By far the most disgusting is cleaning out the public toilets, also known as vault toilets, at the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area.
“People dump shorts, underwear, baby diapers, beer cans, everything” down into the toilets, Ruth said.
Ruth said the problem was only going to get worse now that trash service is set to end at the dunes.
“People are not going to haul out their trash,” Ruth said.
On holidays weeks like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, there can be more than 150,000 dunes enthusiasts gathered at Glamis to the north and Buttercup Valley to south, and that means a lot of trash and a lot of human waste.
Ruth said he started working on human waste seven years ago, when a U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger contacted Ruth, who owns Don’s Septic and Hydroblasting, about pumping the sewage out of snowbirds’ RVs. When he saw the RVs going to Glamis, Ruth said he decided to service them as well.
Tony Bustamante, who has worked with Ruth off and on for the past three years, said that on a busy weekend it can get pretty crazy.
“The majority of the people are really friendly,” Bustamante said. “It’s fun sometimes. You get to be outside.”
Bustamante said that after Don started pumping sewage at Glamis, other people saw what he was doing and started their own sewage pumping services.
“I’m pretty sure they got the idea from Don,” Bustamante said.
But Ruth said that it takes a lot more than showing up with a pump in order to do the job properly.
There are two types of waste Ruth has to clean up: black water, which is waste from the toilet, and gray water, which is the waste from showers and kitchen sinks. Both need to be pumped and taken to a proper dumping site, but Ruth said many others don’t bother with the gray water and tell others to dump it on the ground.
“That’s in violation of federal regulations,” Ruth said.
But, he said, he always does things the right way.
“I’m No. 1 in a No. 2 job,” Ruth said.
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