https://www.americancityandcounty.com/wp-content/themes/acc_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Hybrid Work
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcast
  • Resources & Events
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • IWCE 2022
    • How to Contribute
    • Municipal Cost Index – Archive
    • Equipment Watch Page
    • American City & County Awards
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms of Service
American City and County
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Hybrid Work
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcasts
  • Resources/Events
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers/eBooks
    • IWCE 2022
    • How to Contribute
    • American City & County Awards
    • Municipal Cost Index
    • Equipment Watch Page
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Stament
    • Terms of Service
  • newsletter
  • Administration
  • Economy & Finance
  • Procurement
  • Public Safety
  • Public Works & Utilities
  • Smart Cities & Technology
  • Magazine
acc.com

Public Works & Utilities


Fred Buckenmeyer/City of Anacortes

News

Fred Buckenmeyer: Exemplary Public Servant of the Year Award recipient

Fred Buckenmeyer: Exemplary Public Servant of the Year Award recipient

  • Written by Andy Castillo
  • 12th January 2022

When Fred Buckenmeyer was asked by Laurie Gere, then-mayor of Anacortes, Wash., to wire the city for broadband, he didn’t know where to start.

Back then, “I didn’t even know if fiber optic was one word or two,” said Buckenmeyer, 65, who serves as the city’s director of public works. The mayor’s request came on the heels of another major city project that was in the works: improving the city water system’s aging radio-based telemetry system, which including 30 sewer pump stations, five water pumps and the Water Treatment Plant on the Skagit River.

The timing of the broadband request presented an opportunity: “If I could tie together all of this infrastructure with fiber optics, that would be great,” said Buckenmeyer, who has spent nearly four decades in service to the public, including 22 years at neighboring Mount Vernon, Wash.—departing as an engineering services manager—and 17 years at Anacortes. He announced his retirement last year, according to Anacortes Now. “We could use the excess fiber strands” installed for the water system “to be used for the internet project,” he noted.

But while there was opportunity, Buckenmeyer faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge: Anacortes is a rural region featuring rivers, hills and forested land.

They began the work “by putting fiber optics around town,” Buckenmeyer said. “But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, ‘gosh, our water plant is 20 miles away over near Mount Vernon.’” 

Burying that many miles of fiber optic cable to connect the different pump stations to the water plant wasn’t a viable option.

Buckenmeyer’s innovative and first-in-North America-solution—running fiber optic cable through existing city water lines—is the reason why he has been chosen as this year’s merit-based American City & County 2021 Exemplary Public Servant of the Year Award winner. Nominees are selected annually based on their accomplishments and the impact those actions had on their communities.

After months considering the problem, Buckenmeyer discovered a possible answer: “Somebody told me about this company in England” that was installing fiber optics in water lines. “I finally got a hold of them—Craley Industries,” said Buckenmeyer. Craley Industries, which was founded in 2014, at that point several years ago had only installed fiber cables in smaller European water lines. “They flew over and sat at the table here and explained what they were doing. It was an instantaneous sell, the perfect application for what we were doing.”

But as a self-proclaimed “born skeptic,” Buckenmeyer flew to Spain to check out a system that had been installed there for himself. “I used all my own money to go over there—no public funds were spent on my trip to Spain,” he noted.

In that particular part of Spain, a farming region near Barcelona, there aren’t many roads. “So, what they do is they get internet through pipes.”

Installing them is simple and cost effective.

First, two small holes are tapped at either end of the pipe spans. A magnet is attached to one end and a foldable umbrella-like device with a string is threaded into the other, then opened.

“Water pushes it along until it hits the magnet,” Buckenmeyer said. Waterproof tubing is installed by pulling it through the pipe with the string before it’s sealed: “Now, you’ve got an empty conduit in the water line,” through which fiber optic cable—or any other type of line—can be run.

“When I went over to Spain, the largest pipe I saw this was in was about 8 inches,” Buckenmeyer said. “When we did it, we put it in 36 diameter (pipes)—we were, at that point, the largest pipe in the world this was done in. We worked closely with Craley and, with their help, modified some of their methods.”

These days, having launched in 2019, Anacortes’s broadband network is up and running. About half the region’s 8,000 potential household connections have been made. Many other North American communities interested in installing the hardware in their own regions have reached out to Buckenmeyer about the project.

By training his employees to install the tubing themselves in the city’s water lines, “It went from being impossible to being a two- or three-week job,” Buckenmeyer said, noting it cost about $1 million for that first 20-mile leg of the total $3 million project. “We’re extending the system now to the south of us, through water lines.” 

The endeavor was exclusively funded with utility money.

Aside from the fiber optic project, Buckenmeyer, an avid cold-water scuba diver, woodworker and mountaineer, said of all the endeavors he’s embarked on over his career he’s most proud of building a new water plant for the city in 2013.

Around the same time, Buckenmeyer says he attended a climate change conference. He implemented the lessons he learned there in the water plant’s design—another example of his forward-looking approach.

“The first thing we did, we made it watertight construction, like a boat. Everything below the 100-year flood level is completely waterproof,” he said. “Just this year, we had a huge flood—it held up. Not a drop of water.”

Tags: homepage-featured-1 homepage-featured-2 homepage-featured-4 News Public Works & Utilities News Public Works & Utilities News

Most Recent


  • utilities
    Remote alarm notifications add firewall as utilities face mounting threats of cyberattacks
    Municipal utilities are critical to national security, economic stability, and public health and safety. As technology in these sectors evolves, cyberattackers take advantage of opportunities to exploit vulnerabilities. While the Federal Government has taken steps to address this issue by creating innovative public-private partnerships and initiatives, the worldwide attacks on municipal utilities in the past […]
  • 10 of America's most idyllic lakeside communities
    From Vermont’s Lake Champlain to the famous Lake of the Ozarks, the United States has the third most lakes of any country in the world—a new list from Boatline, an online boating marketplace, ranks America’s best lakeside cities and towns. The list includes communities like Grand Lake, Colo., which is home to the state’s deepest natural […]
  • infrastructure
    Infrastructure improvements in cities often feature clean energy or connected technologies
    The most in-demand products and services in local governments fall into three interconnected buckets, says Matthew Britt, general manager of smart cities at Honeywell. The buckets, he says, are urban mobility, sustainability and resilience, and public safety. “Urban mobility begins with road infrastructure and understanding how to move people around cities more effectively and sustainably. […]
  • Ahead of Surfside condo collapse anniversary, Florida's legislature approves inspection standards
    Nearly a year after one of the worst building tragedies in United States history, the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Fla., the state’s legislature has passed a bill requiring stricter inspection standards. It’s expected to be signed into state law by Gov. Ronald DeSantis. The update significantly reduces the inspection timeline statewide for coastal […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your American City and County account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • American City & County's 2020 Exemplary Public Servant of the Year Award
  • The 2018 Exemplary Public Servant of the Year awards
  • Nominations now open for Exemplary Public Servants of the Year, Crown Communities Awards
  • Nominations open for Exemplary Public Servants of the Year, Crown Communities Awards

White papers


Hand Hygiene: Compliance Matters

23rd May 2022

What it Takes to Build a Winning Esports Program

23rd May 2022

Sixth-Largest US School District Saves Over $500,000 by Utilizing a Cooperative

23rd May 2022
view all

Events


PODCAST


Young Leaders Episode 4 – Cyril Jefferson – City Councilman, High Point, North Carolina

13th October 2020

Young Leaders Episode 3 – Shannon Hardin – City Council President, Columbus, Ohio

27th July 2020

Young Leaders Episode 2 – Christian Williams – Development Services Planner, Goodyear, Ariz.

1st July 2020
view all

Twitter


AmerCityCounty

Remote alarm notifications add firewall as utilities face mounting threats of cyberattacks dlvr.it/SRB2fd

27th May 2022
AmerCityCounty

10 of America’s most idyllic lakeside communities dlvr.it/SR9yVd

27th May 2022
AmerCityCounty

Infrastructure improvements in cities often feature clean energy or connected technologies dlvr.it/SR6vm8

26th May 2022
AmerCityCounty

Ahead of Surfside condo collapse anniversary, Florida’s legislature approves statewide inspection standards dlvr.it/SR6qL7

26th May 2022
AmerCityCounty

American City & County survey highlights civic engagement priorities in public sector dlvr.it/SR3hMS

25th May 2022
AmerCityCounty

Changing recruitment practices can ease retention challenges dlvr.it/SQzzPt

24th May 2022
AmerCityCounty

EVs are coming in a big way – Will charging infrastructure be ready? dlvr.it/SQzfL1

24th May 2022
AmerCityCounty

Optimizing the 3 stages of RFP creation for faster results | June 16, 2022 at 2 PM ET dlvr.it/SQzV7d

24th May 2022

Newsletters

Sign up for American City & County’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about local governments.

Resale Insights Dashboard

The Resale Insights Dashboard provides model-level data for the entire used equipment market to help you save time and money.

Municipal Cost Index

Updated monthly since 1978, our exclusive Municipal Cost Index shows the effects of inflation on the cost of providing municipal services

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital audience? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • IWCE’s Urgent Communications
  • IWCE Expo

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us

FOLLOW American City and County ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X