They are tearing up the roads in our small town.

There are signs posted on all our main streets warning us that there will be delays and detours until January of next year. I’m guessing it might be even longer than that. This is something that could be annoying. Who likes detours? And the noise! There is a lot of hubbub and racket and beeping that goes along with roadwork, especially when the heavy machinery backs up (and it seems like it backs up a lot.)

It’s all good, though. It’s good and it’s necessary and I am not going to complain about the hubbub and racket and beeping because it’s for an important cause. At long last, our town’s antiquated water pipes are being replaced and our water plant is getting updated. For the past few years, our town has been in the process of transitioning from a locally controlled city water system to a county one. The Placer County Water Agency will be taking over.

I’m not sure how old our town’s water pipes were, but I’m guessing decades. They were old; the system was old. Leaks were common. There was a big one up the street from my house a few years ago. I went out one evening to find a torrent rushing towards us. What do you do when you see such a sight? You panic a little, because it’s a lot of water, and then you run up the street to your neighbor’s house. He’s the kind of neighbor who knows what to do in just about any problematic situation. He went and got another neighbor who has lived here forever and who has taken care of our town’s problems for decades, sort of our unofficial mayor. He also, fortunately, has a backhoe. (Because every small town’s unofficial mayor needs a backhoe, right?) The two of them brought the backhoe down, dug up the road, figured out where the leak was, and worked late into the night to fix it.

I was lucky that they were able to do that, that they were kind and generous and had the tools and knowhow to fix a massive water leak on a random Thursday evening. But it’s not the kind of thing that citizens should have to do. Not the kind of thing you should count on. So I’m grateful for our local water board members who did the work to get our water project funded. It took several years of planning, including conducting a vote of town residents to see if we would approve the transition. I’m grateful that the state stepped in with funding and that the county was willing to take on this project, because residents of our little town were not equipped to bear the burden of replacing all our water pipes and meters and upgrading our water plant. I’m sure it’s a project that will cost millions.

So while it’s a pain that they are digging up the roads all day long for the next few months and making lots of roadwork noise, it’s worth it. Because is there anything more important than water, and having it be clean and flowing through pipes that are sturdy and strong and not bursting at inopportune times? It’s a big thing to be grateful for. Even if it takes some time and a lot of beeping before it finally comes to pass.