Rural Heritage December 2025/January 2026

The Miller ranch included access to the breakdown, a low passage at 4,350 feet elevation from Hell Canyon to Chilson Canyon. After all the years of dealing with electric and gas-powered pumps, Bruce saw the opportunity to gravity flow water from east Scotty Spring (4,450 feet) to the breakdown to the Miller ranch and through Ellen’s to his corrals, pastures and home (4,050 feet). Another juncture was learning the role cisterns could play in the water system. Bruce says, “In 1978 when I put the pipeline into the well, we had the old barn and corrals and the house on a pressure system. The pressure tank was at the well. I soon learned I didn’t want to wear out the pump with the turning on-and-off, on-and-off that the pressure tank switch was doing. So, I identified a high spot above my house and put in my first cistern. Then I put the well on a timer so that it would fill the cistern and then turn off. I put in an overflow on the cistern so that any excess water could be used to water trees around the house; their shade has been a huge asset in the summers ever since.” The next juncture was learning about SDR pipe. When he pondered laying the pipe he had been using in pipelines around the ranch over in Hell Canyon, he thought, “this is going to be a sprinkling system; it’s going to be a huge joke. The ground was so rocky that it just eats up pipe. We would never have been able to do the pipeline without SDR pipe because it is so tough. When I heard it had been used in Desert Storm in the Middle East and tanks were rolling over it without damaging it, I thought we might have a chance. The white pipe we’d been using was so sorry; that’s why I call it eggshell. Even when you use thicker white pipe, it’s still glued together and, when things settle, the joints pull apart. You don’t have that problem with SDR pipe which is butt-welded/melted together.” Another juncture was learning the quality of the water at East Scotty Spring. A US Geological Survey project had tested the quality of water sources in the Black Hills. It was several years before Bruce heard the results of the project. It turned out that East Scotty Spring water had the highest quality of all the water sources tested. Learning that provided even more impetus to bring the water to the houses. The first pipeline was shallowly buried so could only deliver water during the warmer months. Bruce

says, “It was only in the summer time because we’d only ripped it in 18 inches to 24 inches. So, it would freeze in late December, and we’d have to go back on wells with water that wasn’t quite as good until the pipeline thawed out in March or April when it warmed up enough. When we first started thinking of burying it 5 feet, I had two different pipeline contractors look at it and they both said ‘no way!’ “In 2001, I realized the pipeline was better off either buried 5 feet or staying on top of the ground. We had a massive forest fire that year, and a big dozer, a D10 that was the National Guard’s, came in to fight fire. It made a sprinkling system out of my pipeline, even though it was SDR. It was so close to the surface and against rocks, and the cat was so heavy, it just pushed it down and punctured it. I was fixing leaks then because it just wasn’t deep enough. We’d find a leak and say, ‘Eureka here’s the leak.’ We’d fix it then there’d be another leak. Obviously, we needed A trackhoe, with its stability on steep slopes and ability to remove rock, was a key piece of equipment for completing construction of the Scotty Spring pipeline. SDR pipe, laying at right awaiting burial, was another key.

December 2025/January 2026

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