If you want to contact the Abbey
to say how much you like the website
or
to make a donation to help pay for the water project
or
with general questions:

Saint Benedict Abbey
252 Still River Road
Post Office Box 67
Still River, MA
01467
978-456-3221
abbey@abbey.org

If you want to visit, contact Fr. James at
abbeyretreats@aol.com

If you want to become a monk
Contact Fr. Anthony at
abbeyvocation@aol.com

If you want to contact Abbot Xavier
to congratulate him
fatherxavierosb@yahoo.com

NES Equipment Rentals dropped off a magnificent Caterpillar D5N  Bulldozer with precision electronic controls so we could build one more access road.

In less than 40 hours the road bed was fully cut and ready for the graded base.

   Again, Kevin Harrington and NES Rentals helped. We rented a practically new Caterpillar D5N and Marty Piermarini, (Central Mass. Sand & Gravel) donated thousands more tons of road base and topsoil to finish the job.

BELOW: Our big Mack triaxle holds a 25 ton payload but that still made for countless trips to the gravel pit for the road base.

   While Brett King will probably give all the credit to Pam Galeota, Project Manager for J & J contracting, Brett's site work team excavated almost 1500 feet of trenches from the field to the house, laid all the pipes along with electrical wiring and prepared the site for the new tank which came in four 20 ton units. A huge truck crane came in to set the tank units which were designed with a tongue and groove edge to fit into each other.

   Brett's crew completed the site work, poured the concrete walls for the control building, installed a powerful auxiliary generator complete with underground propane tanks, built a huge retaining wall with blocks from Carl DiMassa, then graded the land so that all the natural water runoff would flow away from the buildings. We will keep it simple by thanking BOTH Pam and Brett for their great work!

    Scott Boggis (Skillings well-drillers and water pumps) could best be described as "religiously" dedicated to the Abbey's water project. Sometimes we would see his red pick-up on the job by 6 a.m., and always we would see his trademark calm smile. Combining Yankee ingenuity with technical knowledge, Scott is the genius behind the complex computerized pump system which monitors and directs all the water usage.

Fr. Xavier, the Abbey's project manager, stops just long enough for a photo with Brett King (right) and his design engineer.

LEFT: The final product. This photo shows the control building attached to St. Charles Hall with the generator in the foreground. The water storage tank itself is underground where you can see a white vent pipe.

RIGHT: The view from the opposite side with newly planted lawn covering over the water tank.

Once the tank and the control building were in place, Scott Boggis and Skillings came back and assembled an elaborate array of pumps and filters and computer controls to monitor the wells, the tank and the usage. This room actually has 32 alarms built into the system in case any element should fail. Now you need a PhD to drink a glass of H2O.

In the blow-up photos along the bottom you can see the intricate plumbing, the high-tech pumps and the door on one of the electronic control panels.
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