It is early afternoon on a Thursday in the middle of the first hot and humid week of what will hopefully be a warm Michigan summer. The weather is nothing new for the crew working for NPL Construction Co., whose operators have worked in just about every condition Mother Nature can throw at them.
What makes this project different is everything around them.
Instead of being surrounded by farms, fields, or trees, as many pipeline projects are, this work is taking place in the middle of southeast Michigan. Traffic passes just feet from the equipment. Businesses remain open. Homes sit close to the right-of-way. Overhead power lines cross above the work. Underground utilities run in nearly every direction below it.
The crew is working on the Four Cities Metro Pipeline project for Consumers Energy, so instead of barns, their materials and equipment yard sits behind an RV dealership and a movie theater. Excavators and skid steers work in places usually occupied by minivans and SUVs, sitting in front of suburban ranch houses while midday traffic rolls past. Nearby, the massive I-696 rebuilding project adds even more pressure, with rerouted traffic moving close to excavated paths cut through the road concrete.
For NPL and the Operating Engineers 324 members on the job, that means doing the kind of work usually associated with wide-open stretches of pipeline, but doing it under power lines, beside traffic, and through neighborhoods where every driveway, side street, and front yard brings another challenge.
There are advantages, though. A pipeline crew working in the middle of Metro Detroit has food, lodging, and entertainment options rarely found on a more remote project. A few members have taken up golf during their downtime. Several were planning a weekend trip to Cedar Point, while others were already talking about a comedy show the following week.
That off-the-clock time matters, because on the clock, the work requires constant focus. The suburban setting may offer better restaurants and more comfortable nights than a typical pipeline job, but it also brings tighter spaces, heavier traffic, more overhead hazards, and a maze of known and unknown utilities below ground.
A Pipeline Through Four Cities
The Four Cities Metro Pipeline is a multi-year effort to replace more than eight miles of 24-inch steel natural gas pipeline in Royal Oak, Madison Heights, Clawson, and Warren. The existing pipeline dates back decades, and the replacement is designed to improve safety, reliability, and capacity for the natural gas system serving homes and businesses across southeast Michigan.
“It’s a four-year project,” explains Ray Stieg, an Operating Engineers 324 journeyman member and steward on the project. “This year is 2.4 miles of 24-inch, 0.375 wall pipe. We started March 23, and they’re looking to complete it early November, late October—60 hours a week, and we’ve been getting some overtime.”
Stieg has spent 20 years as an operator, much of it in pipeline. His path into the trade started far from this busy southeast Michigan corridor. Fresh out of high school, with Michigan’s economy in rough shape and factories closing, he headed west.
“There wasn’t any work to be had in Michigan,” he says. “Factories were closing and the job market was flooded with people with 20–30 years of experience, and I was fresh out of high school. I knew what they were paying on the pipeline, and risk-to-reward, it seemed like the thing to do.”
He went to Laramie, Wyoming, with a couple of friends, stood in a pipeline yard until someone hired him, and learned the work from the ground up.
“When I started, I didn’t know the difference between operators, laborers, teamsters, welders—but it didn’t take me very long to figure out what craft I wanted to be in,” he says. “I worked my way up through the ranks, got my shot, and stayed with it.”
Today, his role as steward is to help keep the work moving and the relationship strong between the contractor and the union members doing the work.
“I’m here to keep the peace between the contractor and the union,” Stieg explains. “I’m the middleman. I’m here to make sure the contract is followed by the contractor, but also by the members.”
That relationship matters on a job like this. NPL Superintendent David Johnson, a Local 150 Operating Engineer, has worked with operators across the country. He is careful and direct when talking about the OE324 members on this project.
“Travelling and working on pipeline, 324 guys have been the best operators I’ve seen,” Johnson says.
Stieg sees that same quality every day.
“These are phenomenal guys,” he says. “The relationship here between NPL and 324 is strong. There’s a mix of very experienced, very high-caliber operators here, and a couple up-and-coming whose work ethic is being talked about a lot. This is just a phenomenal group of brothers and sisters.”
Tight Streets, Tight Clearances
On one crew, working along a major street near 11 Mile and Dequindre, Peter Denton brings more than two decades of experience and a family history in the trade. Denton is a fourth-generation Operating Engineer and a familiar face to many OE324 members.
“I am a fourth-generation Operating Engineer,” Denton says. “So it’s in the bloodlines.”
For this project, Denton is helping install new 24-inch gas line for Consumers Energy, while also helping guide younger operators and crew members through the careful work required in a crowded urban environment.
“We are installing a new 24-inch gas line for Consumers Energy,” Denton explains. “Our crew is installing 1,500 feet of 24-inch pipe. We have to remove the old pipe first where we’re at, and then we install the new pipe.”
That process is more complicated than digging a trench and lowering in new steel. Before major installation can begin, the old line must be isolated and taken out of service safely.
“Our goal so far has been to get stopples put in for the gas shutdown,” Denton says. “We’ve put a few pieces of pipe in the ground, but nothing major yet. The gas is not shut off yet. So once the gas gets shut off, then we actually get to go to work.”
Once they can remove the existing pipe, the work becomes physical, methodical, and exact.
“We excavate around the pipe, and then we have a shear over there, and then we’ll just cut the pipe in 20-foot sections and haul it off,” Denton says. “Then we’ll backfill the trench and start laying the new pipe.”
The work takes patience because nearly everything around them presents another challenge. The traffic is steady. I-696 is nearby. The power lines hang overhead. Below ground, the maps tell only part of the story.
“On a project like this, all the challenges are overhead utilities and underground utilities everywhere,” Denton says. “And there are always unknowns. That’s the biggest challenge with projects like this in the cities.”
Those conditions are part of the daily education for Clayton Peterson, a young OE324 member who has been in the union for three years. Peterson is a third-generation operator who broke out on a tie-in crew right out of high school. On this project, he runs excavators and skid steers, works on the ground when needed, and does whatever the crew needs done.
“We’ve got a good crew,” Peterson says. “Everybody’s nice, and we don’t get too excited.”
He credits the people around him for helping him grow.
“I’ve got a good mentor,” Peterson says. “He’s teaching me everything I need to know, and is a good role model. So that’s really helpful. Jake, he’s a good oiler. Can’t really do it much if you got a terrible ground guy, so he makes me look good.”
“Jake” is Jacob Howell, another member of the crew, originally from Ohio. His job includes oiling, greasing machines, rigging, spotting, running a skid steer, and making sure operators have the clearance they need—especially under the power lines that seem to follow the crew everywhere.
“They are. It’s a pain,” Howell says. “Everywhere we go, there’s always a power line, either over top of us, beside us, always in our swing radius.”
Avoiding those hazards takes constant communication.
“Make sure you’re well in range and maintain eye contact with the operator,” Howell says. “Make sure if they’re getting close, or if they need to be told, get on the radio, say, ‘Hey, you’re getting a little close.’ Make sure they always remember that power line’s there.”
The same is true of the traffic. Work-zone cones and barriers help, but the people passing by are often more focused on getting through the area than on the work happening beside them.
Peterson sums it up simply.
“It’s really tight through here,” he says. “You got power lines, you got to worry about the traffic, you got to just worry about everything. Drivers often don’t pay attention to what is going on, so you gotta be always worried about that. Head on a swivel, just always paying attention.”
On another crew working along a residential street, the setting is quieter, but the work is no less complicated. Doug Smith, a 25-year OE324 member, is operating an excavator. A former logger, Smith has spent nearly his entire career in pipeline work across Michigan.
“90 percent of my career has been pipeline,” Smith says.
That experience gives him a clear sense of what makes this job different.
“This is not typical pipeline by any means,” he says.
In a residential neighborhood, the crew may only be able to move one piece at a time. Every house brings its own connections and its own risks.
“We got a bunch of utilities to locate,” Smith explains. “Then we’ll start installing pipe heading to the west there on the side street. That’ll probably be like one joint at a time, because every house has a gas, water, and electric service going to it.”
The challenge is not only what they can see, but what they cannot.
“All of the utilities are residential, and there is a narrow right-of-way,” Smith says. “There are known utilities and unknown.”
Learning the Work, Earning the Trust
Working alongside Smith is Tyler Ralston, a second-year OE324 apprentice going into his third year. Ralston is a first-generation operator who entered the trade after being encouraged by people in other trades to apply.
“I got recommended through guys in other trades,” Ralston says. “I’m first gen operator, so this is all completely brand new to me. They told me, yeah, apply for it, see if you get in. I’m one of the lucky ones.”
Ralston has appreciated the opportunities the apprenticeship has already given him, especially the classes at the OE324 Construction Career Center.
“Really, really good,” he says. “I appreciate all the opportunities I’ve had, and the classes, especially that training center, it’s always a blast getting up there.”
On this project, he is running a skid steer and getting seat time whenever possible. More importantly, he is learning from the people around him.
“We have a really good group of hands,” Ralston says. “We got everybody out here, they enjoy what they do. I just kind of take what I can from these guys, and they appreciate what I do for them.”
That mix of experienced operators and younger members is exactly what Stieg means when he talks about pipeline work as a family-oriented part of the industry. Crews may come together quickly, but the work demands trust immediately.
“Everybody here has everybody else’s back,” Stieg says. “Everybody’s fighting the same battles, everybody’s taking care of one another, looking after one another. It is really about being your brothers’ and sisters’ keeper.”
That spirit extends beyond the street crews. At the project yard in Warren, Dylan Hill keeps the equipment and materials moving. Hill is a third-year operator who came into the trade after returning to Michigan from Tennessee, where he had been working at a Ford dealership. Since joining OE324, he has worked around the country with Mersino Dewatering, in Illinois with Precision Pipeline, on solar work in Michigan, and now with NPL.
“It’s been awesome,” Hill says. “Probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
In the yard, Hill is the bending machine operator and, as he puts it, a little bit of everything.
“I’m taking care of the yard, unloading trucks, moving gravel, obviously bending pipe if need be, moving pipe,” Hill says.
The yard is where the scale of the project becomes visible. The 24-inch steel pipe, most of it 0.375-inch wall with some 0.500-inch wall available, must be staged, loaded, bent, and moved safely before it ever reaches the trench. Stieg points to one piece of equipment in particular that has made that work safer: a Vacuum Works pipe lifter.
“That’s a Vacuworx pipe lifter, specifically designed to lift pipe using vacuum,” Stieg says. “It’s just a way safer way to put this pipe on the trucks.”
Before that, he explains, crews used spreader cables and hooks in the ends of the pipe. Now, the operator can control the lift from inside the cab.
“Dylan’s in the cab with a remote—he hits the button, it sucks to the pipe, the gauge goes to green, and he can pick it,” Stieg says. “He rotates it and does everything from inside that cab.”
For Hill, the work is rewarding because of the people.
“I don’t really have a specific favorite part about it,” he says. “I just love the people, really.”
Doing the Work Together
That answer comes up again and again across the project. The work is difficult, the traffic is constant, the utilities are everywhere, and the schedule is demanding. But the crew keeps moving because the people around them know the work, respect the risks, and look out for each other.
For Denton, being part of OE324 has provided a life and a living for his family, just as it did for the generations before him.
“To be a fourth generation, it means the world to me,” he says. “It’s provided a great life for me and my family.”
For Smith, the union has meant brotherhood, health care, a pension, and the ability to put two kids through college. For Ralston, it is opportunity at the beginning of a career. For Peterson, it is older members teaching younger ones the right way to do the work. For Stieg, it is the connection between brothers and sisters on a job where everyone has to trust the person beside them.
The Four Cities Metro Pipeline will not be completed in one season. The work will continue in sections through southeast Michigan, replacing old infrastructure with stronger steel pipe designed to keep natural gas moving safely and reliably for decades to come.
Most of the people who live and work near it will see the cones, the traffic shifts, the trenches, and the equipment. They may not see the careful planning, the constant communication, or the skill required to lower a 24-inch gas line through a crowded suburban corridor filled with unknowns.
But that is the work Operating Engineers 324 members are doing every day on this project.
They are working under the lines, around the traffic, between the homes, and through the heat, building the kind of infrastructure most people never think about until they need it.
And with NPL, Consumers Energy, and a strong crew of Operting Engineers on the job, they are doing it the way it has to be done: safely, carefully, and together.