Located on the slopes of Montana’s Beartooth Mountains, Billings is a pioneer city in more ways than one. It is the only municipality in the country double-upsizing its water distribution system, and doing most of the work itself.Public Works Department Distribution and Collection Division superintendent Scott Emerick reports that his team is using pipe bursting and fusible PVC pipe to replace old cast-iron mains and upsize the line diameter from four to eight inches. By using city crews instead of consultants and contractors, his division is doing it at nearly 50 percent less cost than for conventional methods.“If we were
