ANAHEIM : Contest Taps Into Job Skills

Runners have the Olympics. Race car drivers have the Indy 500. And water utility workers have the Water Tap Competition.

At the American Water Works Assn.’s conference here Wednesday, utility workers from the United States and Canada raced against the clock to tap into water mains and install valves--a task they do every day on the job.

Concluding the two-day competition, five friends and co-workers who started out as a cleanup crew for the national pipe-tapping competition three years ago became the two-time champions of the pipe-tapping sport.

The team, made up of three workers, a coach and an alternate from the San Antonio Water Systems, won the association’s 10th Annual Pipe-Tapping Contest before 400 cheering spectators.

“We set our goals to win in nationals, and we didn’t want to settle for anything less!” said an exuberant Jeff Guajardo.

The outdoor competition drew 23 teams, all winners that advanced in their sectional contests, including four-time champions, the L.A. Tappers from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

The L.A. Tappers were one of the five teams to make the finals Wednesday, where the remaining 18 teams gathered after being eliminated by the clock in preliminary competition a day earlier.

A light breeze failed to cool the heated contest, where at a maddening pace, workers drilled holes in 6-foot-long pipes and inserted three-quarter-inch valves in preparation of connecting the water service lines to customers.

The scene was comparable to a pit-stop crew at work during the Indy 500.

“Every house has this type of hookup in all of America,” said Ed Glotfelty, a pipe fitter and equipment operator for the city of Anaheim, which hosted the event.

The only difference Wednesday was the pipes were not buried four feet under the ground, but instead were set up in a row of four outside the Anaheim Convention Center, complete with running water.

Donning T-shirts proudly imprinted with the team’s moniker and the competitor’s name, the finals began with a team from Las Vegas, followed by the Birmingham Water District and then the Hawaiian team that placed second last year.

The Birmingham team led after three wild runs, with a time of 1 minute, 24 seconds. Up next were the 1990, ‘91, ’92 and ’93 national champions, the L.A. Tappers.

The cheering began, and the four-man team converged on the pipe, each with a separate responsibility: to drill the hole in the six-inch water main, to install two separate valves, one with a copper tube, and then to connect the pipe to a meter yoke.

Time for the Tappers: 1 minute, 22 seconds.

The L.A team was penalized for a leak in the pipe.

With a four-second addition to their raw time, they fell to second place. --PHUONG NGUYEN