Invention is alive and well in Texas. About 30 years ago, Carlton Williamson of Fort Worth developed a small but sturdy boring machine, the Porta-Mole, which has met the needs of numerous plumbing, sprinkler, and electric contractors, as well as municipalities, water, and utility districts.

"Ninety percent of all the bores in the world are under 40 feet in length and under 8 inches in diameter," Williamson stated. "This [Porta-Mole] is fast, accurate, and versatile when you want a hole under the pavement. It will bore 32 feet in minutes, not hours, and the manual sighting device is easy to operate."

Entities with limited funds often resort to equipment on hand for these smaller bores when installing and replacing water and wastewater lines. They simply do not have the funds to rent or purchase major equipment or hire a contractor. Usually, this means that they will use their backhoe to trench across streets and driveways, then do the best they can to patch the crossing.

Southern Utilities in East Texas, the largest privately owned water company in North America, provides water service to rural Smith County surrounding their Tyler headquarters, plus portions of Cherokee, Gregg and Rusk counties to the south and east.

According to Olan Cockrell, purchasing manager, Southern Utilities crews make 750 to 800 new taps per year, and around 350 of those involve bores. Most of these bores are under 3 inches in diameter and no longer than the width of a county or Farm-to-Market road.

A single 2-inch bore under a 28-foot-wide street would not be worth most contractors' setup time. Such a 30-foot bore in preparation for a tap would cost Southern Utilities at least $300 as part of a larger package. Purchasing their own Porta-Mole system for under $5,000 paid for itself in less than a month. Southern Utilities is currently operating the fourth Porta-Mole that they have owned.

"It gives us the autonomy to bore according to our schedule," Cockrell added. "And it's reliable. The only things I have to replace are the drill bits and water hose."

Their three-man crew is able to load and unload the Porta-Mole by hand. Because the bore stem is flexible, the Porta-Mole operates at ground level. Crews do not need to spend time digging and filling large access holes. In one afternoon, their crew in Tyler was able to make three bores in one neighborhood along Lavender Road to tap in new homes.

When Stan McCurley joined Wilkins Contracting in Tyler four years ago, one of his first suggestions was to purchase a Porta-Mole.

"Stan told me we had to get one," owner Joe Wilkins said. McCurley had become familiar with the Porta-Mole while working in construction with his father Stan McCurley Sr. "We use it continuously," Wilkins continued. "There are very few pieces of equipment that you can buy and pay for in one job. We've made probably 200 bores with it." Silently calculating numbers in his head for a moment, Wilkins added, "We've made around $150,000 with this machine."

Wilkins Contracting presently owns two Porta-Moles. Most of their work has been installing utilities – water, sewer and stormwater — for new residential developments around the growing Tyler area and up to a 75-mile radius. Installing the infrastructure in a new development allows the contractors to do a lot of trenching; however, they found the Porta-Mole useful in boring the 1-inch copper and PVC water lines under the streets to reach the water mains. "Boring these lines keeps us from having to replace the subgrade in lifts and compacting it back to spec," McCurley explained.

"When you purchase a piece of equipment like that, it gives you the ability to enter a marketplace," Wilkins continued. "Having to put pipes under roads and driveways is always conducive to underground construction, whether it's for water, sewer, electric, telephone, cable, or gas."

"We bore small water lines from three-quarters of an inch to 12 inches," McCurley said now vie president for Wilkins. "The soil we encounter ranges anywhere from sandy loam to hard clay to glocomite (blue rock)." One usually thinks of sandy loam in relation to East Texas; however the red clay common to East Texas becomes rock-hard in dry weather.

"It works great in clay soils and for small bores in sandy soil," McCurley, now vice president for Wilkins, said. "The Porta-Mole is wet boring equipment. We just use water. We don't have a mud mixer for adding bentonite, so we can't make larger diameter 12-inch bores in sandy terrain, but it's ideal for running services under streets to tie into main lines."

Porta-Mole is manufactured in the company's Fort Worth facility, Carlton International Manufacturing. Williamson, along with his wife, son and daughter, manage the company operations, direct sales and referrals to their regional representatives.