Subterfuge and Hydraulics 101

You would suspect certain government agencies to be involved in subterfuge.  The CIA is all about trickery...intrigue...craftiness.  The FBI?  I'd say they've done their share of deceptions, guises and ploys.  But who would suspect the meek and lowly Missouri Department of Conservation of such chicanery?

In the early 1990's, I was the Crew Chief on a four-man survey field crew, working in the Peck Ranch Conservation Area.  It was in the late fall, rainy...muddy...overcast, just right for something to go wrong.  We were in two trucks, (myself in the lead, of course) driving into the area where we were going to begin traversing.  I had talked with the agents at the Peck Ranch headquarters and they had given specific directions on how to access the trail to our beginning point.

Included in these directions is the subject of this whole story. The trail we needed to drive down began at a small camping area with a gravel parking lot.  The parking area had guard posts or bollards around the parking lot to keep people from driving into the camping area (which really makes a lot of sense.)  These guard posts looked like short telephone poles with rounded tops and were firmly set in the ground. Here is the sneaky part...one of the posts was NOT set firmly in the ground. The Department had made a concrete post hole, about two feet deep, just the size of the post.  A post was cut to just the right length so that when it was put into the post hole, it looked just exactly like one of the other (firmly set) posts!  Our directions were to remove the post, drive through the opening, replace the post in the post hole and proceed through the  camping area to the old trail.

We followed the directions to the letter.  Since I was leading, I pulled the post out of the concrete post hole, set it to the side, drove on through and radioed to the guys in the truck behind, "Just drop that post back in the hole when you're clear".  One of the guys (I'll just call him Bob) wrestled the post back to the post hole, tipped it up and positioned it above the post hole...And dropped'er in!

I really haven't forgotten our lesson in Hydraulics 101. Pascal's Law states that the "Pressure applied to any part of a confined fluid transmits to every other part with no loss. The pressure acts with equal force on all equal areas of the confining walls and perpendicular to the walls."  Remember what kind of a day it was...rainy...wet.  The post was loose enough in the concrete post hole to allow water (fluid) into the post hole (confined space).  Along with the water, there were sundry other things that had made their way into the post hole...decaying leaves, mud, insects....which made kind of a black, smelly soup in the bottom of the hole.  When Bob dropped the post into the post hole, it applied equal pressure on this black-smelly-soup...and since it really was not fully confined, the black-smelly-soup shot up the sides of the post and right into Bob's face!

Now...None of us were witnesses to the "equal pressure applied to a confined fluid" but we certainly saw the effects! Bob had leaves in his hair...in his nose...in his ears...down his shirt, black gunk on his face...in his hair...in his mouth...and he had acquired a certain amount of ire! His first comment to me (when he could talk without getting more black goo in his mouth) was "WHY DID YOU TELL ME TO DROP THE POST BACK IN THE HOLE?!?".  In between guffaws of laughter, I said "Bob...Bob...I didn't mean for you to DROP it back in the hole, just ease it down so it wouldn't...Do what it did!!" He was hot for awhile but in a few hours we were able to laugh about it, marvel at the subterfuge of the Missouri Department of Conservation and discuss the darker side of Hydraulics 101...