If anything proves that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, it’s Cleanup Week: the annual streetside something-for-nothing shopping extravaganza. Some people block traffic to dig through the piles, and others slow down to take a look. It’s everyone’s chance to get something for free.
If you want to deter people during Cleanup Week, piles of construction debris or buckets of toilet water should do the trick. However, some people do have the business intuition, scientific expertise, and entrepreneurial spirit for recognizing such waste as assets.
It’s o.k. to not see value in waste, but everyone benefits from those who do. They drive an underestimated yet essential, universally relevant, and highly impactful enterprise: waste collection, disposal, and reuse.
Solid Waste: Take It Do The Curb? Some Take It To The Bank
Joel O’Neil owns a West Fargobased waste disposal business, J-1 Excavating & Roll-Off.
“Waste is part of everyday life and business,” O’Neil said. “Modern practices have reduced the quantity and diversified the type of waste that is produced and, as a result, prompted businesses to use multiple streams of products that can be recycled and reduce the amount of trash going into the landfill.”
“I viewed the roll-off (dumpster) business as a complementary service line to an excavating business. I started J-1 as one I could grow while working for a large construction company,” O’Neil said. “The business has grown, so I am now dedicated to it and my customers full-time.”
J-1 Excavating & Roll-Off serves a wide range of clients, and one is exceptionally distinct: Fargo National Cemetery. Waste disposal at a cemetery seems paradoxical. However, cemeteries do create waste such as the dirt excavated when digging graves, trash, and damage from ceremonies and continuous unscheduled activity.
To maintain the cemetery operations and ambience, waste disposal businesses must deliver highly attentive, respectful, adaptable, and flexible service.
I’ll wager that few people consider those attributes when describing a waste disposal business. So, it was enlightening for me to attend the Fargo National Cemetery Memorial Day ceremony and hear a VA National Cemetery Administration representative thank, from the podium, J-1 Excavating & Roll-Off for demonstrating in its service to the cemetery
David Reid owns Radiant Creative Homes. He says the construction industry relies on waste disposal businesses year-round and that the services are essential to projects from start to finish.
About Mark Puppe
Mark Puppe is a communication strategist and writer in Fargo. His independent strategic communications and writing business, Wordwork, has operated since 2008 and served a wide range of clients representing 25 states. Services include resumes, target audiences, member relations, storytelling, advocacy, speeches, and other content.
“Debris and waste disposal services are vital to the construction industry and are services that a lot of contractors cannot provide themselves,” Reid said. “Proper disposal keeps our job sites organized, clean, safe, and running efficiently.”
Electricians, plumbers, and other trade professionals are also essential to the construction industry and typically work on-site until their respective tasks are complete. However, waste removal businesses support the same projects on and off-site and in more ways than driving trucks and moving dumpsters.
“They know what debris landfills will accept, reject, or redirect and have an in-depth understanding of the standards applied,” Reid said. “This helps prevent overloading, mixing prohibited and permissible materials, and other issues that create preventable costs and undermine sustainable practices.”
Although city waste departments maintain landfill operations and protocols, many also provide disposal services and resources directly to residents, and I’m glad they do.
When water wrecked my basement, it needed renovation, and I started doing the demo myself.
However, that black plastic container with a flip lid beside the garage was too small, and local waste disposal businesses didn’t have any dumpsters available (construction contractors had rented them all). So, I called the Fargo City Solid Waste Department for advice.
“We have upwards of 45 scheduled weekly stops, but do have containers available for any call-ins for temporary or non-scheduled containers,” Assistant Roll-Off Supervisor Roy Fick said. “These dumpsters are placed when a resident or local business calls our office and needs one for various projects.”
“I’ll take one!” I gleefully replied.
That day, Fick delivered a 20-yard roll-off dumpster to my house and positioned it right where I needed it. A few days later, it was full, the city hauled it away, and basement resurrection could move forward.
Wastewater: Down The Drain? It Depends
The Regional Water Reclamation Facility (RWRF)—the campus of domes with a distinct, but tolerable aroma at the north end of Fargo—stimulates economic and environmental returns by functioning as much more than a wastewater collection and treatment facility
“Historically, wastewater was just treated and then discharged into the Red River, but technology and strategic planning have enabled us to transform wastewater into a revenue resource for RWRF operations and the city of Fargo,” said facility director Jim Hausauer.
Further, sending any water into the sewer system serving Fargo and neighboring Cass County communities improves water quality and facilitates economic growth across the board.
Government projects are often one-and-done isolated costs, whereas RWRF business partnerships are initiative-taking and long-term, and the water treatment processes are gainful and self-sustaining.
RWRF operations and its end product, reusable wastewater, require business partnerships and niche expertise. These are not one-anddone business relationships; they are ongoing and gainful for the businesses, water consumers, and, uniquely, the city.
Treating water at the RWRF also improves efficiency by ensuring that drinking water is not used for industrial purposes. The Fargo City Water Department operates a separate plant dedicated exclusively to drinking water.
RWRF’s reclamation processes were cutting-edge when the facility took off during 2007 and partners such as PKG Contracting, JDP Electric, Moore Engineering, Apex Engineering, Advanced Engineering, and multiple state agencies have been key to RWRF’s evolution. In 2025, RWRF is a template for water treatment centers nationwide.
PKG Contacting focuses on enhancing water quality throughout the region and facilitating community access to reliable and sustainable water treatment solutions. During the past 30 years, it has constructed over 350 projects in the upper Midwest.
“Water reclamation is important because it helps reduce the strain and demand on natural freshwater, such as the Red River. In Fargo’s case, the reclaimed wastewater is used as a primary source of water for the soybean and ethanol plants located in Casselton,” PKG President and Owner Darin Pfingsten said. “Use of this effluent for industrial purposes also reduces the amount of wastewater discharged into the Red River, which helps decrease pollution and protect aquatic life.”
Hauser explained that all water received by RWRF undergoes mechanical processing to remove sand, grit, rocks, rags, and other materials. Then, there are biological processes that reduce the strength of the wastewater to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, biochemical oxygen demand (strength of waste), total suspended solids, and ammonia, and other filtrations. There is also a disinfection process before discharge to the Red River.
Neither the city nor any of its partners has discretionary authority to determine the criteria for recycling wastewater or discharging water into the Red River.
Instead, the RWRF maintains a discharge permit issued by the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, which sets and enforces testing and discharge parameters.
Additionally, the North Dakota Water Commission conducted an intense study to ensure that diverting water from the Red River would not harm downstream users (those north of Fargo, because the Red River flows north).
Continuous development of the RWRF campus and its operations has impacted the local economy through diversification and sustenance. RWRF business partners are North Dakotabased, so they have a multifaceted interest in the community as well as creating and executing strategies that maximize RWRF capacity and future projects.
”New improvement projects create jobs and opportunities for local businesses. Engineers, workforce, supply vendors, and added staff for operations are examples,” Pfingsten said, and he would know. His business, PKG Contracting, employs over 200 people.
If you travel around the F-M Metro, you will not go far without seeing a JDP Electric vehicle because the business employs nearly 100 people to provide essential electrical services to commercial, residential, and industrial customers across the area.
On the other hand, as a business, JDP sees unbridled value in how recycling water prevents problems and opens doors of opportunity for the community
“If the community were ever to go into a drought situation and forced to ration water, the community would definitely question industrial plants on their water usage,” JDP Project Manager David Thingvold said. industrial plants operating here. It also makes it attractive to industry to set up home in the community.”
Tharaldson Ethanol and North Dakota Soybean Processors both have industrial facilities in Casselton and depend on RWRF to provide the water required to operate.
“During construction of these projects, we have been fortunate to have been involved in many local water reclamation projects,” Thingvold said. “By having reliable water in Cass County, it has attracted valuable industrial partners who employ those who work at these plants.”
Tharaldson Ethanol employs over 80 people and is among the largest ethanol manufacturing facilities in the United States. It also purchases immense amounts of recycled wastewater from RWRF and is, according to COO Ryan Carter, a happy customer.
Carter appreciates how the higher quality water provided by RWRF reduces maintenance costs, improves efficiency, and allows the plant to produce a higher quality product for its own customers.
The plant purchases treated wastewater from RWRF, uses it, sends the used wastewater to RWRF through a pipeline for treatment, and purchases the treated water from RWRF for reuse. These sales generate new nontax revenue that will perpetuate for as long as the plant purchases the water it needs to operate from RWRF.
Although revenue amounts vary and government entities do not exist to profit, the revenue that does result goes into an RWRF revenue fund, with a percentage going into the city’s general fund. So, everyone benefits, directly and indirectly, because the returns result from selfsustaining operations that make wastewater an asset that isn’t sitting idle or simply discharged into the Red River.
“The city benefits in many ways from the improvement and reclamation projects,” Pfingsten said. “Treating and reusing wastewater decreases the amount of polluted water entering the Red River, creating a more resilient environment.”
Everyone can be grateful “JDP is very fortunate to be able to partner with the city of Fargo and industrial plants in the conservation of water in the Red River Valley,” Thingvold said.
In the big picture, everyone can consider themselves fortunate to benefit from solid waste and wastewater enterprises that seem unknown to most.
Once a year, Cleanup Week reveals to everyone that waste can have substantial value. It’s my goal to highlight how waste disposal businesses, water reclamation facilities, and their partners stimulate and sustain economic activity nonstop.
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