Well-maintained, consistently available equipment and facilities that are fully operational are instrumental to Pine Island’s daily efficiency and the success of our operation. Back in August, we profiled our new Equipment and Facilities manager Louis Cantafio while at the same time highlighting the opening of our brand-new shop.

Louis has settled in nicely at Pine Island, and he and his team have been working hard to do whatever it takes to keep our equipment running efficiently throughout the harvest and well-maintained in the off-season. This week, he outlined several of our current and upcoming projects.

“Having the new shop facility is a tremendous help in and of itself,” Louis says. “The lifts in particular are fantastic; we use them for the heavy equipment all the time. They’re great from both a safety and an efficiency standpoint.” The size of the new facility makes things easier as well; the equipment team now has plenty of room to keep several projects going at once. “If something comes in that needs to be worked on immediately, we don’t have to move any equipment outside. We have the space to bring everything in.”

In April, we’re due to start work on four equipment storage buildings by the new shop. Two of them are being rebuilt after being torn down in the aftermath of the 2011 storm that took down the old shop; the other two are still standing, but will be rehabbed and updated. Louis is enthusiastic about this project, believing that it is a wonderful opportunity to make things better. “I’m always thinking about ways that we can keep improving operations,” he says. “Refurbishing is a big part of that. I like being able to keep these buildings, which are a part of Pine Island’s history, and being able to update them means we can do that.” We are also planning on repainting our former main office, currently being used for storing some of our weather monitoring equipment.

Other upcoming facilities projects include building two of the planned five pump houses at the Oswego renovation, starting next month. The slab has already been poured, and the rebuilt engines are already in place, along with the suction lines and dog leg. We’ll also be installing the larger size double wall tanks, which have the benefit of better environmental protection (always a concern with water management) and having to be fueled less often, which saves us both money and time.

Finally, facilities supervisor Mike Guest has been working hard on our employee residences. Recently, foreman Kelvin Colon and his expanding family moved to a larger house on the farm, leaving his previous residence open. Mike has been working on updating the plumbing and appliances as well as repainting in preparation for the next team member who will be moving in. “This kind of maintenance goes on all year round on an as-needed basis,” Mike says. “But since it’s vacant, it gives us the chance to make sure everything is updated. It costs us less in the long run to maintain something than it does to continually fix it.”