September 2025 Vol. 80 No. 9
Features
Baraboo, Wis., turns to HDD, HDPE conduit for emergency fiber network
(UI) — While this city north of Madison has a core population of just under 13,000, the Baraboo Area Fire and EMS District (BAFED) is responsible for the safety of the surrounding area with more than 55,000 residents.
BAFED includes five municipalities: City of Baraboo, Village of West Baraboo, and Towns of Baraboo, Greenfield and Fairfield, and contracts Emergency Medical Services with the Town of Excelsior. The district has outgrown its existing fire and EMS station. During 2024, infrastructure construction started for two planned stations on opposite sides of the city, to better serve the Baraboo Area Fire & EMS District and the continuing growth within and around the city.
As part of the infrastructure construction, the city wanted to be sure it could connect both new sites to its internal fiber network, which provides communication and connectivity between all city buildings. Because of long lead times and high prices, Tom Pinion, P.E., city engineer for Baraboo, reached out to hometown pipe manufacturer Teel Plastics for the conduit to keep the project on budget and on time. Teel was able to respond, providing conduit within a week of the request at no charge, enabling the installations to proceed on schedule, and finishing before the end of the construction season in Wisconsin.
“A little more than a decade ago, the city decided to interconnect all of the existing buildings,” Pinion explained. “So, it installed a fiber backbone to interconnect all of the city buildings, not only for fiber optics but also for computer connectivity and telephone service. This provided redundancy and reliability that wasn't available before.
“Fast-forward to today, where we're planning on building two new fire stations during the next year or so, and we want to make sure it’s a seamless transition and extend fiber optics to both. To speed up the project, we put in all of the fiber optic conduit to both new stations, and we're convinced that it'll be a seamless transition to provide the redundancy and reliability that we need.”
For BAFED, the project will provide a great benefit to answering more than 500 fire-related calls a year, and 3,000 EMS calls a year.
“Obviously we need interconnectivity,” Fire Chief Kevin Stieve said. “The fiber optic capabilities are far more reliable than the systems that were in place. So, now we’ll have the infrastructure connected citywide. And this project obviously enhances that communications infrastructure by connecting our radio system located in each fire station through fiber optics, which will make it much more robust with the county agencies and beyond.”
EMS
And for the emergency medical services, stated Caleb Johnson, EMS chief, “This conduit and fiber optics project helps ensure that the technology needs into the future are met. This project helps ease the burden on the taxpayers and the local municipalities. I think just with the advances in technology and planning for the future, it will continue to allow for us to bring in new technology to meet the demands of the community, as a whole.”
But it wasn’t that simple or straightforward. At the time the installation was taking place, there was a shortage of conduit to house the fiber optic cable. This was due to unprecedented demand in the United States. Fortunately, the city of Baraboo is also the headquarters for Teel Plastics, LLC.
“Teel here in Baraboo was very generous and it donated the conduit for that fiber optic, which is huge,” stated Stieve. “It's huge because not only it helps save money, but it also enhances the partnership with a local industry, with the municipal government.
“Sometimes, the best projects are about being a good neighbor and giving back to the community,” offered Christian Herrild, director of growth strategies and in-house counsel for Teel Plastics.
“Teel has called Baraboo home for more than 70 years. We got involved in the project when the city called looking for conduit so it would be able to build new fire and EMS stations, and we had the capacity to produce it,” Herrild continued. “This was an especially important project because it was also beneficial for our employees and their families who live and work in the community.”
Teel Plastics is a diversified plastic production company serving a variety of markets, including manufacturing water treatment products, electrical and communications conduit, and pipe for natural gas lines.
The fiber optic installation used 12,000 feet of 2-inch diameter SDR 13.5 HDPE conduit that came on 4,000-foot reels. The horizontal directional drilling (HDD) rig was a Vermeer D24x40 Navigator unit with 28,000 pounds of pullback, using 10-foot long, 2.38-inch diameter drill rods.
Herrild explained why HDPE conduit was selected. “One of the benefits of high-density polyethylene conduit is that it can be directionally drilled. It can be plowed. You can bore it. You can do pullback with it,” he said. “There are a lot of different installation techniques that enable you to do long continuous lengths, and keep the installation cost down significantly, which we find is one of the highest costs when you do these types of projects.”
Controlling costs while providing a product that will perform and last is sometimes not possible. “HDPE is robust; it's going to be a little more flexible,” said Aaron Lange, production manager at Teel. “It's going to have some good strong environmental resistance. It's going to handle that underground environment very well. Polyethylene is very safe. We have a lot of experience with it, and there's a lot of different grades available that enable us to make sure we're being efficient and producing exactly the right product for the job.”
HDD/HDPE
According to the Plastics Pipe Institute, Inc. (PPI), a trade association representing the plastic pipe industry, HDPE conduit is the perfect fit for HDD installations. Herrild has been involved in many PPI committees and task groups for more than 10 years. He is leading the Power & Communications Division’s (PCD) R&D project to establish requirements for using recycled HDPE in conduit, and is active in many other of the division’s projects.
“The fiber optic project is another example of how versatile HDPE conduit is,” stated Patrick Vibien, P.Eng., director of engineering PPI’s PCD. “Downtown Baraboo is a somewhat fragile area as are most older cities with significant historic sites. They don’t want their sidewalks and roads ripped up, which could cause damage to buildings that are 150 years old. Plus, using HDD reduced any environmental impact and also saved other underground utilities from being damaged by a backhoe, for example.
“Learning about how Baraboo expanded its fiber network will help encourage other cities to build their own network for emergency services to increase reliability, security and resiliency.”
HDD was used in downtown Baraboo to reduce large-scale excavation needed for cut-and-cover trenching. Only small entrance and exit holes were needed for the conduit to be pulled underneath sidewalks, driveways and roads. This was especially important since the installation took place in the historic part of the city first settled in 1838 and incorporated as a village in 1866.
Often referred to as “Circus City” due to the Ringling Brothers growing up in Baraboo along with their circus having its winter quarters in there until 1918. In 1884, the young Ringling Brothers gave their first official circus performance in Baraboo. Quickly successful, Ringling joined forces with the Barnum & Bailey, plus there have been at least six other circuses that called Baraboo home from the late 1800s to the mid-1960s.
Ringling Theatre, a block and a half from the current fire/EMS station and on the same side of the road, was built in 1915 as a vaudeville palace and still operating today as a performance center, is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The Ringling mansion is also nearby, as are the original sections of Baraboo, which become the County Seat in 1846.
“We are centered around our very vibrant downtown,” explained Baraboo Mayor Rob Nelson. “Plus, we're fortunate that we have a lot of entrepreneurs in Baraboo along with many locally owned shops that are very distinct. This all creates a very attractive culture for shopping and tourism.”
“If you want to continue to attract the kind of energetic, engaged, committed people to a community like Baraboo, you have to be able to offer the sort of technology and infrastructure that they demand,” emphasized Nelson. “Part of that is obviously internet access. With projects like expanding our fiber optic network, that's essential to attract those people to Baraboo and also for the government to function, to make sure that we can provide the services in a timely manner that they need. Of course, there's a big expense with that, as well.”
FOR MORE INFO:
PPI/HDPE conduit, plasticpipe.org/powercommunications
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