Dirty Jobs Season 2, Episode 13: Coal Miner

1

Avian Vomitologist

Mike first travels to Colorado to help out at a marble quarry. He then goes to California to collect owl vomit which is sold to school children for research projects. Finally, Mike travels to Texas to palpate cows, a process used to figure out if a cow is pregnant. He also gets a little too familiar with a bull.

60 min

2

Turkey Farmer

Turkey farmer, potato farmer, waste water sewage plant

60 min

3

Alligator Farmer

Sugarcane mill, firefighter (Fremont, CA), alligator farmer

60 min

4

Mushroom Farmer

Mushroom farmer, storm drain cleaner, drain cover foundry

60 min

5

Plumber

Plumber, drilling mud, Rough necker (oil drilling)

60 min

6

Termite Controller

Concrete spreader, termite exterminator, concrete truck cleaner

60 min

7

Casino Food Recycler

It's a glitzy Las Vegas premiere as Mike visits the Lance Burton Theater to clean up the pens for Lance's show doves and geese. Mike then gets really dirty by visiting a pig farmer and helping him process and transport yesterday's buffet leftovers to feed the pigs.

60 min

8

Parade Float Dismantler

Mike first goes to Pennsylvania at a coal processing plant and learns how to make coke, carbonized coal used to make iron which in turn is used to make steel. Mike then goes to Washington to an oyster shucking plant and works alongside a very dirty girl. Finally, Mike goes to Pasadena, CA to dismantle floats from the Tournament of Roses Parade.

60 min

9

Garbage Pit Technician

Mike first heads off to Las Vegas to work at an old fashioned printing press making lithographs of himself for the official Dirty Jobs poster. Mike then goes to Lincoln, CA and helps make large scale terra cotta building sculpture pieces from recycled terra cotta sewer pipes. Finally, Mike visits a garbage processing plant in San Francisco where food and assorted scraps are passed through a rolling cylinder and "digested" to make a methane gas energy supply.

60 min

10

Skull Cleaner

Mike first goes to Sacramento, CA to help repair railroad tracks. Mike then heads to Louisiana to learn how to make "boudin" (Cajun sausage). Mike then cuts and fry's pig skins to make "cracklin" (pork rinds). Finally, Mike goes to Oklahoma and joins a skull cleaning business to learn how to clean skulls and bones using beetles and maggots, including a whale carcass.

60 min

11

Geoduck Farmer

Mike first heads off to California to help tear down a dam so trout on the endangered species list can spawn. Mike then goes to Pennsylvania to restore a church's pipe organ, a process that takes a total of eight years to complete. Finally, Mike goes to Puget Sound in Washington to harvest geoduck clams, otherwise known as "gooey ducks".

60 min

12

Fuel Tank Cleaner

Mike heads to a good old fashioned steel town in Pennsylvania to work at a 75 year old candy store named Wertz Candies making all sorts of candy treats. Mike then goes to California and works as a tire retreader. Finally, Mike goes to McConnell AFB in Kansas to help repair the fuel tanks of a refueling tanker aircraft.

60 min

13

Coal Miner

Mike helps a family in New Jersey demolish and recycle parts from 100 year old buildings on an old college campus. Finally, Mike enters the dangerous world of a coal miner in an upstate Pennsylvania coal mine.

60 min

14

Hoof Cleaner

Mike Rowe first joins a crew at a rock quarry in Washington and learns what it takes to make gravel from loading rocks to blowing up a side of a mountain. Next, Mike gets hip deep in mud and muck working with the hippo keepers at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ. Finally, Mike helps a crew of hooftrimmers give some cows a pedicure and later cleans a cow foot bath.

60 min

15

Alpaca Shearer

Mike once again joins up with the guys of Taylor Shellfish Farms to help them harvest mussels. Next he goes to Hawaii to learn about harvesting taro. Finally, Mike joins a family of alpaca farmers and learns the hard way that alpacas can be pretty ill-willed animals when it comes to shearing them.

60 min

16

Monkey Caretaker

Mike Rowe meets his match when he travels to South Africa to take care of monkeys that are being trained to go back into the wild

60 min

17

Snake Researcher

Mike Rowe wrangles some water snakes, steps into the shoes of hard working bait and lobster fishermen in Maine, and opens the viewer mail bag which results in some seaweed trimming.

60 min

18

Penguin Keeper

Even though Mike has worked with concrete before in Dallas, he visits concrete workers in California today to learn the art of concrete stamping. Then he goes to New Orleans to care for penguins. Finally, he gets in the mud to hunt bloodworms in Maine.

60 min

19

Bell Maker

Mike Rowe rolls up his sleeve and gets dirty making giant bells at the McShane Bell Foundry. Mike also gets down and dirty with the US Army Corps of Engineers as they conduct yearly maintenance on a hurricane barrier that was raised from the oceans floor.

60 min

20

Mosquito Control Officer

Mike helps New Orleans residents restore, rebuild and revive their city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

60 min