Three dozen manholes lead to the Soapstone sewers. Meet the crew tasked with refitting them.

The Soapstone sewer manholes crew, left to right: Jaime Mendez, Kevin Jacome, Sebco founder Pedro Couto, Moises Venture and Edvin Lemus. Not pictured: Florencio Martinez, who was taking the photo. (courtesy of Sebco Contracting)

by Marlene Berlin

On one of my recent walks, I came upon a crew working on a manhole near the Soapstone Valley trailhead at Broad Branch Road. I struck up a conversation with one of the men, and asked him about the work they were doing. That’s how I met Pedro Couto, the founder of a firm hired to assist with the Soapstone sewer rehabilitation project.

Couto started Sebco Contracting in 2022 and named it after his newborn son, Sebastion. His company was initially hired by the main contractor on the project, IPR, to install cleanouts (small PVC pipes that allow sewer access for maintenance) on the laterals leading from the sewer main to the houses on Audubon Terrace.

Sebco’s contract then expanded to include supplying and installing new cast iron frames, covers, and external seals on 36 manholes.

A recently refitted manhole. The old covers let sewer gases escape. Thanks to the Sebco crew’s work, future Soapstone trail hikers won’t smell a thing.

Couto entered the construction business straight out of high school, and worked for Fort Myer Construction as a dispatcher for six years. He then went to work for DACO Construction Corporation, starting in 2006 as a machine operator and working his way up the chain to foreman, site superintendent, general manager, chief estimator, vice president, and chief operating officer. Couto was with DACO until August 2023, when Sebco transitioned from being a supervisory general contractor to launching field operations with its own workers.

Couto told me he himself has more than a decade of experience working with Baltimore and DC area utilities, concentrating mostly on sanitary sewers, water lines and storm drains. That is Sebco’s main focus, too. It also performs erosion and sediment control.