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A group of Boise conservationists spent the better part of a decade tinkering, welding, designing and testing a system to monitor the soil moisture at Ground Zero in Manhattan.

There, 400 young trees dot 16 of the most important acres in America. The figurative thermostat for that garden traces its roots to John Fordemwalt’s company in Boise.

“I think it’s turned out very well,” Baseline Irrigation System President Fordemwalt said of the project. “I happened to be there in April and so the trees were just coming out. Seeing new life spring from that location just really affected me personally.”

Like the moon landing or the Kennedy assassination, 9/11 joins that intimate group of moments in the American consciousness that – at least partially because of the radio-TV-Internet era – demand the where-were-you-then question.

Fordemwalt had recently moved to Utah from Manhattan and, like so many others, spent much of that day 11 years ago trying to contact loved ones.

Baseline normally takes projects spread over hundreds of acres requiring hundreds of controllers. The system it installed at Ground Zero used only two, making it a minor gig both physically and financially.

“Very large to us,” Baseline Director of Sales Jon Peters said, “because it was so important.”

“I’ve never worked on a project or been on a project where more attention to detail was taken,” Fordemwalt said.

And while the moving water, standing steel and stagnant stone engraved with so many names do and should command the heart’s esteem and eye’s attention, in its own smaller way a bit of technology from Idaho joins in that aesthetic harmony, growing in its value as those trees mature and their extending boughs form that cathedral to American resilience's ceiling.