Curious about something and don't know who to ask? Send your questions to NRNews@newsobserver.com or visit share.triangle.com/nrnforum where you can see the questions we're working on -- and help us answer them.

Q. There seems to be a lot of water and/or sewer pipe being buried on the east side of Creedmoor road from Norwood all the way up to Highway 98. Can someone tell me what this project is all about? -- Joe Rash

A. Among the "What's up with that?" staff, questions about road construction are considered a slam dunk. It's not like just anybody is allowed to do road construction so it's usually pretty easy to track down who's tearing up the roads.

But this question proved to be a little more challenging than we expected.

Our first call was to the North Carolina Department of Transportation -- naturally, since Creedmoor Road is a state road. Not our project, a DOT representative said -- call the city.

We called the Raleigh Department of Public Works, the agency that handles road construction. Not our project, said Dean Fox, the design and construction manager for that department.

After asking a few questions about the project, Fox realized that no work was actually being done on the road but only beside the road -- and that, therefore, it must be some sort of project involving utilities.

Our next call, then, was to the Raleigh Department of Public Utilities. Not our project, said Dale Crisp, director of that department.

Crisp said he, too, had been curious about who was dong the work. So he had recently sent out an inspector to find out.

The inspector got the lowdown: The work is not being done by any government agency; it is being done by Aqua America, a private utility company that serves residents in northern Wake County.

Aqua is building the water lines to serve residential development, Crisp said.

So now we all know.