Water Supply Maintenance

Every golf course puts a lot of time and effort into maintaining their water supply.  If it is effluent water in the southwest, river or canal water in the Western U.S., or well water in the Midwest.  Golf course managers are very good stewards of the land and stewards of our water supply, and proper maintenance and usage of that natural resource is critical.  In our situation, it is a pumpstation down at the river that pumps water 800 ft in elevation up to our pond on #18 where it is distributed throughout the course by another pumpstation.    

So why is our pond so low right now:

The water has been constantly going down the last 2 weeks.  At first I figured it was the week of 103,104, and 101 degree temperatures and we were pumping extra water and using more during the day coupled with a higher evaporation, but it has continued to decrease in the last week also.  I pulled out my records of water usage from last year for the last 3 weeks and I have actually irrigated less than I did a year ago, so it doesn't make sense.  We don't have any type of flow meter to actually know how much water is coming up the pipe from the river but judging by the look of it I didn't think we were getting our normal water amount.  Studying the pumpstation at the river was showing a drastically higher pressure than normal - low pressure and low discharge would mean a leak, high pressure and low discharge would be a blockage in the pipe.  We have been trying to figure out what could be blocking it and the big issue of where do we start and how we do find it.  Is the pipe partially collapsed some place?  Pipe cameras or roto-rooter for over a half a mile is quit expensive.  Yesterday we decided to take the pipe apart at the pumpstation and try to flush the line.  It was loaded with all kinds of dirt, mud, silt, and sand that had been pumped in from the river.   We flushed it both up and down the hill 5 times, every time loaded with muck.   I would estimate it was about 60% plugged with silt and sediment.

Flush #2 - look at all sediment coming out

The amount of material that came out after the first flush

          This shows the importance of what we discussed 2 years ago with the membership, and that was to put in a filtration system for this pumpstation.  Not only plugging the pipe but bringing all the silt and sediment up to our pond, which is filling it in and taking up water holding capacity.  Plus pumping it out through our irrigation heads and causing damage to the plastic heads, it would be much better to just leave all that debris at the river. 

           The issue right now is that our water use each night is about the same volume that comes up the hill in that 24 hours.  So the re-fill will be slow unless we get some cooler days or rain.  I would like to think in 3 weeks we would have the dirt covered and be at a normal summer level. 

             It proves the importance of maintaining our water supply lines, and how easy it is to not think about it when everything is working fine, and then realize it when there is an issue.