Wet well cleaning

This past Thursday, April 7, a dive team from Solomon diving came out to clean our wet well, intake line and screen before our new pumps arrive.  The process involved a four-man team, high-tech communication equipment and a ton of rigging gear.  Our goal was to remove the silt, sand and debris that had accumulated at the point of water draw (the screen where water is pulled into the intake line), the intake line itself and everything that had settled at the bottom of our wet well.  This will help to protect our investment in the new pumps by allowing us to run clean water through them after they are installed.  If the well was not cleaned out then all of the sand, silt and debris would immediately go through the pumps and out into the golf course.  This material would damage the new equipment and eventually clog up sceens and nozzles in the irrigation heads themselves.  Here are some pictures of the divers unloading their rigging gear and preparing to set up.  The red hose is the discharge line where the material leaves the cleaning site.

The yellow and black roll of rigging gear below is a backup gear for the diver.  The other two rolls of gear are what is in use when the diver is in water.  The bundles include an oxygen line, communication line and warm water line.   Yes, warm water is pumped into the divers wet suit at 100-105 degrees.  This means that the diver was the warmest guy out there!  

Once the dive team had their gear all set and ready to go they began discussing their plan of action so everyone was on the same page.  Here is the diver going over some plans with the man he will be communicating with.

While in the water, the diver was giving constant detailed feedback as to what he was seeing down below and the man on the other end was taking detailed notes that will be later put into a report for the golf course.  This gives us baseline information that we can use later on down the road.  If a dive team needs to come back, we will know how much sediment and debris has built up over a certain time period.  The condition of the well itself can be monitored as well.  Here is the man at the communication table and the diver in the water.

The last pics are of the diver finishing up his work coming out of the water and part of the pile of debris that had been removed.  

In summary, the team removed 9-12 inches of material at the bottom of the well and it is now completely clean.  The 22 inch diameter intake line had been about half full of silt and a large area around the screen itself had been vaccumed out.  The area around the screen had an average depth of 24 inches of muck built up that would have been drawn in the line once the new pumps were charged up.  The pond is now back at its original depth in the areas that have been cleaned.  We are currently awaiting the arrival of the new pumps so we can charge up our irrigation system.