What is going on with our lakes? The water level has gone down at least 6 inches in the last 10 days, which were not Summer days as per Florida standards.
Are we buying recycled water or not?
How come the level is not maintained as mentionned many times in the past?
Is it that the recycled water pipe is too small to keep up with the natural evaporation?
When will the long overdue correction program of the shores be implemented?
Andre
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Our lakes
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11 comments:
Good questions Andre! I hope someone in the know answers.
Besides us not maintaning the water level the lake seems to be filling up with an unusually large amount of floating grass and a tremendous amount of an underwater type of slimmy green algea. In all the years that I have lived here I have never seen the lake in such a deplorable condtion. Although I have seen the lake with low levels of water, I had assumed that this would never happen again once the new water recyle pipe was finally completed.
The reclaimed water puts more water in the lakes than would otherwise be there. The idea that the reclaimed water would keep the lakes topped up is a CV myth/rumor. UCO never attempts to correct this idea because it would be unpopular. Keeping the lakes topped up would be more expensive than we can afford. (I used to go to Infrastructure Mtgs)
Previously on the blog: On 19 August, 2003 we signed an agreement with the County of Palm Beach to receive UP TO a maximum of 750K gallons per day from this plant; this agreement may be read at the Clerk of Court site at BOOK: 15769 / PAGE: 0756
We agreed to pay a Base Commodity Fee of $3257.00 per month plus 4 cents per 1000 gallons actually drawn.
As to shore erosion, I do not know
Please do not shoot the messenger!
Thanks Elaine.
Hi All,
The problem with this issue, as with so many others in CV, is the philosophy of secrecy that is the very essence of UCO!
The idea that 750K Gallons per day is too expensive is ludicrous; let's do some arithmetic:
750000/1000 = 750 x .04 $30.00 per day nominally $900.00/month x 12 = $10800.00/year.
Add a bit for those 31 day months and subtract a bit for those months that it rains a whole bunch!
Is that a great deal of money? Well, then how about the $25,000.00/year we burn up by allowing the busses to sit 6 deep at the Clubhouse for 15 minutes idling???
Where is the Engineering study that was done on shoreline restoration; another State Secret apparently; we paid for it, let us see it.
When indeed will restoration get underway in ernest.
Demand that
UCO come into the Sunlight; think about this when you vote!!
OK!! I am Dave Israel, Candidate for VP of UCO and I approve this message.
OH! yes; some of you that work inside that pretty new building, get on this BLOG and start talking.
I wrote a blog months ago when there was a broken pipe at the foot bridge on the north side. The sand that filled in the canal has not been removed. Pat Blunck?, sorry about the spelling, said it would be fixed eventually. I also spoke to another gentleman at UCO who was quite abusive over the phone and said it would be repaired eventually. The money that is spent on putting in trees around the perimeter and benches that very few people have sat on can be better spent to beautify around the foot bridge where some of us walk and dredge out the sand that allows the water to trickle over.
It is like trying to fill your bathtub with a straw. The actual pipe dumping the recycled water in the canal seems to be 8 or 10 inches. Can it dump 750,000 gallons a day in our lakes assuming that it is not running full time like today around 5.00 p.m. Looking at the condition of our lakes UCO would certainly ensure that water is running full time. But does UCO cares about the condition of the lakes?
I may look like I am pissed off and cynical and I certainly do get tired of waiting for something to happen. For the last three years ( or more ) UCO and WPRF have just been laughting at us on this matter.
Get out of the Village and look around,the lakes are full and these other places do not look desolated like we do. In the meantime we are paying for buses running empty and a new building that the UCO Officers are very proud off.
When will we have a responsable professionnal Manager running this place? Andre
Hi All,
Without filling this thread with extensive technical data, permit me to make a few points.
Reclaimed water is rich is certain nutrients; particularly Nitrogen, and Phosphorous. These are plant nurients and thus make the reclaimed water excellent for irrigation of our Flora.
However, in due course this high concentration of reclaimed water in our lakes and canals encourage the growth of Algae, which also like Nitrogen.
As the water levels get lower and the overall motility of the system slows to a halt, the Algae growth will proliferate, and a slimy and smelly overgrowth will result.
Algae can be combated in a number of ways; Algae eating fish would be the green approach if indeed they can survive in the toxic ooze we are brewing.
A chemical attack is possible using Cupric based reagents.
There is no escape from this effect when using Reclaimed water pumping directly into the lakes.
We should turn on the system and take our 750K Gallons daily, this will decrease the stagnation and hopefully the Algae growth, as well as increase the water level, in time.
As a point of interest; we never should have planned the system to dump the Reclaimed water into the lakes.
We should have requested a closed loop system wherein all irrigation in CV was done with Reclaimed water exclusively. Why you may ask? Because then none of the water restrictions that come and go would apply and the vast majority of Nitrogen would have been taken up by the plants and grasses; thus reducing the probablity of algal growth in the lakes and canals.
Science, Research and proper Planning should be the UCO Mode of Operation; that would be in addition to Legal Operations in the Sunshine.
Dave Israel
UCO
Unintended Consequences Organization
Thanks again David for your enlighten comments. I hope someone at UCO reads them and take action, because the algea in my area ( Wellington H ) next to the canal feeding the lagoons are full wall to wall of algea. It does not smell bad yet and I do not want to see the day it will. Andre
Good luck for the VP election.
Instead of adding chemicals to our lakes I think we should try the green approach which Dave had mentioned. I was told that many years ago the sailing club through UCO or WPRF introduced sterile carp to our lakes in order to remove the grass and algae which caught onto the kheels of the sailing boats and prevented the boats from moving through the water. It seems that these fish did a great job and our lakes became clear and grass free.
I'm sure that by now all these fish must have died off and because they were sterile they never did reproduce.
Before we get into the hot summer days which might cause this algae to really jumpstart its growth and maybe cause a noxious odor around the lake we can have the powers to be try the green approach to clean up our lake.
I'm sure that if they act now and try the carp it will be a lot less expensive than it would be in the future if they have to get professional help and purchase chemicals to do the same thing that the fish might do for free.
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