| While delivering our 2-day Rural Water Supply Operations Seminar in Turtle, Wisconsin (June 2013) we came across a great set-up involving the use of a large irrigation well for filling tankers. As it turns out, the Turtle FD worked with owner of a large farm to outfit a 1,200 gpm irrigation pump with a valve and fitting so that the well could be used as a water supply source for FD operations.
The well was reported to be near 300-ft deep and the 1,200 gpm vertical turbine pump is normally used to supply irrigation systems in the farm fields. The pump is driven by a 100 hp electric motor and generates 100 psi at the FD outlet.
Because the well is near the paved road, it provides easy access for FD vehicles and because of its constant pressure - there really is no need for a fill site pumper. The well was used as a tanker fill site during the 2-hour tanker shuttle drill and it worked just fine filling most every tanker at a rate in excess of 1,000 gpm!
There are a couple of important notes for folks who might be thinking about retrofitting existing irrigation pumps. 1) The pump should not be "dead-headed" - thus there needs to be a means by which to keep water moving once the pump is started. For the Wisconsin well - this just meant that the operator of the valves needed to insure the correct opening and closing sequence. 2) The vertical turbine pump continues to spin when the power is turned off. As the water drops back down the well casing, the turbines spin until the water stops receding - so if someone was to turn the pump back on while that water was receding the pump shaft could easily break off. The rule was "5-minutes." If you turned off the power to the pump, then you had to wait 5-minutes to turn it back on. Other than that - the set-up was pretty "fireman proof." |
