A Lesson In Lake Management

The Water Expert had an unusual request yesterday: he needed a scuba diver to look at the grate into the wet well at the Town Center Lake. And thus began my lesson in lake management. "What's a wet well?" I innocently asked. Here is the explanation in my own non-technical language:

When we built the lake, it required a pump to move the water to the proper places for irrigating Morrison Ranch. But the pump doesn't live in the lake, it lives outside the lake, in a "wet well". The wet well is a square concrete hole in the ground that gets filled up with water, and has the pump in it as well. Something about suction, and making it easy on the pump, and okay, so maybe I wasn't listening as hard as I should have for that part of the explanation. But here's a picture of the wet well at Highland Groves, still empty, of course:


The problem with the wet well at Town Center Lake was that there were dead fish in it, and the Water Expert wasn't sure how they were getting in, and someone needed to look at the grate at the bottom of the lake. Here's the dead koi he found:




Eww!

It just so happens that we have a good friend who dives for the Navy in the Reserves. As a matter of fact, he just returned from an active duty deployment to the Middle East (thanks for your service!), so his diving skills are sharp. He graciously agreed to come take a look.



Diver Chip entered the clear tropical water - um, well at least it was warm, and took a close look at the grate (it had to be close, he said, because the water was pretty murky). Everything looked good and intact. The conclusion was that the fish must have been swimming in very small, laying eggs, growing too large to get out, and therefore perishing inside the wet well. This is actually more of a nuisance than a problem. The Water Expert will keep on top of it, I'm sure.

And now I know all about wet wells! Well, a little bit about... okay, I can point one out when I see it...