| |
| Preserving our Natural Resources since 1997 | Your browser can't find the .css style script |
| Home | Equipment | Projects | Contacts | Links | About Us | |
This was stitched from several frames, taken from the top of the drag line boom 40 feet up (May 4th) |
|
 |
May 4th: The basin the dredge is in, was the only thing full of water last year. This year she looks better sitting in a bigger puddle |
| A top down view, the cutter head is under water here. |  |
 |
My dad watching the progress, notice the
full hose, she was blasting mud at the time
More to come!!! |
|
May 18th: DEQ stops dredging operations, at least until we resolve the permit issues. Here the Mudcat sits idle in the morning fog, waiting for government approval The lake level is UP 7 inches from the 4th! |
 |
 |
Oh No the DEQ said we are in violation!
We have to remove all of the material we put on the shore and then we have to re-apply for a new permit! YUCK The pile behind the dredge has to move, we removed it this weekend, but the digital camera had a disk error so no pictures yet The lake is up another 2 inches or so! |
| Here is Dumpie and Helga "putting the hurt" on the pile of spoils on the shore. If you look at the pictures above you can see how much dirt we need to move. |  |
 |
We move as much as we could, then the lift hoist clutch in the crane broke. We were in trouble, but our new neighbor John stopped by with his backhoe and front loader, we made some headway. |
| Here is John is his backhoe, he made a pile, while I drove the loader to move the stuff. The next day I got the crane to work enough to move the rest of the pile he made. After that I raked and seeded the shore! |  |
Here is a picture of the completed clean-up We think we moved about 750 yard of sand and muck. Now it is time to re-apply for a permit so we can do some real work! |
|
 |
We pumped some material into our containment
basin. We filled it and overflowed onto the road in about 2 hours
(way too small)
The next day it was down this low, so we filled it up again! |
This is how the lake looked on 4th of July. The weeds are starting to take over, and the water has went down about 4 inches (notice the permit) we did make a channel to the deep water. More to come! |
|
July 25th: The water is down about another 12 inches from July 4th weekend, no rain! We are gonna take that island out today! |
|
 |
This is our spoils basin after drying for a few weeks. The layer of muck is about 5 or 6 inches thick. |
| We cut through the island that was to the left of the dredge in the big picture, we cut into the weeded area down to about 6 feet. |  |
 |
This is a closeup of the cut into the weeded area. Notice the water fall in the middle of the frame. This is water from the deep area filling the basin, we ran for about 3 or 4 hours and the lake went down another 2 feet! |
August 4th, Still no rain, but the water is down only an inch or two. We didn't dredge any, but we will soon. |
|
 |
The before picture, I finally added a water depth stick in the lake to see just how far the water moves with dredging and rain. The water rebounded to within an inch of the August 4th 'before' level |
| Here is the basin just before I took 2 load of dirt out with Helga and Dumpy. The truck measures 12 yards, and I had heaping loads, so about 30 yards. I could only get about half of the material out, due to the trees in the way (the boom on Helga) |  |
 |
This is the channel I cut, when I started the day the dredge was near the grass line, as I pump, the water drops, so I have to undercut the bank and let it fall in to suck it up. I hit sand about 2 feet down so it was slow going today. |
August 31, only pumped for about 2 hours, notice the water level stick is high and dry (Yes, she is stuck) |
|
October 2, The lake is back to the 3.5 foot mark. The colors are starting to turn, the air was crisp. The season is running short. |
|
 |
With the season coming to a close, we decided to start making the channel to deeper water a little longer |
| But the going was slow, we ran into a pocket of hard clay or sand? so we spend most of our 3 hours slowly chewing at that hard area to get to the deep areas |  |
 |
The hard spot peaks about where the dredge is now, on either side of the 'hill' is soft stuff, we went down to the 10 foot mark in one area, just behind the dredge, and down to about 8 feet just in front of her, the depth on the hill is only 3 feet so we get grounded a bit...just another thing that makes this project fun |
October 27th, finished for the season, just in time too! |
|
 |
The water is just below the 4 foot mark, up a few inches from last time. |
| After getting the crane into position, we hoisted the her up onto the shore. |  |
 |
The seasons over for us, we drained and winterized the dredge and put away all of the other toys. Finished just in time, it snowed off and on all day, the wind was howling, I can wait 'till spring! |
|
back to the top
The story to come. |
|