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Moreover, without a retention basin, you have to pump directly into the plant, instead of pumping when rates are cheap. With another retention basin on Winkler's Creek, you have both a polishing pond, and storm water control. Moreover, you could use it during dry spells to keep WQ up between Town and Castleford.

I guess this was the cheapest solution on its face.

I think I would have pushed a grander project that attempted to give something to all the stakeholder.

There is value in having a mechanism by which Boone can effectively flush the S. Fork of the New River after a spill on 421, 221, etc., without using treated water.

I guess the BTC blanched on buying or condemning land along Winkler's Creek.

I've never seen the engineering rationales expressed for the project other than concern about a daily flow in the River and a daily withdrawal desire. If you have three months water sitting in a reservoir, your need to pump into the reservoir is mitigated by that volume.

I suspect that would have added $20 million or more to the cost at a minimum. At that point the Town would have needed a partner - the County.

Basking - here's what is perplexing to me - they could have gone behind Harding Road or Laurel Gap and had an intake closer to Town and still have subjected much of the 421 corridor to a Watershed Overlay.

The Brownwood site "protects' Todd and everything upstream 10 miles the run of the river but that 'protection' is really very limited.

Boone monopolize the water from Brownwood back to Boone, but that does not prevent a real water plant at 221 near Churches.

Same as not going the opposite direction to the Watauga river.

Then they couldn't control land use down almost the entire 221 corridor

Anyone know the comparative flow rate at the Tula/Castleford/River Road junction versus the Brownwood intake site? It seems to me that Boone could save itself a lot of heartache by moving the intake site closer to the town.

So now the coopers are suing the town over the intake hey coop how about a little more info.

http://www.goblueridge.net/...e-property

CoopersFarm are you one of the Coopers that owns the farm on brownwood? I remember stopping at the farm when I was little!

The area seemed to be staked for the acquisition as of this week at least.

So where are they going down Brownwood then?

I was wrong. Frontier is not burying a natural gas line on Cranberry Springs Road

Dog, I mostly agree with you - it depends on the nature of the city and the needed fire flow. In a newer, suburban city, such as say Cary, or Cornelius, there is little to no industrial water usage. Theoretically everyone could be served with 6 inch lines as the backbone of the distribution system. In an older city with a built up downtown, I tend to agree with you.

Then there are those cities that supply stupendous water users and whole other communities.

I've worked in places that just 900 customers, 11,000 customers, 24K customers, and 150K plus customers, although 24K was the highest point where I was the manager and therefore was cursed out on a daily basis over water, sewer and electric complaints.

Fire flow pressure is what the FD wants to bring the ratings down to a 3 or a 2. (Greensboro to my knowledge was the only 1 in the State of NC, primarily due to Cone mills and several other plants having their own internal fire brigades that were also put to Greensboro's use if needed.

I've never supervised public works in the mountains, and have always been amazed at the amount of water you can get out of the rock here. Flat swamp, clay, sand, and loam is what I am most used to and the greatest elevation change was no more than 200 feet.

I remember having to pump to meet the demand cycle for textile mills, dye houses and several plastic, and auto related plants. A lot of sewage pre-treatment programs arose over what happens when large users suck water and discharge waste water at the same time, when that can be staggered like load control on the electric grid.

Are they going to pump the raw water straight into the plant in Boone or would they put in the lake on Winkler's creek. A raw water reservoir is a handy thing to have especially it you pump water in when electric rates a low, an then let flow by gravity to the plant.

I think they should bite the bullet and install a 5mg impound between the current pond and the plant.

But that's just me. I don't like being dependent on electricity to pump water if I can get away with it. It makes your customers vulnerable to an emp that is not near you.

Ocm I think coop is correct in the pressure not being over 100psi with pumping stations down the line. LIke you said just let a line break with 200 psi.

You should also know this. A city water system is not primary for drinking water but for fire suppression.

Dog - I don't trust pressure reduction valves unless they get a real engineer to design something that has both a permanent component at the site and the FD has a special connector that can also bleed pressure.

Maybe it's because I was around too much ductile iron which is brittle and seen to many water hammers. But I guess the basic design is to slowly pump water to a holding pond or directly into the plant that would mean the plant would not be using the intake to boost pressure in case of a fire in Boone.

I still can't fathom a fire station in downtown where you have to back in the trucks.

There should also be a least a 100k gallon standpipe near downtown for fire pressure, but given the age of the infrastructure in downtown Boone, it might blow out.

We had a large downtown fire in a cotton storage plant that was wooden and filled with 100 years of cotton seed oil. We drew down two, million gallon storage tanks, to contain the fire and blew up a third feed line from the water plant that had been forgotten.

The fire was so hot, we almost lost a 90' aerial truck when the heat melted road surface and the truck began to tilt.

To me Boone infrastructure is so piecemeal that it's worrisome to me, but as long as you don't get a major conflagration downtown, or Kraut and Winklers Creek don't experience 500 year flooding levels all should be fine.

What is the proposed size of the force main? I was once in jurisdiction where they pumped finished water about 12 miles up a rise of about 250' first in a 24" AC line then with duplicate 36" ductile iron line. For a time we had to put about 12-14 mgd through just the 24" AC line - what would happen is that the plant had to pump all night long in the summer to keep all the water towers full versus the demand.

Amazing pressure in that line. When it ruptured it blew out a hole on the side of the road the size of a large house. I had the task of calling all the major water users - dye houses, textile, and machining and telling them - no water for a couple of days. I took one of the all time cussin's from one factory owner - then he came to the next city council meeting and apologized for cussing me out and said he should have cussed out the public works director.

BLUE 1500 GPM or more Very good flows
GREEN 1000-1499 GPM Good for residential areas
ORANGE 500-999 GPM Marginally adequate
RED Below 500 GPM Inadequate

You will see very few blue hydrant tops. In this part of the state more red and orange than anything.

Coop I do believe you are correct. Hydrants are color coded according to flow and pressure.

I'm a betting that they will have three or four pumping stations and the pressure will never be above 100 psi. I've seen hydrants on raw water feeds. I think they paint them yellow.

Never heard of a pressure reducer.

2903 at river in brownwood

3535 to the water filtration station on deck hill road.

Just the facts

There is a definite difference in a force feed main and a line to supply hydrants. I do not know the elevation differences between the proposed pump intake and Boone, but I am sure it is well over 100' It takes 43# to raise water 100', plus you have to overcome friction loss in the piping. My guess is there will be 200 p.s.I. or so on that main. To much for connecting fire truck.

I dealt with this in various locations for over 30 years