The water runs

The very first water from the solar pump ran the other day and Tommie was there to see it. It's a very satisfying system because you can hear the energy of the sun as the pump has more or less power and you can "see" the sun by the volume of water in the stream, though much delayed.

Tommie watching the very first water flow
through the new solar pump system

It was very cute. She immediately called up her brother (who took an interest in the project early on) and held the phone inside the pump house so he could hear the pump wind up with the sun (more power) and down with the clouds (less power)! The solar panels were cranking out 39.6 volts on a mostly clear November day, moving about 800-1000 gallons per hour.

The solar pavilion on the far side of the main retention pond.

It will pump almost twice this volume during the summer months. But there's no battery, so when there's no sun, there's no stream. Unless it's raining, in which case there's still quite a flow!

Here's a little video of the first water running down the creek.

Within a few days of getting the system finished, it rained. And hard. It's easy to forget that this project isn't about making a "water feature". It was about controlling the water because this property was flooding. Last year there was standing water all around the buildings and water running across the driveway. With the work we've done there are no longer an water issues. All excess water after being collected, running the stream, and filling the large 'variable edge' lined retention pond where it can over flow into a restored wetland with a modified outflow (we created a small dam with the glacial till we excavated from the main pond) allowing the wetland to fill up with almost 3' feet of water.  Several hundred thousand gallons.

After the first big rain of 2010, the wetland had about 6" of 
water and the rest of the property had none. Perfect!

Eckert Lyon restoration, pond, stream, wet land, solar pavilion, solar pump, restoration.