Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Pumping from wet weather creek?

Not sure where to post this question but my property has a wet weather creek that runs in the very back of it. I never looked at it seriously as a water source for my pond but after our last rain a week ago I've been monitoring it, and the creek is still running. Has anyone tried to pump water from a wet weather creek before? The creek naturally pools on my property, I think it holds maybe a 1/4 acre ft of water, maybe less but the flow rate is still good enough to likely fill it back up with in 24 hours. Given that I'm only going to be building a 1 acre tank this doesn't sound like an insignificant amount of water. My thoughts would be to get a submersible pump with a float switch so that it would turn on once the creek had water in it. The negative is that during a heavy rain this creek can really flood, so whatever I put down there needs to be able to withstand a good amount of flood water or else it will just be swept downstream. Looking for any advice.

I have a very similar situation to yours, so I asked that question on Pond Boss long ago.

Here is a link to a thread about bringing in invasive fish with the creek water. The first post in that thread contains a link to an even longer thread that probably has more useful information.

Pumping Water from a Creek

First, make sure you follow the Texas regulations on pumping water from a stream, and on making any alterations to a stream bank!

Will you have AC electricity available at the pump site? That gives you a lot more options.

One option to protect your equipment from floods is to put it inside a double-wall plastic culvert that is emplaced vertically. Put in a tee with a smaller pipe to the creek that can easily handle your pump flow rate. Leave the vertical culvert open-topped, with the top above normal flood stage. That way your float switch should be protected, yet still operate based on the water level in the creek.

Another option is to just build your intake and float as cheaply as possible and run a cable up to a tree. Recover your equipment after a flood and repair as needed. That might actually be cheaper than a large initial investment to protect your equipment.

I used to do that. Then some SOB stole the pump and tubing.

FishinRod,

Thanks for the links. I had done a quick search but hadn't pulled those up. Basically it sounds like you and I had the same idea with a culvert sitting vertical. I spoke with my electrician about pulling power to the pump site and that won't be cheap. Probably around 4K and that's with me laying the wire myself. I was planning on pulling electricity to the lake anyways, so I knew this was going to be a big expense. I briefly looked into solar and battery options but they are all costing around the same amount and I don't have to worry about reliability issues. I need this pump operating at full speed when it's raining, and the sun typically isn't shining during those times. I spoke with the pump company where I source my sewage pumps and they were able to give me some good advice and we figured out that running two of the smaller pumps would actually yield a higher GPM output for only slightly more money. The biggest issue that he saw with my idea is that unlike the trash pumps that I'm use to, these pumps won't handle chunks of bark and twigs very well at all. They are accustomed to human waste, but hard chunks he said would burn them up. The other issue is for the floats to work properly it sounds like I would need a minimum 24" culvert per pump. Really sounds like I will be better off finding some sort of other cage to put the pumps in that I can then surround with different levels of screens to make sure the water is fairly clean by the time it gets to the pumps. The pumps he recommended were the Barnes SE52, however I've seen some Tsunami pumps for quite a bit cheaper that state that they are trash pumps. Other than the Tsunamis requiring more power and maybe being less efficient, I'm not really seeing a difference between them. Was wondering if anyone had an experience with them? My biggest fear is that a flood comes by and rips away my pumps.

Dave, how well did your set up run? Assuming that it didn't get stolen was it worth doing?

What about a pump for a koi pond waterfall? IIRC a 1 hp pump can push 9500 gph. How many GPH can that Barnes SE52 pump move? I don't see it in the specs.

I would recommend digging a sump in the lowest part of the wet run and then buying a Harbor Freight trash pump and placing the intake hose in the bottom of the sump. Run the pump until the area is drained, wait and repeat. You could put a plastic sump case with lid in the hole and use seasonally. Should be easy.

If regulations allow ...

You could dig a sump in the creek like ttd suggests, keep digging a trench onto your property, and also dig a sump in your good clay about 10-20' beyond the creek bank. Set a culvert horizontally in your trench to connect the creek sump and your land sump, and then back-fill over the culvert. Set a pole for electricity by your land sump and make sure your panel is above max. flood stage of the creek.

If the creek does flood high enough to reach your land sump, it should not rip out your equipment. Instead, it may actually start filling your sump with silt and sand. Hopefully, not so much that is buries your equipment.

At the start, perhaps you could FILL your pond with a gasoline powered trash pump? Pump at max. rate when the creek has water.

When your pond has initially reached full pool, then the watershed above the pond might be enough to keep the pond mostly full under normal conditions. If you do have a big drought, then you could also just run the trash pump to collect some more water in the event you get a brief rain to re-start the creek.

If that all proves too difficult or time intensive, then you could always add your electricity run and pumps at a later date.

I know from watching Farming videos where they irrigate with water from streams that who can use the water and when/how much they can use is regulated in some (mostly dry) places. Whether that applies to this situation or not, I don't know.

I have pumped from the intermittent creek at the back of my property into my ponds, using a 2 inch gasoline powered pump. I get over 100 gallons per minute. I put fine mesh screen around a bucket, and put the pump intake in the bucket. But, I found if I pump a lot of creek water in, it causes a filamentous algae bloom. I think the creek water may contain excess phosphates. I don't pump unless the creek is running fairly clear. Right after a big rain, it is always muddy. I haven't pumped much in the last four years or so, because river otters have mostly destroyed my fishery.

It worked pretty well until I dang near pumped the creek dry. My pond is pretty near the headwaters of the spring fed creek.

Sorry for the late response.

So, I actually own several gas trash pumps as we do a lot of pumping from creeks to flood duck impoundments. This is typically a dry creek, so to get the most benefit out of it I need a pump that can start up as soon as there is water, and then be able to shut off when its pumped dry. I'm not going to be able to be out at the property and constantly monitor this so an electric pump with a float switch seems to be the only reasonable way to go.

I like the ideas to build a sump, it will offer a lot of protection to the pumps and actually not cost much at all to build.

We just had a major rain event and over all, I'm not very worried about this pond filling up. I was finally able to study where water was flowing around my property and the neighboring properties, and it appears that we have way more runoff than we need. I'm actually going to maybe redesign the pond a bit because I'll likely have to reinforce the spillway. The issue with my area however is we keep going into droughts and we get very little rain during the summer. So these pumps will really help out to maintain a constant level.

Esshup, the barnes pumps are estimated to do 8400 GPH at the 8-10' head height that I told the guy we would be pumping up to.

Forgot to mention that as far as regulations go with pumping out of creeks (in my area). As long as it's for personal and not for profit we are allowed I believe 1,000 acre ft per year. That's for running creeks, I'm honestly not sure if anything applies to this since its not really a creek and more of drainage. Either way I'm never going to be pumping that much water.

Excellent idea to go observe actual water flows during a big rain event. That should help you a lot during the planning.