In early 2008, we had an exceptionally rainy spring. These intense and frequent rains caused the quarry level to raise to levels not seen before. Some back yards were flooded and most rim owners had difficulties with their docks, because of the water level. For this reason, a trio of 3 rim owners ( Frank Miller, Russ Tehan and Scott Basilius ) undertook a project to install a pumping system to regulate the water level. A new organization ( ROPE ) was created for this task. ROPE stands for Rim Owners Pumping Experiment. We didn't know if pumping the quarry water level down would be possible, so we emphasized that this was an experiment. Our concern was that the ground water table would add water to the quarry, faster than we could pump it out. Voluntary collections were undertaken to fund this venture. Frank Miller, whose prior work experiece was an asset in figuring out how to create this pumping system, did most of the planning and coordinating of this project.
The initial pump was attached to a trailer at the boat ramp to test our theory that we could lower the water level by pumping. If this worked, our plan was to create a perminant structure, which is what we have today. We were pleased to find out that we could successfully lower the water level by pumping. The next question was, how much water do we pump out? There is a pipe at the north end of the quarry, that was thought to be an overflow for the quarry. We later found out that this pipe runs uphill and would never be able to remove water from the quarry. This pipe has since been capped to keep storm sewer water from flowing into the quarry. Being the elevation of the pipe on the north end seemed to be accomodating to most rim owners docks and water features, we decided to install the perminant pump structure water intake at the same elevation. This established a good "average" water level.
This good "average" water level is represented by the center line of the pipe as seen at the boat ramp. Keep in mind that this is an average, so the water can be a little higher or much lower. Historically we have seen summers where we have lost between 1 to 10 inches of water due to lack of rain and / or evaporation. Depending on our winter precipitation, we have seen the water level between the center and the top of the pipe. Knowing that evaporation will take place over the summer, we will typically pump for 3 to 4 weeks in the spring and leave the water a few inches above the center line of the pipe. FYI, it takes 60 hours to pump out 1 inch of water from the quarry.
Over the years, all rim owner have had to rework their docks and water features due to changing water levels. What we have been able to provide is a "not to exceed" water level that all rim owners can take into consideration when creating or modifying their docks and water features.
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Pumping statistics:
- The quarry contains approximately 1,637,807 gallons per 1 inch of water.
- Our pump is capable of pumping 450 gallons of water per minute.
- In a 24 hour time period, we can pump out 648,000 gallons of water.
- It takes 2.5 days to remove 1 inch of water, assuming there is no rain water added to the quarry.
