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WELLSPRING ACCUMULATOR
NARRATIVE FOR THE WELLSPRING ACCUMULATOR
We don't have a lack-of-water problem only a problem of capture, storage and allocation/distribution. Water can be stored in tanks above ground or in aquifers below ground. The latter is the better mode if rain and river water can be infiltrated into the ground and does not run out through an underground river. If the land owner has no way of getting water into above ground tanks, or the soil does not accept the rain, or aquifer does not store the water, then underground tanks may be the solution. READ MORE
The WellSpring Accumulator Pick a gently sloping area of land. Dig a trench about five feet deep and about three feet wide. Take clean, food quality 55 gallon steel drums, remove the lids and bottoms and weld them end-to-end to make a large pipe, leaving both ends of this "pipe" capped by the drum heads which have two threaded bungs. Make this tube say 10 to 40 feet long. The sections run the length of the slope and would normally be from 25 to 50 feet apart horizontally, up and down slope, or about ten to 20 feet apart vertically, depending on slope. The trench is dung to match the contours of the slope of the land so that water will run into the ditch above the sunken barrels, flow through a sand and charcoal filter and into the barrel/pipe/tank. Make sure there is a fall of one-quarter inch per foot from the center to each end.
Before burying the barrel pipe, screw in a three-quarter inch, PVC street elbow into the three-quarter inch bungs and place that side on the bottom of the trench. Lead a 3/4” pipe glued into the street elbow down the slope to two feet beyond daylight. Before putting in the drum pipe, line the bottom and sides of the trench with four inches of very thick clay which will resist water penetration. This way, if the barrels leak or become full, the water will mostly stay in the trench and can be trapped. The three-quarter inch tap leads out of the barrels past a valve, then to the cropland. The water could be pumped long distances or up-hill by a photovoltaic powered water pump. Place four inches of 3/4” aggregate rock in the bottom of the trench. Lay in the drum pipe. Screw in a two inch street elbow into the two inch bung and insert a two inch PVC riser which rises about six to eight inches above the drum pipe. Stuff a rag in the riser to keep out any dirt.
When back-filling the trench, add a layer of clay which covers the top of the barrels in "V" shape, with the "V" in the middle above the middle of the line of drums. Add 2" of gravel. Then a perforated plastic pipe is laid along the center of the barrel pipe with the perforations on the bottom of the PVC pipe. This PVC pipe is connected to the two inch riser with a slip/slip elbow which is at each end and is oriented to the top side of the barrel tube. Cover the PVC with a mixture of gravel and charcoal (50/50) to about four inches above the top of the PVC, then cover with about a foot of clean sand, then above the sand, put in a four to six inch layer of charcoal crumbles. Then finish with clean straw, rocks, gravel, and small branches. Leave the top of the trench depressed about four inches below the up hill edge of the trench and the extra soil placed and compacted as a berm on the down hill side of the trench.
USE OF WATER
Crop soil: Since the soil is the “stomach” of the plant, special care should be taken to create a healthy soil. See: http://masallp.wetpaint.com/page/THE+HEALTY+FOODWEB. For a row crop, dig a trench at least twelve inches deep, preferably twenty inches. Using an enclosed outdoor oven, create as much charcoal as you can by slow roasting wood chops, corn cobs – any cellulose you can find, using very little oxygen. The fresh air opening (duct) should be nearly closed so that only a smoldering occurs, not open flames. After about four to six hours (depending the fuel load), the charcoal should be taken and reduced to about a half-inch by an inch chips, or less.
Agrichar. The charcoal or “Biochar”, then is infused with nutrient. The nutrient can be made from any manure product or from well-aged compost which was made with at least ten percent manure. Compost “tea” is made by taking gunny sake of compost and putting it in a barrel of hot water, then raise and lower it several times a minute or use the water in the barrel to flow over the sack by means of a pump and hose.
Another way is to put the biochar in a barrel and fill it with the “tea” and let is soak 24 hours or longer. Then dump the barrel in bottom of the trench and add equal amounts of native soil and mix well. The top of the finished soil in the trench should be lower than the soil next to it so that all water it receives, stays in the trench. See: http://masallp.wetpaint.com/page/DAIRY+PRODUCTION+OF+SYNGAS+AND+BIOCHAR
Irrigation: Rain water is the best. Water stored in the barrel pipes or regular water tanks or from a well works great. The rain will be best used for potable water if it can be caught on a clean surface, free of dust and pollen, then stored in food-grade plastic tanks, with about a quarter-cup of 3% bleach per 100 gallons. Seal the tank against insects and oxygen. Store in a cool, dark place. Don't use this treated water for plants or animals. The water can be de-chlorinated by boiling for a half-hour. Plant your garden using Agrichar and install drip irrigation.
Give the Earth a good drink. If you are into conserving our natural resources, such as water and want to recharge the ground water and prevent/reduce erosion at the same time, you might consider the BranchWater Attenuator. I'm not talking about Bourbon and BranchWater.
With the permission of the landowner, find some eroded gullies about six feet deep or so. Depending on the slope, install Attenuators about every fifty feet on a steep slope and about 200 feet on a shallow slope. Start by picking a less rocky spot. Drive into the ground perpendicular to the slope of the gully, heavy duty T-posts about four feet apart. We would need to used a hydraulic T-post pounder which slips over the top of the pipe and has a steel sleeve which caps the top of the T-post. Drive the T-post about two feet in the ground and have each stickup about to five feet. We would use seven foot T-posts. The rocks on the down stream side of the posts need to be lodged tight against the post to reinforce them or else we need to drive posts at a 45 degree angle as braces to each vertical post.
After the line of T-posts is installed, use three-eight's inch re-bar or any old metal, to tie horizontally across the vertical T-posts, about a foot apart vertically, to make a rack. Then toss in large, watermelon sized rocks at the bottom on both sides and put in progressively small rocks so you have a sloping bed on each side about half-way up the pipe rack. On the uphill side, put in branches, straw or any handy material to fill to a point about a foot below the daylight points on each side of the gully, leaving a “V” in the middle of the gully so excess water can flow over the top of the Attenuator and down on to the rocks on the down side of the pipes.
What will happen is that some of the silt will drop out of the water at the Attenuator on the up-stream side, and begin to fill in the gaps among the rocks and debris. There will also be water trapped in this silt upstream of the Attenuator which will eventually seep into the ground and recharge the aquifer. Plants will start to grow, thereby increasingly stabilize the Attenuator.
When the landowner realizes the benefits of the Attenuators to the land and water supply, he/she/it will hire the local youths and under/un-employed folks to build more of these over all the ownership land.
Jim Miller
jimmiller5417@yahoo.com
- Use of gravity to harvest water: an astounding concept.
- By Jim Miller
- September 28, 2009
We don't have a lack-of-water problem only a problem of capture, storage and allocation/distribution. Water can be stored in tanks above ground or in aquifers below ground. The latter is the better mode if rain and river water can be infiltrated into the ground and does not run out through an underground river. If the land owner has no way of getting water into above ground tanks, or the soil does not accept the rain, or aquifer does not store the water, then underground tanks may be the solution. READ MORE
The WellSpring Accumulator Pick a gently sloping area of land. Dig a trench about five feet deep and about three feet wide. Take clean, food quality 55 gallon steel drums, remove the lids and bottoms and weld them end-to-end to make a large pipe, leaving both ends of this "pipe" capped by the drum heads which have two threaded bungs. Make this tube say 10 to 40 feet long. The sections run the length of the slope and would normally be from 25 to 50 feet apart horizontally, up and down slope, or about ten to 20 feet apart vertically, depending on slope. The trench is dung to match the contours of the slope of the land so that water will run into the ditch above the sunken barrels, flow through a sand and charcoal filter and into the barrel/pipe/tank. Make sure there is a fall of one-quarter inch per foot from the center to each end.
Before burying the barrel pipe, screw in a three-quarter inch, PVC street elbow into the three-quarter inch bungs and place that side on the bottom of the trench. Lead a 3/4” pipe glued into the street elbow down the slope to two feet beyond daylight. Before putting in the drum pipe, line the bottom and sides of the trench with four inches of very thick clay which will resist water penetration. This way, if the barrels leak or become full, the water will mostly stay in the trench and can be trapped. The three-quarter inch tap leads out of the barrels past a valve, then to the cropland. The water could be pumped long distances or up-hill by a photovoltaic powered water pump. Place four inches of 3/4” aggregate rock in the bottom of the trench. Lay in the drum pipe. Screw in a two inch street elbow into the two inch bung and insert a two inch PVC riser which rises about six to eight inches above the drum pipe. Stuff a rag in the riser to keep out any dirt.
When back-filling the trench, add a layer of clay which covers the top of the barrels in "V" shape, with the "V" in the middle above the middle of the line of drums. Add 2" of gravel. Then a perforated plastic pipe is laid along the center of the barrel pipe with the perforations on the bottom of the PVC pipe. This PVC pipe is connected to the two inch riser with a slip/slip elbow which is at each end and is oriented to the top side of the barrel tube. Cover the PVC with a mixture of gravel and charcoal (50/50) to about four inches above the top of the PVC, then cover with about a foot of clean sand, then above the sand, put in a four to six inch layer of charcoal crumbles. Then finish with clean straw, rocks, gravel, and small branches. Leave the top of the trench depressed about four inches below the up hill edge of the trench and the extra soil placed and compacted as a berm on the down hill side of the trench.
USE OF WATER
Crop soil: Since the soil is the “stomach” of the plant, special care should be taken to create a healthy soil. See: http://masallp.wetpaint.com/page/THE+HEALTY+FOODWEB. For a row crop, dig a trench at least twelve inches deep, preferably twenty inches. Using an enclosed outdoor oven, create as much charcoal as you can by slow roasting wood chops, corn cobs – any cellulose you can find, using very little oxygen. The fresh air opening (duct) should be nearly closed so that only a smoldering occurs, not open flames. After about four to six hours (depending the fuel load), the charcoal should be taken and reduced to about a half-inch by an inch chips, or less.
Agrichar. The charcoal or “Biochar”, then is infused with nutrient. The nutrient can be made from any manure product or from well-aged compost which was made with at least ten percent manure. Compost “tea” is made by taking gunny sake of compost and putting it in a barrel of hot water, then raise and lower it several times a minute or use the water in the barrel to flow over the sack by means of a pump and hose.
Another way is to put the biochar in a barrel and fill it with the “tea” and let is soak 24 hours or longer. Then dump the barrel in bottom of the trench and add equal amounts of native soil and mix well. The top of the finished soil in the trench should be lower than the soil next to it so that all water it receives, stays in the trench. See: http://masallp.wetpaint.com/page/DAIRY+PRODUCTION+OF+SYNGAS+AND+BIOCHAR
Irrigation: Rain water is the best. Water stored in the barrel pipes or regular water tanks or from a well works great. The rain will be best used for potable water if it can be caught on a clean surface, free of dust and pollen, then stored in food-grade plastic tanks, with about a quarter-cup of 3% bleach per 100 gallons. Seal the tank against insects and oxygen. Store in a cool, dark place. Don't use this treated water for plants or animals. The water can be de-chlorinated by boiling for a half-hour. Plant your garden using Agrichar and install drip irrigation.
Give the Earth a good drink. If you are into conserving our natural resources, such as water and want to recharge the ground water and prevent/reduce erosion at the same time, you might consider the BranchWater Attenuator. I'm not talking about Bourbon and BranchWater.
With the permission of the landowner, find some eroded gullies about six feet deep or so. Depending on the slope, install Attenuators about every fifty feet on a steep slope and about 200 feet on a shallow slope. Start by picking a less rocky spot. Drive into the ground perpendicular to the slope of the gully, heavy duty T-posts about four feet apart. We would need to used a hydraulic T-post pounder which slips over the top of the pipe and has a steel sleeve which caps the top of the T-post. Drive the T-post about two feet in the ground and have each stickup about to five feet. We would use seven foot T-posts. The rocks on the down stream side of the posts need to be lodged tight against the post to reinforce them or else we need to drive posts at a 45 degree angle as braces to each vertical post.
After the line of T-posts is installed, use three-eight's inch re-bar or any old metal, to tie horizontally across the vertical T-posts, about a foot apart vertically, to make a rack. Then toss in large, watermelon sized rocks at the bottom on both sides and put in progressively small rocks so you have a sloping bed on each side about half-way up the pipe rack. On the uphill side, put in branches, straw or any handy material to fill to a point about a foot below the daylight points on each side of the gully, leaving a “V” in the middle of the gully so excess water can flow over the top of the Attenuator and down on to the rocks on the down side of the pipes.
What will happen is that some of the silt will drop out of the water at the Attenuator on the up-stream side, and begin to fill in the gaps among the rocks and debris. There will also be water trapped in this silt upstream of the Attenuator which will eventually seep into the ground and recharge the aquifer. Plants will start to grow, thereby increasingly stabilize the Attenuator.
When the landowner realizes the benefits of the Attenuators to the land and water supply, he/she/it will hire the local youths and under/un-employed folks to build more of these over all the ownership land.
Jim Miller
jimmiller5417@yahoo.com
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