Large Ponds

[farmerdoug]

The DTE power plant to the west of our little town of Fargo is appling for a permit to dig a 100 acre cooling pond to be added to their current cooling ponds.  There is a DEQ meeting the first week of Feb on it at our township hall.  I will see the application on it after that as I am a member of our Planning Commission for the township.  I will not know the depth of the pond until the DEQ meeting.  This pond will be a little over a mile from Fargo and our farm.  The ground water flow is in this direction as Lake Huron is to the east of us about 20 miles.  We have a deep well but alot of the older homes in the area have shallow wells.

My questions are these-

Has anyone ever run into well problems from ponds being dug?
Was it with deep or shallow or both types of wells?
Has the water quality changed in the well do to the pond?
Any other problems arise that may be noticed?

Thanks for the info in advance.  I am trying to inform to public and the board on all possiblities.

Farmerdoug

[Furby]

What it the elevation of the pond in relation to Lake Huron?

[SwampDonkey]

A neighbor down the road had 3 fish ponds and a hand dug well, but his place was blessed with water and springs everywhere. I never heard of him having water troubles. I don't think a pond poses a threat to available water, but maybe what may contaminate the pond and leach out.

[edit]
Now that I read a little bit on the subject, there are losses from evaporation at the surface of the pond. This is influenced my temperature, humidity, sun, wind, precip. and such. It certainly isn't a constant rate of loss.

[Bill]

I don't know a whole lot about ponds influencing wells in the area but I kinda recall stories in the papers about certain chemicals that can leach from one place to another. Such as MBTE was a gas additive till they found it was killing us all when it leached from gas tanks into ground water. I'm pretty sure a similar thing happened with benzene ( my cousin got free "city" water when no one could find out how benzene got into the ground water ).

So if I was there I'd be asking what kind of pipes and sealers are they going to use ( copper, probably not lead solder, iron, or ??? ) and what kind of water treatment chemicals would they be using to prevent corrosion, etc etc.

Next I'd require the president of the utility to use the pond water for his kids drinking water - if he has his kids drink it - then maybe it might be OK.    ;D

Course I might be overly sensitive here - seems DuPont's Dela plant wants to dispose of chemical warfare agents by diluting them into the Delaware River upstream from where I fish. Need less to say the DuPont president says its Ok for ( other ) people to drink !

Just my $ .02

[Onthesauk]

Not exactly the same situation but our neighborhood has an issue with ponds.

The County built a couple of ball fields next section over, probably 1/2 mile from our house.  They have two wells that can't pull enough water to run the sprinkler system so they pump into a pond and run the sprinklers from there.  The pumps run 24 a day, 7 days a week, all Summer long.

In the past we've had one or two of the dug wells on our road go dry late Summer.  This year, six different wells failed or drew air occasionaly.  We had to drill a new well when ours dried up.  No proof that this new system caused all this but would sure be my first guess.

[JimBuis]

We have a couple of farms in the family with ponds within a hundred yards of the house and wells.  It's been this way for a hundred years or more with no known problem.  This may not mean a whole lot, maybe we have just been lucky.

Jim

[Polly]

 8)the ponds i have seen around power plant ponds have been concreat the water is treated with hydrated lime before it is used one pond i seen a couple years ago had one approx 20 lb cat fish swimming around in it he said his job was to keep water stired up to help control the algae idont rember seeing any frogs

[Mr Mom]

     My friend down the road drilled a well and had water. Then they dug a pond to water cows and then about a month or so later they started to have well problems.
     The ponds is less than 100' from the well.
     



     Thanks Alot MrMom

[Furby]

How deep was the pond and how deep was the well MrMom?
Did they fill the pond from the well?

[Mr Mom]

     The well was like 70 some feet i think. The pond i think is about 12 or14 feet at the deep end. The pond filled it-self. You could see water running down the side in small springs like when the pond was just dug.




     Thanks Alot Mr Mom

[farmerdoug]

Furby,

I would say the drop to Lake Huron is around 80-100 feet.  There is a river between us and the lake also and it is probably 40 feet below us.  The water is going thru an heat exchancer so it will not be boiler water.  I beleive they treat the water with chlorine if it is discharged from the plant grounds.  The waterfowl love the place.

Farmerdoug

[DanG]

Where are they getting the water to replenish their system?  If they're pumping from the river or Lake Huron, for instance, the leaching from their holding pond would actually raise the water table in the surrounding area.  If they're getting it from wells, then they would be lowering the water table.  Either way, I'd be more concerned about water quality than quantity.

[Furby]

That was pretty much what I was thinking as well DanG.
I can't see them pulling it from wells, not with the trouble the bottled water companies have caused in MI.

[DanG]

They're bottling drinking water up there? ???  When I went to the piggy roast last year, I was warned to not drink the water!  I had to drink beer the whole time!

[Don_Papenburg]

I bet that just had you frosted  ;D

[DanG]

Drove me to drink, it did! :-\

[SwampDonkey]

Well they bottled it here, right from the fish ponds.    :D :D



















Ok, so they did have wells, and the fish were already sold before the water bottling business started.  ;D :D :D :D

[Furby]

City folk wouldn't notice the difference anyways eh Donk. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Furby, that was the big joke around here for awhile. Bottling water from the fish ponds. :D :D :D

[farmerdoug]

Detroit gets its water from a fish pond.  Lake Huron. :D :D :D :D

Good point on the water source.  No wells for water for them anyways.  They use collected surface water when they can get it but their main source of makeup water is Lake Huron.  They already have 50 acres of cooling ponds operating.  The new pond will increase the overall surface area of cooling ponds to allow them to dump their cooling canal sprinklers that are dying already one by one.  In the Michigan Atlas and Gazetteer you can actually see their current ponds and cooling canal west of Fargo a little more than 1 mile.  I am sure you can see it on the satellite pics real easy too.  Two miles to the south of me runs the Detroit city fish water line. ;D  It is big enough to drive a tractor trailer inside of it real easy.  The pond would also be a storage area for water from the pipeline.  The water rate for them is cheap in the winter and spring but real high in the summer and fall so they want to buy and store their water for the summer/fall season to save cash.  I hear the difference in the rates will pay for the pond in a year of two.

Farmerdoug

[Mooseherder]

Down here in winter, all the Manatees congregate by these outlets/ponds by the Power Plants to stay warm. I guess they would migrate somewhere else if the ponds weren't there. These areas become tourist attractions at that time.

[farmerdoug]

Great,

All we need is another migrant to the Great Lakes. : :D :D :D :D

Farmerdoug

[Steven A.]

I'd welcome those manatees in the great lakes. Theres a lot more meat on them than on a smelt.  ;D

[farmerdoug]

That would be one heck of a net for them though. :D :D :D

Farmerdoug

[isawlogs]

  Hey Dan , I recall that too . they had this big water tank there with lots of clean water in it , then I saws someones in dere jumpin then there was two someones in that there tank ... I thought it was a good time to get the Bleue out and stick with it . Dan  and Chet helped me some with my Bleue ,