2019 Water Haul - Old Dad

Many thanks to all of you that participated.  After many years of hauling water only by trucks, the DFW arranged for a helicopter to transport water to Old Peak BGG.  It did not receive any rain this year and was dry.  At the same project, trucks were scheduled to move water to Kerr BGG through the typical process.  Scott Gibson did some investigational shopping and found a surplus water bladder (called a ‘pumpkin’) so that we could have 2 at the project site for better efficiency.  The NPS came participated with personnel, water from their maintenance yard in Baker, and transportation of water with their 4,000 gallon truck to helicopter camp.  The water was put into the pumpkins from the big truck.  Shasta Air, still under contract with DFW did the sling work, dipping from the pumpkin, then flying to Old Dad and dropping the water into the collection dam.  Our own John Voght and John Roy kept the helicopter pumpkin filled with the backup pumpkin.  The truck crews filled from the backup pumpkin, thus staying out of the way of the helicopter.  DFW crew hiked up to Old Dad to manage the valves and observe the water drop.  I wasn’t able to attend, so I apologize in advance if I mixed up any details.

The good news is that about 4,000 gallons made it into Old Dad and Kerr was filled from 2 feet to the top.  The bad news is that Old Dad is still leaking from the crack in Tank 3 AND we have discovered that the valve doesn’t completely shut off so we are losing something around 25 gallons a day.  Efforts are under way as I write this to stop the leak and conserve the expensive water.