If you have ever walked the beautiful path through the golf course (or played hole #9), you have seen the main water supply for our resort. It's even called the "Main Lake". It's usually full of ducks and a herd of curious fish that will come right up to shore to check you out. A truly lovely fountain keeps the water aerated to control algae. It sounds great too. Music to keep the fish alive.
At the south end of that path, you will pass the structure seen below. This is the main pump house that draws water from the lake and pumps it where it needs to be to maintain levels in the other lakes and keep our golf course alive through the irrigation system.
One line goes to the gorgeous lake you first drive past when you enter the resort (for golfers, it's the one on hole #7). Many a grandparent has taken their grandkids there to feed the fish. Always brings a smile when you watch.
By the way, we have a turtle who lives in that lake. He's grown quite a bit over the years and if you're lucky, you may see him sunning himself on the shore.
Notice the water flow entering the lake through the pipe in the background.
Another line supplies the cute waterfall by the statues.
Excess water then returns down the creek to the main lake.
Luis Vargas and George Chaves accompanied us on our tour and showed where the main electrical controls were located. Luis and George share the groundskeeper supervisory position with George in charge of the golf course and all grass areas and Luis all other landscaping areas. They make a great team and enjoy working together.
George showing main electrical control box for the water system
There are two meters like this that monitor the gallons of water we pump from the wells. This number has to be reported to the state. Water is precious in Arizona.
Another interesting fact I was surprised to learn is that our ponds are infested with Asian mollusks. The shells from these mollusks disintegrate and over time cause a lot of damage to our irrigation system. The golf course irrigation comes from the lakes so the bits of shell get sucked into the sprinkler heads causing them to clog up.
There is a huge pile of shells in the pumping area as they get cleaned out of the lake regularly.
We also receive water from the city through this raised valve near the walkway bridge. Whenever the city wants to change the level of water in their big water tank, the water flows into our canal and feeds into the lake. This water is free...Yay!
The grates were built to catch floating debris before it reaches the lakes.
So where does the water come from? We have two wells, both 600 feet deep. The water level is at 300 feet so we have quite a bit of leeway should we ever need it. The reason for two wells instead of one is redundancy. Should one pump go out, we are still covered.
This is well #1, across from the sewing room.
Well #2 is located south of the pickleball courts by site 416. When this well is turned on, it feeds water directly into the concrete canal which in turn feeds into the main lake by Hole #9. This is also the well that is turned on for the duck race.
It takes a large pump to bring that much water up from so far down.
The northlake water lines work the same way. Water is pumped from the north lake (hole #13) to the two lovely waterfalls at the south end of the back nine where it then runs down the creeks back into the northlake.
This is the waterfall at the south end of Granite.
This is the waterfall/pond at the south end of Oasis
A big thank you goes to Mark Kenner, Luis and George for taking the time to explain the 'water workings' to me and Don so we can relate it to you.
