News

Cove gets its own water circulation device

The Friday Flyer
Fri, 10/23/2009

After receiving approval from the Property Owners Association in early September, Cross Hill Dr. resident Mike Wiley installed a GridBee water-circulating device next to his dock. Similar to the POA’s Solar Bees, but smaller, Mike thinks it just might be starting to do the job it’s intended to do.

GridBee submersible circulators are manufactured by Solar Bee specifically for smaller bodies of fresh water to reduce or eliminate stagnation and improve water clarity. Mike’s goal is to see the water clarity improved in his small cove off the East Bay.

Measuring 24 in. tall and 30 in. in diameter, GridBees operate 24 inches below the surface in water as shallow as 4 feet, floating above a 25-lb. anchor. The device was so easy to install, Mike says he did the original installation by himself. His wife, Mayra, recently helped him pull it out of the water to clean it and adjust the anchor chain. He says when he first installed it, the water at his dock measured 11 ft. deep; however, with EVMWD withdrawing water for the treatment plant at a rate of five million gallons per day, the level is now down to 8 ft.

“The pump has been installed for a couple of months,” says Mike. “I had estimated it would cost about $1 per day for electricity to run it and my last month’s electric bill increased by $27. So my estimate, taken from Southern California Edison’s website, was pretty accurate.”

The pump comes complete with 150 ft. of electrical cord rated for use in water, a digital timer to automatically turn the pump on and off up to eight times in a 24-hour period and a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) at the timer to shut down the system in case of a short in the wiring.

Completely silent, the GridBee is designed to run 12 hours a day, with the manufacturer recommending it run during daylight hours so the circulated water is exposed to sunlight, killing the bacteria brought from the bottom to the surface. Mike says he is currently running the pump from 5 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Mike has a “Secchi disk,” used to measure water clarity. “When the GridBee was first installed, the disk read at 4 ft., 2 in. It is now reading at 4 ft., 7 in.,” says Mike. “The water clarity in our lake fluctuates greatly throughout the year, so I can’t really say it is from the pump. But it makes me feel like the pump is doing its job.”

The pump retails for $5,000, which he paid himself, so, of course, Mike hopes the cove will see a marked improvement. “The neighbors on both sides of me have said the water in our cove starting looking better almost immediately after I installed the pump,” he says. “The neighbor across the cove, looking down from his balcony, says he has seen an increase in fish activity in the last month.”