Piping ditches

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Here’s what Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company did on the Mary Lateral, from Gerald W. Knudsen, P.E. writing for Environmental Protection. From the article:

The pipe system has 45 branches off the main supply line, which ranges from 12 to 36 inches in diameter and from 30 to 50 pounds-per-square-inch high density polyethylene (HDPE). The turnout pipes that serve each shareholder are also HDPE with a transition to polyvinyl chloride. Turnout pipe diameters range from 4 to 8 inches. Each branch turnout is supplied with an ultrasonic flow meter and two butterfly valves. The meter measures the amount of water passing through the turnout. MVIC controls the first butterfly valve, setting flows according to the number of shares of water allocated The shareholder uses the second butterfly valve to shut off or reduce water volume. Each meter is either solar or battery powered.

On older parts of the system, MVIC is using impeller flow meters that require annual maintenance and are subject to plugging. To reduce maintenance and eliminate plugging problems, the team decided to use a non-intrusive flow meter.

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