From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
The collector, which is sort of like a giant vacuum cleaner, was to be installed Monday, but one of two track hoes being used to move the collector into place broke down. Work should be completed today. A crowd of people, mostly city employees or contractors on the $835,000 project, came and went throughout the day. It was like watching kids with big toys playing in a sandbox as the equipment scooped out a hole to fit specifications for the collector.
The sediment collector is a 30-foot-long, 24,000-pound piece of machinery that has a variable speed motor capable of pumping up to 480 gallons of slurry per minute. It will be installed near the out-of-service railroad bridge just upstream from the Arkansas River confluence. The variable speed motor inside the collector will operate at speeds in sync with information provided over a satellite relay from the Fountain Creek stream gauge at the north end of Pueblo. The machine connects to two pipelines, one which suctions out the muddy sediment and another which injects water so that sand doesn’t plug up the machine. The high-capacity design represents a substantial boost in capability from other units made by [Streamside Systems]…
The project is needed to restore the capacity of Pueblo’s levee system, which was constructed in the 1980s to prevent the sort of costly flooding seen in the 1965 flood, said Dennis Maroney, a stormwater consultant…
In the event of a major flood, the unit would not be lost — Fountain Creek has swallowed railroad cars and bridges in the past. The collector will be anchored to the banks by cables that are designed to keep it from washing out, being swept away or being covered in mud, Tucker said…
In the event of a major flood, the unit would not be lost — Fountain Creek has swallowed railroad cars and bridges in the past. The collector will be anchored to the banks by cables that are designed to keep it from washing out, being swept away or being covered in mud, Tucker said…
The collector should be up and running within a couple of weeks.