DREDGERS: Push Volume Info U NEED Options

[gold_tutor]

We have an interesting set of Water Regs in Oregon to say the least.

One of them is the 5000 gallon per day or less small miners' exclusion to permit fees...aka NO permit fee due and owing, and 5001 gpd or more is a $300 annual permit fee due and owing level with its own accompanying regs and headaches and filings, ad nauseum.

Here--in plain English--are the specifics as they were explained to me by a mining engineer so that all can see how the application of a mining engineering's principle called "push volume calculations according to industry standards" -- may and can be used to calculate disturbance, turbidity, etc., the crux of the 228.4a matter currently in our collective faces.

FOUR (A through D) factors are listed below which can and will be used when push comes to shove --and we all know who is going to get shoved--in order to to calculate any operator's water usage according to personal equipment specs and most assuredly can and will be used AGAINST a small operator who the state or fed's deem is in the wrong. We're just dumb miners to the bureaucrats.  They have the engineering science which they will pull out at their timing, and will surprise the small miner with science and math calculations.

It is my belief that by posting some specifics regarding "Push volume" and "Draw gpm" volumetrics,  this brief overview effort herein, will permit the current  (and hopefully future) dredgers with the opportunity to estimate more closely--using the same mathematically supported facts--regarding YOUR water usage in OREGON in case you ever need to start to defend yourself, your hours in the water and your choice of equipment for results you are seeking, and most of all why you didn't purchase the $300 permit for water usage per day that exceeds the exclusionary provision.

Frankly, Guys/Gals: Probably won't hurt to start keeping a Dredger's Log if you are already in the regulators hassling you hotseat...to show times of operation and places where you were using your gear.  Ayup, long-haul trucking and mining may now have something ELSE in common--and a Dredger's Log Book requirement may just be coming shortly, who knows?

It is my hope that anyone who has a dredge or a highbanker combo he or she would like to use within the state of Oregon waterways for the purpose of goldmining will print this out, use a highlighter to indicate YOUR equipment so that you can be armed with a semblance of facts if you get hassled out on your claim or in Oregon's waterways of ANY type in any locale.

EDIT: July 24, 2004 It's only 5 months 'til Xmas eve!!! Do you know where your presents are?

PUSH VOLUME CALCS:
Please be forwarned and prepared to understand before reading this next section that: :
1) Oregon WRD considers dredging and highbanking water
"REMOVAL & Diversionary, and as such requires proper permitting in the eyes of the WRD (Water Resources Department--a state agency which has carved up Oregon into 12 water districts.)

2) the smallest of Keene pumps (P100)
matched by Keene with a Briggs and Stratton 3.5HP (MODEL P103)
using a 4" nozzle
can and does exceed the 5000 gallon per day exclusion level where no permits are required from just being run LESS THAN 1 hour just based on
Official Keene Pump Draw chart
on page 28 of the latest Keene 2003 Product Catalog,
...at designed and engineered pump effeciency rating, with NO degradations for age or elevations.

The Pump Draw for that Engine and Pump matched pair from Keene is 150 GPM.

60 min in an hour x 150gpm DRAW =9000 GPH, or legal usage of .55 hours if only drawing water from an regulated Oregon Waterway covered by WRD regulations.

.55 hours??? YES! THAT's 33 minutes of actual dredging or highbanking with a 4" nozzle, with one of Keene's SMALLEST pump and engine combo's just to stay within Oregon's 5000 gpd exclusion from required fee stated permit payment "level."

To be safe, Push Volumetrics on the above pump/engine/nozzle dictates that in stream per day time is reduced to about 10 minutes, guys/gals!!!

And it is my clear understanding that PUSH VOLUME based on mfg pump specs is the metric used to prosecute violators of the 5000 gpd exclusion. Don't take my word for it...call your personal watermaster of YOUR district.

MORE ABOUT PUSH VOLUME:
PUSH VOLUME** Gallons Per Minute is calculated based on INDUSTRY STANDARD slurry density measurements--which takes into account these 4 factors:
A ) particle size,
B ) pump size,
C ) nozzle size, and
D ) aggregate type that one is moving through one's 4" nozzle,....
....a dredger who wishes to work within the confines of Oregon WATER LAW's 5000 gal per day exclusion, has even LESS CLOCK TIME to dredge or highbank in Oregon public waters without the proper minimum $300 permit fee being due and owing.

**Push Volume is the proper mining engineering term for the amount of watery slurry pushed up the nozzle and over the riffles. It is ALWAYS greater than pump DRAW in GPMin/GPHr/GPDay

PUSH VOLUME is a mathematical calc based on INDUSTRY STANDARDS. I am not clear where to get ahold of a set of those "industry standards," but I'm willing to bet WRD / FS / BLM regulators know where to look and how to use those metrics!!!!

Most dredgers/highbankers and placer miners have never heard of Push Volume nor are aware they are subject to this higher VOLUME standard when facing the prospects of being cited or fined for exceeding the Water Resources Department 5000 gpd exclusion as a "hobbyist/recreational" miner.

Spread the word to every Dredger you know who operates in the Oregon Waterways.
The wallet you save, may be your own. :(

LINKS:
OR--DEQ & WATERBOARD LINKS to permits & fees
Oregon DEQ here
http://www.deq.state.or.us/wq/search/query...ext+9+documents

Oregon Water Resources Department here:
http://www.wrd.state.or.us/fees/fees2003.pdf

main page to search for Water Rights already extant, statewide, by legal description:
http://www.wrd.state.or.us/publication/forms/index.shtml

Attached image(s)

 

[Redpaw]

Talk to Mark Keene from engineering at Keene and he'll tell something similiar to this:

A highbanker using a p100 pump will not be used to capacity and will only require 40 - 55 gallons of water a minute maximum because your not in need of the capacity of the pump only the volume of the water. The volume is restricted further by the openings in the spray bar and the RPM of the motor at that specific moment. The equation leaves no variable for any of this and is based on Constants.

Turn that same pump into a dredge and you will still not equal the rating of the pump to push the volume required for slurry as indicated by the equation. slurry action does not occur in a dredge hose. You can call it slurry but slurry is a pumped mass.

Slurry is assuming a solid filled motion of gravel inside the main hose like as would be described when pumping concrete...concrete pumps pump the slurry as a solid mass and would be calculated as such and measured as such.

A dredge never could ever handle the same slurry volume as equated by your mining engineers calculations.... the hose would fill solid and no gravel would be moved period.

I'm not doubting a calculation of an engineer, I'm asking under what actual conditions he based his theoretical conclusions on?....pumping straight water is different than pumping a mass of anything

It all may look good on paper, but in the field it will be different based on actual conditions of actual pump output and motor rpm. Nobody I know ever uses their pumps and motors on full throttle and maximum pump output because you'd blow the material clean out the back end of the unit and or result in Pump Cavitation.

I used the supplied numbers from your post to equate the 9000 gpm overlimit as you stated a 3.5 with a P103 is capable of doing.....I disagree with that number and so will Keene Engineering when asking for actual output...They may be rated to do this but it will never happen in real life in the field nor would it be feasible to use a pump in this manner.

Now, let's move to your swimming pool illustration,
let's compare apples to apples shall we, Dave?
The standard in the WRD regs is 5000gpd USE AND DIVERSION, not 9000g swimming pool filling. Of course it would take longer to fill a 9000 pool than a 5000g pool. No question.

To use the 5000 gallon pool to fill using a suction nozzle technique would take even longer. You not going to match or even equal the straight pumping action of a pump alone that will fill the pool if you stick another volume of water to be pushed before it.

Does the velocity of the Main tube in a dredge operate at the same rate of fill that a P103 pump can pump?....no, the main tube of volume at the suction end is being pushed and will be affected by the actions of the differential solids slowing the water being pushed by the pump through the main tube by the pressurized water....which the main tube of differtial solids is a slower moving mass than a Labratory Test or an equation can account for ( unless pumping straight water with no obstructions ).

You will not achieve a standard of suction based on actual conditions of pushed volumes because the suction flow and volume changes as it encounters the various sizes of gravel that is introduced into the suction end. The suction fluctuates constantly at the nozzle end and will rarely if ever be of the same rate of flow as equated on paper....

Clogs form because of different traveling speeds of the mass encountered inside the main tube...they travel at different speeds because of the resistance to flow and the amount of push behind them to move that material efficently through the main tube thus decreasing the actual suction at the nozzle measurably....thus decreasing the volume in the equation considerably.

Ask any dredger if the suction at the nozzle remains at a steady rate, it doesn't because it has to accomodate the variations of differential gravels encountered and this shows the push volume formula is faulty and only looks good on paper using a constant not proportional to moving a mass inside the main tube.

Take a 2" nozzle and put it in a tank of exactly 1"_15/16 ths sized gravel and see how many of these rocks you can suck up before clogging the tube....the more you suck up the less push will be available and then your jammed solid.

great discussion by the way, I'm not looking for an arguement just to show that lab conditions and actual conditions are usually different.

*******
Your right on the setup for the turbidity situation, It could happen according to the scenario and we actually are discussing your posts in emails as a valid point and wanted to say thank you for thinking about those situations of "swimmer turbidity" and "rafting turbidity"

So can we expect you to come and save our ignorant butts?, I'm more than offering you a position to come join in and help us.

I'd be disappointed if you can't make it and will look forward to you being there.....Please...pretty please.....with sugar on it....come on.....you can make it......Please...

is that enough begging?...so you can make it right !!!!!!