When The Well Runs Dry RW Shines!

[RomanyLife]

Well, interesting times here for us in our park hosting gig. After some guy came in a stole hundreds of gallons of water from the park while we were on a 10 day vacation last week, (we have security cams, he will be surprised to learn) AND washing his car and truck on our vacant camp host pad
Our well has run nearly dry and is pumping nothing but dark rusty water. Naturally, we stopped using it. It cannot be filtered.

So, we have gone to "boondocking style" water use, for the first time in the RW, and I thought I would share, because it's working SLICK. We went and purchased a portable freshwater tank at Camping World for $104 (the collapsible blue bag, 45 gallons) and took it in the truck bed to fill at my sons house. We then bought a pvc adapter to screw the winterization hose directly into it from the truck bed and used our on-board pump to fill our FW tank. Works AWESOME! I know a lot of people buy a pump at harbor freight for these, but I thought "What's wrong with the pump I have??" SO, if any of you need to do this, it works wonderful-sorry, don't know why pic is upside down.
2015-07-22 16.30.53.jpg
We then just ran our clean blue-coiled hose into the freshwater tank fill and turned on the faucet in the convenience center. Wa-La. It takes about 20 minutes to drain the portable tank this way.

Yes, Washington State is in a terrible drought. We have never seen conditions like this, certainly not in the last 25 years. We haven't had any measurable rain since about May. It's bad, lots of fires and wells running dry. Praying for rain!

[bull_chips]

Wow, yes pray for rain! We live in Michigan and take water for granted. But when you don't have it, you find out fast how important it really is ..

[atom ant]

Glad that worked out for you! And very interesting on the pump! I wouldn't have thought of that.

[poormarky]

I hope you can catch this person and at least make him pay for your investment.

[atom ant]

Originally Posted by RomanyLife

(we have security cams, he will be surprised to learn)

Let us know if this is what you see on the security cams:

[RomanyLife]

LOLOLOL Brad! I should put in some avocados

[travelin' texans]

Texas has been in a drought for the past several years & if their wells were drying up after a couple months they would be in one helluva pickle! Doesn't sound like it was much of a well if after a couple of car washes it dries up.
We are in Graham, Wa. right now & it is definitely dry for this area, but the news is blaming falling trees & broken branches on the dry weather, trees must be very delicate.
Hope they get rain quick.

[Char & Steve]

That is funny LMAO!!!!


Char

[Dave&Ginny]

apparently all the rain is in the mid-west area. All the rivers are so flooded here that boats are banned. This entire summer has been one giant flood.

[hoosierguy]

Originally Posted by Dave&Ginny

apparently all the rain is in the mid-west area. All the rivers are so flooded here that boats are banned. This entire summer has been one giant flood.

Dave........you sure have that right! We have lived at our current location for 41 years and I have never seen water standing in our yard (we live in a wooded rural location) past the end of May. Currently still have 2 to 3 inches of water in some areas. The farm crops around here (northeastern Indiana) are the worst that I have ever seen in the past 60 years. Even the reservoirs and associated conservation lands have turned into giant lakes.

See you and Ginny at the Rally.

[ChristianM]

WHOA! Glad to hear it worked out. Also praying for rain. We've been up there a ton since the beginning of the year and it is definitely looking....crispy.

[RomanyLife]

Originally Posted by travelin' texans

Texas has been in a drought for the past several years & if their wells were drying up after a couple months they would be in one helluva pickle! Doesn't sound like it was much of a well if after a couple of car washes it dries up.
We are in Graham, Wa. right now & it is definitely dry for this area, but the news is blaming falling trees & broken branches on the dry weather, trees must be very delicate.
Hope they get rain quick.

Completely agree TT! Yes, I didn't tell the "whole story" for sure. Our well here in this park is quite tentative with very low flow and we treated it very delicately so as not to cause this problem. Normally, that kind of activity (Washing cars, etc.) would NOT affect a healthy well, for sure! It wasn't really the car washes, it was the hundreds of gallons of water in 55 gallon barrels that he hauled out of here. And yes, the vegetation here cannot handle drought AT ALL. Unlike more arid areas, just a short drought has a strong effect on this environment. Right now, they are struggling with fish die-off because the rivers are so catastrophically low. In this area, with many huge dams, they are holding back water for the fish runs in the fall, and this is causing the rivers and streams to be critically low. Many are just a trickle now and they have dead fish by the thousands on the shores of the Willamette in Portland, Oregon. We saw huge, dead sturgeon along I-84 sadly on our trip home from vacation. Very scary and sad. I know our local huge reservoir is at 35% capacity for this time of year.

Anyway, more than anyone probably cares to know about the Pacific Northwest and water But, one mans rain forest is another man's drought, I guess. So ironic to see the bridge wash-outs in the dessert southwest. Send that rain here! We DO handle lots of rain very well! For the first time in my life, I bought drinking water in gallon jugs at the store yesterday.

[atom ant]

Just toured our local state park last night to try to pick a campspot (the low trees there are terrible). The water has receded about halfway to what it normally is, and all the parking lots and facilities are just mudballs. The cotton from the trees mixed with the water and now the water is gone it looks like the bottom of a septic tank

[Dave&Ginny]

his is what we're dealing with:

Illinois River flooding still an issue | WEEK News 25 - News, Sports, Weather - Peoria, Illinois | Top Stories

A month later and still in flood stage

[NW Snowbirds]

Why don't you just run that suction hose into the Columbia River out back and have all the water you want? Surely the whole house "water purification system" will do its job.

[RomanyLife]

LOL NW Snowbirds! Well, we are a little too far from the Columbia River for that. I run to my son's house two exits away and fill the portable bag for now. We are having rain today and tomorrow, maybe our well will rebound a little... But we are quite comfortable otherwise thank goodness! Even have good pressure in the shower with the pump, I am a happy camper!

[atom ant]

So are you a host in a campground and you have your own well and cistern?

[RomanyLife]

Yes we are Park Hosts and we have a very low-flow well. It's more than enough for us in normal times, but right now we have this darned drought. Thank God it's raining today and supposed to tomorrow too. SO glad. It's a County Park.