# Heavy, Intermittent Hydro



## AgrarianDr (Mar 25, 2011)

What a mess, and what a shame.

I have a dear friend who bought 20ac in the North GA mtns area. Beautiful piece of land. Property is high on both sides, low in the middle and drains off North to South. An additional 23ac with same land form is connected to his property to the North, so in the end there are 43 ac of land that has rain runoff that drains to the middle, then flows downhill, to a focal point at the far end of his property.
Just so happens to be fairly steep at that point, making for a near perfect pond setup.
I was doing quick math - at 61" of rain per year he has over 72 MILLION gallons (less evap and that which would first penetrate the soil of course) all coming to a head (no hydro pun intended) on his property.

Regardless, we are still talking tens of Millions of gallons per year - draining off his property in a very confined spot.

My first thought: HYDRO POWER~~!

Uh, Not so fast.

Turns out, you literally have to get the approval of SIX different Federal, State and Local agencies in order to get a permit... I kid you not.
The Corp of Engineers, 3 separate divisions of the EPA/DNR, Some group called the Resource Conservation something or other and of course, Gilmer County Planning and Zoning.

Not gonna happen. Maybe it will, or I should say "could", but not anytime soon and not without a BOATLOAD of persistence, grief and aggravation (and no doubt $$$).

So, the question, finally; With 61" a year he doesn't really NEED a pond (got plenty of water), the pond was really just for the hydro power aspect. Without retaining (storing) the water as a regulated battery, is there any way you can think of to capture heavy, intermittent water flow? We are basically talking 5" per month, and 1" - even taking out for evap and absorption, would create over a million gallons

We have wracked our brains on this and the best I could come up with is to fill in and make a pseudo-dam, with a straight line culvert and an Archimedes screw at the end. 

Hardly ideal, but since Big Brother has made it almost impossible to build even a simple 3/4 - 1 ac pond without an act of Congress... 

Yeah, we are grasping here.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

My guess is he doesn't have near the resource you think. 

61 inches of rain sounds like a lot ( and by the way, I suspect that is about 10-20% more than actual.....we get 45-50 annually here in the mountains of East Tn, just up the road a little ), until you consider the VAST majority of that soaks into the ground, and most of the year, you'll be doing good to get a small year round spring. THIS year is way over 'normal'....we're at nearly our total average for the year half way thru the year. I have a creek bed just outside the house that is flowing a LOT of water right now that is typically dry by this time of year. In addition to that, I have another creek bed that flows from our year round spring also running a lot of water now that it typically does not. We have the drainage from 70ac we own, plus another 100-200 of USFS property....all of which comes thru our place.

I've looked at hydro....it would be a small SEASONAL addition to the solar setup we already put in place, and frankly, I don't think worth the money investment most years ...though clearly not THIS year....this year, it would be worth it...but you have to figure the 'average' year....which includes some real dry ones.

IF he has a good south facing window, go solar.


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## AgrarianDr (Mar 25, 2011)

TnAndy,

I think it would extremely difficult to gauge absorption - given different lopes, grades and soil types (clay vs. loam etc) but on average, Ellijay "averages" 61in per year. 

You say you kinda-sorta have a similar situation/land form. Have you ever tried to calculate what type of total flow you get from any given point (yes, except this year of course). I know hydro is pretty much worthless for anything less than 15 gpm, but would seem like you have a pretty decent setup for what we had originally envisioned. A decent sized pond with 30-50 gpm would certainly provide a decent Return on Investment.

I've help my friend research his location. Decent sun, but not great. Decent wind, but not great...so we had pretty much decided to take a little of each, including hydro - which in truth would make him well rounded as his goal was to be truly "off grid".

Grant it, the ground is probably saturated after the non stop rain we've had lately, and although I have not seen it, he tells me even a brief, decent rain creates a - what he calls - raging torrent at the focal point. 
Just wish I had his problems. Sure seems like there should/could be some way to get at least a little energy from it.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

There is 2 very scary words there; . . Gilmer county **planning** and ****zoning****

Those planning and zoning Nazi's can and will spoil a chocolate chip cookie.........

A retention pond seems the way to go........

If all those "agency's" (the land Nazi's) are already alerted to the intentions of your friend then any ***unpermited ** movement of earth (when caught) could result in fines to where he might well lose the land........


I just love all those goobermint agencies ..............


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

Is this Gilmer county WV?


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