Cleaning Blue Hole

[robint]

Hey gang, is anyone interested in going over to Blue Hole mid-week and helping clean the silt & algae off the bottom and walls?

We were just over this past weekend and it was horrible. :11:
The hole isn't cleaning itself anymore and the silt is 5" deep in the bottom is some spots! It never used to be like that. The self-cleaning toiletbowl effect isn't working for some reason. I really want to get silt and algae off the walls, too. A few friends and I are thinking of going over with some tanks and brooms. No students, just experienced divers as this is going to cause a total white-out and be very ugly! We are thinking mid-week as it will take at least 24-48 hours to flush out the vis. If this is successful, it might be a good idea every couple of months.

Anyone?

robin

 

[ABQdiver]

Damn, if I wasn't so busy at work I'd be interested.

This is an interesting problem and seems to gotten worse since the last years dredging the Corp did. Does raise the question to what is really going on.....


When are thinking of going?

 

[robint]

probably not this month but maybe late April when we get back from our trip. I would want to do it before summer. Best time to do it would be like a Monday-Wednesday afternoon. We would just drive over for the day and drive home.

yes, it seems to have gotten much worse recently. I also didn't feel or see the "tidy-bowl" affect at the surface or underwater. That tells me that water is coming in at several points counter-acting the swirl. It may be that taking out the rockpile effected it also. Either way, no more flush. Silt was even gathering directly on the platforms. Ugghhh. Nasty nasty nasty.

 

[tltracy]

Good luck with the clean-up... if I still lived near there I would help out. I'm sorry to hear it's gotten worse over time. I remember when we would bring students down from Denver Divers in Denver the silts wasn't TOO bad then. Good luck!

 

[Divedoggie]

Maybe this summer's dredging will finish up where they left off. Maybe the grand plan will work out quite nicely.
But, like the old Parkay Margerine commercial said..."Its not nice to fool with mother nature."

If a midweek scrubbing is in order, I may be in.

 

[Waterskier1]

How does one clean something like the Blue Hole? You mentioned "tanks and brooms". Surely you don't plan on "sweeping" it out? I've read about special underwater vacuums, where you pump the water through a filter. Something similar to a dredge. I would think just sweeping the silt around would would do nothing, long term, and certainly decrease vis short term.

I might be able to get down there during the week to help, but I'm really interested in the process you plan on using. Also, would any special permissions from the city or COE be needed?

 

[robint]

How does one clean something like the Blue Hole? You mentioned "tanks and brooms". Surely you don't plan on "sweeping" it out? I've read about special underwater vacuums, where you pump the water through a filter. Something similar to a dredge. I would think just sweeping the silt around would would do nothing, long term, and certainly decrease vis short term.

I might be able to get down there during the week to help, but I'm really interested in the process you plan on using. Also, would any special permissions from the city or COE be needed?

cleaning is easy actually. Yes, the brooms are to sweep. The water flows into the HOle from the bottom, spills out at the top. If you can get the sediment/silt/crap into mid-water then it should filter up and over the waterfall and out of the hole. A couple of dives shops used to do this on Sunday afternoons (5-7 years ago). The tanks can be used the same way - you open the tank up underwater and the air blows the sediment off the walls...

I have no intentions of waiting for the dredging to fix the problem. As most of you know who have been diving there for years (8 years now for us), only the divers really care about making it better for the DIVERS. The City with all their "plans" are not divers and have no concept of the effect on divers and diving. I really worry about what they are doing anyway - if they keep removing rock, is mother nature going to bite them in the you-know-what?

 

[Waterskier1]

Robin,

Thanks for the explanation. I guess what I had read about was in quarries, where they didn't have the bottom to top "toilet bowl" effect.

I'm wondering if a water pump, located on the surface, with the intake in the the water, connected to a wand similiar to a car wash, taken underwater, simply recirculating the water, would work? Seem it might, if indeed all you are looking to do is stir up the sediment.

On the other hand, a few OW or begining Deep classes might do the trick too .

 

[Divedoggie]

Maybe we should release a few buckets of zebra mussles.

 

[BigBubbaJ]

So is this something that happens each year, or is this a new problem?