Mosquito control

[da.bees]

I don't even know how to spell injun ears and certainly can't afford to hire one every time I need to manage floodwater. It's usually a matter of modifying earthen "Nalert" livestock pond since you can never have too many. Several years ago we did several along a valley that channeled floodwater onto fertile cropland making it a gamble planting. Soil is loamy with enough sand to make it permeable. Only "Nalerts" were sealed with clay imported from ponds being constructed on land I'll talk about later. Pipe laid on bottom extending through embankment and terminating in depression where water seeps away by gravity. This has been enough to buffer floodwater from overwhelming cropland. An unexpected but welcome side effect appeared in recent years. A couple eroded gullies in valley now have springs. I assume where water once rushed through and disappeared, a mini aquifer developed and slowly releases stored water.

Without permission. we modified ponds on black clay that that were built according to government specs. Ponds were built with L shape pipe allowing outflow to occur only after level reaches top of pipe then stopping when level drops to level with top. We looped pipe over top edge of drain that begins to syphon same time drain overflows but doesn't stop until reaching predetermined level below. How far pond is drawn down can be controlled with vacuum breaker plugs. Buffering inrush and outrush has allowed bridges across a creek,including one on county road that logjammed then washed out repeatedly in past.
The few native fish which survive harsh conditions control mosquitos and quickly repopulate in the event pond goes dry. There's small die-offs of gamefish when water is low and heat is high.

 

[showcrop]

Well, I am a retired engineer, and installed retention ponds since they were thought up, as part of engineered drainage systems, and have bid a lot of them. I installed some at Google, Facebook, Stanford Linear Accelerator, and the New Bay Bridge/ Yerba Buena Island/Coast Guard Station just to name-drop a few lol. They do by design catch and hold water for a limited time, with the intent of having as much as possible soak into the ground instead of running off, and trying to build them to hold a best-estimate ("factor in" AKA best estimate) of an average rainstorm's water volume- in a heavier than normal storm, it can run out the overflow drain. I ran into an interesting one in San Francisco, building a new soccer field at San Francisco State- who in their wisdom, did not want ANY water falling on the field soaking into the ground- I was told that that edict came from the City. I had to build the subgrade and field dead level, and install a complete pond liner membrane with hot-welded and smoke-tested joints, including through the drain system trenches across the field. Then had to build up the field with 100% pea gravel, again dead level. You should try to grade pea gravel with a motor grader to a 1/4" per 10 feet standard measured in any direction- I did it myself with an old-school laser on a 140H blade, no GPS

I worked on one that was installed under a parking lot. We dug down fifteen feet, and they did a perc test. It failed. The ground was sand and it percolated too well! we had to go deeper, bring in crushed gravel and thoroughly compact it. Then around 25 dog houses were installed with large diameter pipe between, then back filled with tested sand. And people think that these are hit and miss!

 

[MeanGene1]

On the lighter side, I went down to Daytona for Bike Week in 2007, and as usual stayed with my friends. Their subdivision was right behind the Super Walmart in Ormond Beach, and there was a new back entrance, as they had just added a new parking lot beside the building. There was a bid detention pond in the middle, with 3' orange safety fence around it. I asked him if the safety fence was to keep the kids out, he said no, they just haven't paid anybody to get the alligator out of it yet

 

[SkipperII]

That is very strange. The design engineers factor in climate, rainfall, drainage area, soils, etc.etc. when designing them, and then they have construction engineers overseeing construction, making sure that correct materials are used, etc. There would be no point to building them if they weren't done right. Where did you read about this?

Don't need to read about it. The one next to our newer fires station, grows a fine crop of cattails, due to retained water. It isn't much, but it is there. This year, not so much, we are really dry.

 

[MeanGene1]

Don't need to read about it. The one next to our newer fires station, grows a fine crop of cattails, due to retained water. It isn't much, but it is there. This year, not so much, we are really dry.

Those "design engineers", most of which have never had their hands dirty and actually built anything more complicated than a beer fart, don't always get it perfect with their book formulas and calculators- we used to call them "Office Weasels"- they will break their arms patting themselves on the back when things go well, but throw everyone else straight under the bus when their fancy drawings just don't work in the outside world

 

[da.bees]

Everything can really fall apart if mother nature doesn't get the email after engineers fix the problem.

 

[Alvin 41]

Anyone here have a proven mosquito control pesticide mix to be used near homes and around barns?there are a lot of options but I’m looking for what works.is malathion something I can use?

Bats !!

 

[showcrop]

Those "design engineers", most of which have never had their hands dirty and actually built anything more complicated than a beer fart, don't always get it perfect with their book formulas and calculators- we used to call them "Office Weasels"- they will break their arms patting themselves on the back when things go well, but throw everyone else straight under the bus when their fancy drawings just don't work in the outside world

But they are still way ahead of letting whoever is operating the dozer that day design it, even though there are of course many who could. Without them not much could get built due to lack of bonding and insurance.

 

[MeanGene1]

But they are still way ahead of letting whoever is operating the dozer that day design it, even though there are of course many who could. Without them not much could get built due to lack of bonding and insurance.

And they stick together like ticks lol