Pumping water from a river

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Chris

Chris

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Sweet, Idaho
I bought a new piece of property and it comes with water rights which means I can legally pump water from the river across the highway from my property. Only problem is ther is no piping or pumps. I want to start the process to figure out what I need to do to make this happen. I don't want to just right a check and will do most all of the work myself. I am confident in installing the piping and power but I have very little pump experience.

This is my scenario, I have about 13 acres that can be irrigated. I want a pump that can do most of this (Obviously not all at one time and probably minimal) I am not going to plant a bunch of crops but probably just have some cattle and trees. So I guess what I am looking for is any info on pumps size and pipe size? I think a 2" pipe would be plenty of volume for me. What are my options on pumps and is there any that don't require some crazy power that will cost me a hundred grand to bring down the street? I already have three meters on my property but don't know what size services they are, one goes to the house and one for the shop and one for an RV pad that I was thinking I would use for the pump.

Any help would be great.

Also I am on the upside of the road so there would need to be a good amount of lift for the pump or I can do a tank and secondary pump if needed.
 
The difference in elevation between the river and high point of the area I want to irrigate is 70 feet and most is only 30 feet higher. Total length of pipe is about 980 feet.
 
Chris said:
The difference in elevation between the river and high point of the area I want to irrigate is 70 feet and most is only 30 feet higher. Total length of pipe is about 980 feet.
Click to expand...

Your getting closer. Now all we need to know is how many gallons per minute you want? You can figure needing about 50 gallons per head per day for the cattle. Most systems are set up to handle the irrigation requirements as everything else will use less than that. I am also assuming you need regular 50 PSI or so at the sprinklers? We just need to know the GPM for the largest irrigation zone to figure a pump size.
 
Just glancing online at what's available it looks like I would need 30-60 gpm per head and would like to run one to three at a time if that sounds reasonable? Really only need to run one at a time but would be nice to have the ability for more
 
I very well could be wrong. I just googled some cannon sprinkler. My plan is to put a sprinkler on the corners of my pasture fences and spray then into the pastures one by one or two at a time, whatever it can handle. Other than that it will be a few rows of trees on a drip system which uses no water. I have six pastures so i will have about 20 sprinklers total.
 
Those canon's are awesome but would take some kind of pump to operate. We were thinking more along the line of 2.5 to 5 gpm heads and apparently lots of them.

If you want to go with canon's, you will need around a 5 hp submersible pump unless you want to go with a centrifugal, but that 70' of head is going to eat up quite a bit of it's head capability. For that much water (60 gpm) and that distance (1000') two inch would work with around a 20 lb friction loss. Then you have to figure wire size from the power source to the pump which will pull around 28 amps. Just for the 1000' your at #1 copper.
 
Can you give me other options? I don't mind smaller and more heads as long as things work in the end.
 
You can put in a bunch of different zones and water different areas at different times. this will allow you to use a much smaller pump and not use up so much electricity
 
That's what I was thinking. I was talking to the golf course head facilities guy today. He has some heads that shoot 60 feet with a 16 gpm max usage depending on what tip we use. They have a 3/4" input. He highly recommended these for what I am doing. He says they take very little pressure as well.
 
Sixty feet is a long way to throw water. Normally the Hunters I use die out at 30 to 35'. Sixteen gallons per minute at around 40 psi could be done with a 3/4 hp 16 gpm pump. That's taking the 70' lift into account also. Now your getting affordable again. I used to make a lake strainer to put a pump inside of to keep the junk away from the pumps inlet. I could tell you how to make one.
 
I would want to do something like that. I can also weld SS too if that helps.
 
$421.38 - 3/4 hp 16 gpm three wire with box.
The lake strainer looks like this.
Don't worry about the price, I can shrink that. I can just send you the parts. Actually the main parts are the 1' or so of 4" PVC well screen and a 4" X 1-1/4" Well Seal. You probably have 4" pipe and a coupling.
 
Just like to have a little more than required just in case things change down the road
 
Here is a link to the pump curves on my site:
https://www.pumpsandtanks.com/wp-co...formance-curves-charts-and-specifications.pdf
The top half is Selection tables and the bottom half are curves. I prefer the curves. If you want to use 40 psi, multiply it by 2.3 then add the result to the vertical lift above the water. This is head, then follow from the left number to the right horizontally across to where it intersects the gallonage you want. I wouldn't go lower than a 16 gpm model or above a 25 gpm.
 
So I have been working with the state on my permit to make sure all is good for me to pump and irrigate. All is good on that side and supposedly I have a 6" pipe run from my property to the river already but I will have to search for that. I have one year to begin construction and get water flowing and I am allowed to irrigate my entire property but it is under the rule of use it or lose it. I have a year or so to set it all up and get it working. Come spring Iwill search forthat pipe and hopefully it is there, then it is all about power and pipe and not crossing a highway.
 
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