2025 Water Plan

This is the 2025 water plan.

Camp Layout

This year's layout places the Food Fort much closer to the Gayflower, and with its inlets and outlets facing the fire lane. That means pumping between those two locations is closer and Sierra Site Services ("SSS") can easily service everything if needed.

Food Fort

Read more details on the Food Fort plumbing

Fresh Water

For the Food Fort we expect to use 1000 gallons, same as last year. To make this easy, we'll rent a 500 gallon tank from SSS that will be dedicated to the food fort. We will schedule a single refill of this tank on Wed Aug 27.

• If the tank is used up before the refill arrives:
  • We'll warn the food team that they are using too much water
  • We'll provide some temporary water using a hose from the Gayflower to top off the SSS water tank
• If the tank still has water in it on the day when the refill is scheduled:
  • We'll fill up the Food Fort tanks before refilling, so as to make sure we get all 500 gallons that we paid for

Plumbing:

• From the water tank by the fire lane
• via it's pump
• via a hose over to the food fort 
• to a three way splitter
  • One goes to the Food Fort Sink Inlet (we have short hoses, 1'-2', ideal for this) 
  • One goes to the Food Fort Ice Inlet (we have short hoses, 1'-2', ideal for this)
  • One goes to a canteen filling station (via filter) which we set up in the dining room 
• ALL THREE outputs here have INDIVIDUAL water meters so we can track usage.

RV

We scheduled RV water refill for August 22 and 27.

Grey Water

We also expect to generate 1000 gallons of grey water from the Food Fort. We'll rent a 250 gallon tank from SSS and put it right next to the Food Fort. We'll schedule three pumps of this tank (750 gallons) during the week, on Mon, Wed, and Fri, and we can also leave it full.

During the week, grey water from the food fort will accumulate in its internal tank which holds 104 gallons. On a regular basis, we will use a portable pump to empty that into the SSS tank.

Plumbing:

• From the grey water tank under the food fort
• via a Valterra 1-1/2” FPT x ¾” MGHT adapter
• and a short hose
  
• to the new Milwaukee rechargeable grey water pump
• all of the above mess is placed in a cement-mixing bin to contain any mess
• and then a long hose 
• over to the SSS grey water tanks.

The pump needs to be manually activated to dump the tanks every day.

The ice maker dumps a bunch of semi-clean water out the bottom, too. This does not go into any kind of tank. We have to put a large concrete mixing tub under there to catch this water and regularly pump it out to the SSS tank.

• We can place a water bug in this mixing tub and pump it to the SSS tank. With a little creativity we should be able to use the same hose as we use for the grey water.

The goal is to get the SSS tank as full as possible by the time they come to pump it out, so as to take advantage of all 250 gallons pumping that we paid for.

Daily Routine:

1. check available space in SSS tank
2. if room available, pump ice water into it
3. if room still available, pump grey water into it
4. is the SSS tank full and the food fort threatening to be full? Organize a pump operation all the way to the Gayflower Black tanks.

Gayflower 

The Gayflower will come with over 2000 gallons of fresh water which should be enough for showers, toilets, drinking water (canteens), and as emergency backup for food.

It can accommodate 1250 gallons of grey water and 1250 gallons of black water. Last year the grey water tanks were much fuller than the black water tanks. So if we ever have to pump excess grey water from the RV or food fort into the Gayflower, we should pump it into the black water tanks.

We can set up a hose from the Gayflower to provide fresh water for drinking, which can go through a water filter.

Our initial plan will be to use SSS water for canteen filling, because it's better located near the food fort.

2026 And Beyond

1. Ultimately I'd like to get the SSS usage down to zero and rely solely on the Gayflower. It's way cheaper that way.