Bodacious solution at Bodega Harbour

Irrigation at The Links at Bodega Harbour had a major problem. Their solution provided more than expected.

Picture a true Scottish style links golf course against the backdrop of the roaring Pacific surf.  This is The Links at Bodega Harbour in Bodega Bay, Calif., just about an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Not only is this one of California’s most impressive golf courses, but it demonstrates a high degree of conservation by utilizing highly treated recycled water for irrigating the grounds. 

Golf course superintendent Brian Morris knows that a Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed course such as this needs the best in management and equipment. And nothing is more important to a golf course superintendent than a reliable irrigation system. A good system maintains the uniformity needed to see that every square foot of turf gets its share of water and fertilizer. With today’s emphasis on water conservation, irrigation nozzles and emitters are getting smaller and smaller, increasing the importance of a reliable filtration system.
 
Recycled water is stored in a 33-million-gallon reservoir until needed. Here it picks up wind-blown debris, small fish, snails, algae, insects, and who knows what other critters that are destined to plug up irrigation sprinklers. 

“Without a premier filtration system, I would have to hire an army of workers just to clean clogged sprinklers,” Morris says. “Greens only remain green if the sprinklers are free of debris.”

In 2004, the original filtration system was rusting away and the control system was no longer reliable. A dependable, long-term solution was found in Orival. Orival uses weave-wire stainless steel screens as a positive barrier to organic and inorganic suspended solids.

The company offers a complete line of automatic self-cleaning filtration systems with the capability of fabricating manifolds and filter connections to fit right into an existing piping system. The Links needed immediate action. Orival met the needs of The Links at Bodega Harbour by supplying three Orival Model ORI-06-PE-S all stainless steel filters with optional high-performance, multi-layer screens.  The complete system was shipped the day following receipt of the order. 

Actual installation and start-up took less than a day. Operating in parallel, the three filters easily handle the 1,500 gpm flow and use less than 1 percent of the flow for self-cleaning.  

A solenoid control valve is a key component in the cleaning process used by many filter manufactures. If this valve plugs with debris, such as algae, the filters will fail to operate properly. Orival eliminates this problem by using only solenoid control valves having 5/8-inch openings that are virtually clog-free. The OMNITROL 2000 control system was specifically designed to clean each of the three filters sequentially taking only 8 seconds per filter. Because of the unique design, the cleaning cycle does not interrupt clean water flow to the irrigation system. 

“The automatic flush cycle eliminates a lot of maintenance work and the controller gives us the flexibility and dependability we need,” Morris says. He describes the operation of a single filter as follows:

Dirty water enters the inlet flange (see Figure 1 at right) then passes through the coarse screen from outside-in removing large hard objects. The pre-screened water then flows to the inside of the fine screen. As water passes from inside-out in the fine screen, suspended solids are stopped if they are too big to pass through the screen openings. Clean-filtered water then leaves the filter through the outlet flange. 

As more and more material builds up on the inside surface of the fine screen, a pressure drop in the system begins to build. When a preset pressure drop threshold is reached across the fine screen, the controller is signaled to initiate a cleaning cycle. The first step in the cleaning cycle is to open the rinse valve to atmospheric pressure which quickly drops the pressure in the flush chamber.

Because the hollow dirt collector connects the end openings in the nozzles to the flush chamber, water quickly moves from the nozzle openings, through the dirt collector into the flush chamber and out the rinse valve to a drain. Since the nozzle opening is nearly touching the screen surface, water rushes backward through the screen (outside-in) in a small area (about the size of a dime) at a velocity exceeding 50 ft/sec.  This intense energy sucks off the stickiest material and expels it from the system though the rinse valve.

The hydraulic motor then rotates the dirt collector while the hydraulic cylinder moves the dirt collector linearly. The spiral movement of each nozzle on the dirt collector assures that every square inch of fine screen surface is passed at least twice by a nozzle and is sucked clean of all debris in less than 10 seconds. The next cleaning cycle will begin when the pressure drop threshold is met again or until a preset time interval has been reached.

An additional bonus for The Links at Bodega Harbour was that the new Orival stainless steel filters cost less than the old carbon steel filters had cost 10 years earlier.  Imagine high quality, low maintenance, reliability and all at a lower cost – all’s right with the world.

For further information visit the Web site, www.orival.com or call 800-567-9767.

Marcus Allhands is the vice president of business development at Orival. For more information, call 765-987-7843, e-mail ma@orival.com or visit www.orival.com.