Iron County Record | 1956-04-26 | Page 7 | Water Loss is Shown from North Field's East Stream

Water Loss Is Shown From North Field's East Stream By L. H. Carlson Soil Conservation Serried On April 20 Hal Mitchell and I installed one nine Inch parshall flu rap in the irrigation ditch just below the reservoir on the Parowan Paro-wan North Field's east stream ditch. A three inch parshall flume was Installed about 6350 feet downstream. Several readings read-ings were taken on these flumes during a two-hour period. The average av-erage readings were as follows: Upper flume .35 feet deep, or .G2 second feet of water. Lower flume .CO feet deep or, .45 second feet of water, showing a loss of .17 second feet of water In that distance. It shows a .17 of a second foot loss from a flow of .62 second feet, or a 27 per cent loss. As .62 second feet Is equal to 279 gallons of water per minute and .45 second feet Is equal to 203 gaJlons per minute, the above figures show a loss of 76 gallons of water per minute while It was running the 6350 feet or a little over a mile. At the time these measurements measure-ments were taken, water had been running In the ditch for a 22-hour period and it also had water running In the early part of the week. The ditch Is actually actual-ly much cleaner and the water runs more freely that It will later In the year when grass" and weeds grow up In the water. In addition, the grass Is growing very little at this time and little water is being lost by transpiration. transpira-tion. According to HaJ. it takes a minimum of one hour and 15 minutes to get a stream about double this size from the head of the ditch to Jhe location where the lower flume 14 placed. A stream the size of this one would probably take a minimum of two hours to travel this distance when the water Is first turned down. After the water Is shut off. a good Irrigation stream would be available for about 30 minutes min-utes and a small one for another 30 minutes. For a 12-hour water turn, with the present amount of water, the total Joss would amoun to 66.900 gallons or 33 per cent of the total available water at the head of the ditch.