Green Accessibility

 Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA)

                   PPL 24 DEMONSTRATION PROJECT NOMINEE FACT SHEET

                                                           February 10, 2014

 Demonstration Project Name:

Sediment Capture Tide Pump

 Coast 2050 Strategies:

Coast-wide strategies: Produce energy while building and maintaining land.

 Potential Demonstration Project Location:

Jean LaFitte/Lake Salvador and Bayou Dupont SedimentDelivery - Marsh Creation #3 (BA-164) for inland. The TV-16 Cheniere au Tigre shoreline demonstration project for off shore. Any canal, river, bay or body of water where sediment is present and available in the wetlands and beyond.

 Problem:

The Louisiana wetlands has lost the timely and adequate flow of waters that has built and maintained the land.

 Goals:

Utilize tidal, wave and wind energy, simultaneously or separately, into a force that is useful to rebuild the wetlands.

 Proposed Solutions:

1. Reduces the need for fuel. 

2. Shoreline waves are no longer the enemy, but an asset.

3. The captured sediment that is displaced by the pump will allow the rising waters of the      ocean to flow into the displaced area, thus reducing the rise of the world’s oceans.

4. Backfill the oilfield canals to the original land surface level or the best level with sediment captured from canals, rivers and bays.

5. Rebuild the shoreline beaches and barrier islands with sediment from the continental shelf.

6. Housed in a vertical box culvert type structure that protects the pump from the elements.

7. Can be manufactured and shipped to the location.

 Project Benefits:

1. Reduces the carbon footprint.

2. Replace rock or structural embankments with energy producing structures.

3. Provides nutrient rich sediment.

4. Builds agriculture.

 Project Costs:

Unknown, to be determined.

 Preparer(s) of Fact Sheet:

Richard C. Russo, Vermilion Parish, Louisiana

                                                    Sediment Capture Tide Pump

 Here is how it works:

 The tidal water in the canal flows into the inlet end of a 2 inch PVC plastic pipe that travels through a culvert into the pond, and exits into a flow regulator compartment. As the water rises in the compartment, it begins to flow through a pipe in the compartment wall and into a dispersion tray, where it is dispersed into the side of an impeller wheel, causing the wheel to rotate. The water then falls into a float compartment where the impeller wheel is attached to a float system, which holds the horizontal shaft of the impeller wheel parallel at a set distance above the surface of the water that falls from the wheel. As the water rises in the float compartment it begins to flow through a one way flow pipe in the compartment wall and into a reservoir where it is stored. When the tide reverses, the water in the reservoir flows through another pipe in the float compartment wall, then into another dispersion tray, which repeats the flow process in reverse, before returning to the canal.

 The impeller wheel is attached to an Archimedean screw pump by a universal joint set at 45 degrees. As the impeller wheel rotates, it causes the float compartment water to flow into the lower end of the screw pump and elevates the water to the upper end, where it is released into a trough shape pipe.  The elevated water then flows into another dispersion tray, where it is dispersed into the side of another impeller wheel that is attached to the upper end of another Archimedean screw pump, thus rotating it as the water falls into an upper trough set beneath the upper impeller wheel. The lower end of this screw pump is set at the bottom of a containment basin, which is about 4 feet below the surface of the water in the canal.  This screw pump lifts sediment at the bottom of the basin and releases it into the upper trough. When the rising elevation of the canal water is 5 inches above the float compartment, the impeller wheel will rotate until high tide, and continues to the height of a flood. It does the same in reverse.

 The sediment is captured by a syphon in a pipe, which is designed as follows. A shallow hole is dug in the bottom of the canal at the end of the culvert. An inch and a half PVC pipe is placed at the bottom of the canal hole to serve as an inlet for the syphon. As the syphon water travels through the culvert, it picks up the sediment at the bottom of the canal hole and releases it into the containment basin. The syphon is started and maintained by filling a horizontal 4 inch PVC pipe with water, above the syphon pipe, then releasing the water into a 1 inch pipe downward into the flow regulator compartment. This creates a vacuum in the 4 inch pipe. Attaching another 1 inch pipe from the top of the 4 inch pipe to the top of the syphon pipe, will vacuum the air out of the syphon. This will pull the water from the canal into the pipe and start the syphon. Installing a knife valve will stop the syphon. The water from the float compartment screw pump also flows into the inlet of the 4 inch pipe that keeps it filled.

 The water and sediment in the upper trough is released into a pipe line, then distributed by the gravitational force produce by the upper elevation. The tide pump is a work in progress. An automated system and a wind pump is in development.