Today, instead of meeting at Ricks Boat for a day of work, we met at his house to drive to a new site for the day. On the way Rick bought us a great snack to get us ready for the day ahead. Shoreline’s Job for the day was to find, free, and relocate an aerator in a lake. One of the environmentalists explained that the purpose of these devices was to create turbulence in the water column using bubbles in order to prevent a strong thermocline from forming in the lake. Because there is no thermocline, the lake doesn’t have any anoxic environments forming, and therefore no issues with dead zones! The work for today would require coordination between 2 other parties, and safety would be crucial, given that Rick and his crew would be moving large and heavy objects through the air and in water with multiple boats.
The First step would be to locate the aeration tank by tracing the bubbles it releases into the water, once this was done, Rick was able to suit up and free the aerator from its anchor on the lakebed. The aerator had apparently settled into the silty bottom, so it required rick to dig his way through in a sense. This was super cool to watch from the surface since it required that Rick exited the tank as soon as he unbolted it, prior to it ascending. Since the tank was filled with air, as soon as it was unhooked, it began to ascend and it even breached the water!
Now that the aeration tank was freed, the new concrete block that acted as an anchor had to be moved into place. To do so it was placed into the water with a crane, and supported using multiple 2,000 lb lift bags so that it could be easily towed into place. The aeration tank and anchor were then aligned together, and the anchor was slowly lowered so that the two pieces could be connected. Lowering the untied piece took coordination to empty and release the lift bags, but the Shoreline team was able to do it with a hitch!
Observing Rick and his entire team work throughout the day highlighted the importance of safety, as well as when to use the right tool for the job. This was a super cool project to observe and there are so many steps I never would have thought about. Thank you so much to the entire Shoreline team for letting me observe and help out whenever possible!