Leonardo da Vinci once said, "He who has access to the fountain does not go to the water pot."
Water supply and its sources have and always will be a major concern for mankind. For petrochemical and fire industry personnel, its importance is heightened. This is equally true for processes and fire protection.
There is a solution using old technology, albeit with a modern twist. The use of hydraulically driven, submersible float pumps is nothing new, but it has now been incorporated and adopted by industry personnel and firefighting teams around the globe. Using a submersible pump is the perfect solution for getting pressurized water from static sources. Whether it be in an industrial, municipal or forestry setting, using a submersible pump system has many benefits.
US Fire Pump's emergency response teams have deployed to recent industry fire events and found that fixed fire water systems were compromised upon arrival. This rendered the hydrants and fire water mains useless for fire protection. Aided using submersible pumps, US Fire Pump personnel quickly found static water sources - in these cases, rivers - to supply the on-scene personnel with the water needed for fire operations. In one instance, the water source was more than 1.5 miles away. A 10,000-gallon- per-minute (gpm) submersible pump system was deployed and supplied the in-line boost pumps and personnel with the critical water needed for cooling and extinguishment.
Imagine having a water source right in front of you, but you cannot access it with your mobile pumps or you are prohibited by the flow distance and lift height for drafting operations. With the use of a submersible pump, you can supply water to boost pumps from distances of up to 1,500 feet and from lift heights of up to 40 feet.
In many cases, using submersible pumps allows for greater water flow than hydrants or drafting pumps. For example, a single submersible pump can supply either 3,000 gpm or 5,000 gpm and be skid or trailer mounted or even deployed from a service truck. Single submersible pumps have been a popular option for municipalities and smaller industrial complexes, but the most popular choice of industrial complexes has been dual 5,000-gpm submersible pumps to achieve a flow of 10,000 gpm. This can also be configured with three or four 5,000-gpm submersible pumps to achieve higher flows of 15,000 gpm or 20,000 gpm, respectively.
Why hasn't the use of submersible pumps been adopted as a common practice? I believe there are many reasons, but the most glaring is that operational change can be challenging to adopt and, quite frankly, intimidating. In many cases, submersible pump operations can prove to be a much easier task than drafting operations. For lack of a better term, it really is a "plug-and-play" system. Deploy the submersible into the static source, start the pump and voila... you have water flowing to the desired location. To cite da Vinci, "access to the fountain" has never been easier than with the use of a floating submersible pump.
For more information, contact Jonny Carroll at jonny@usfirepump.com or call (504) 235-2938. For 24/7 emergency assistance, call (225) 209-6551.
