Dewatering allows you to work on infrastructure that is below a water line or prone to flooding from a high water table. When you remove this water, you get a bunch of sediment with it, and you need to protect the dewatering pump and any infrastructure the water might go through from that sediment. This involves removing the sediment in stages, starting with a pump filter and then moving into water treatment in general.

Make Sure You Have Strainers in the Pump

When you remove the water from the work site, you'll eventually place it in a specific area for treatment, and this could involve filters, silt fences, and similar contraptions. However, be sure there are also filters inside the dewatering pump that you use. As the water is drawn into the dewatering pump, any sediment that is drawn in with the water will eventually cause the pump to jam and stop working. With adequate filters, however, you exclude most of that sediment before it gets into the pump. Post-pumping treatment should remove the rest of the sediment.

Choose Your Treatment Option

Treatment can be chemical, physical (such as silt fences), or a combination, but whatever you choose, you must be sure it won't create more problems. You want any chemical treatments to be friendly to fish and aquatic plants, for example, and you want silt fences to be adequate for the treatment job given the condition of the water that you're trying to treat. There may be local regulations regarding treatment that go above and beyond what the national laws state.

Ensure You Don't Add Sediment, Too

Dewatering is the temporary removal of water, which means you'll eventually return the water to the spot you drained it from. Even if you think the water will pick up more sediment again once it's back in its original spot, you don't want to add more sediment yourself. Sediment can settle along the bottom of the interior of a pipeline or build up at the opening to a pipe or compartment. When enough sediment builds up, that can create a clog or blockage, and the clog doesn't have to be total to create a problem. If the water source feeds into other water systems such as wells, the extra sediment will only make that buildup problem worse. When you store the water after treating it, ensure the storage area is lined properly so that more sediment does not mix with the water.

Consider investing in a dewatering pump that has these features. 

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