Photo by Catherine Stachowiak
The Kern River Valley Cemetery District held a meeting Tuesday, October 8, wherein
during the district manager’s report period, Orion Sanders said the district was on its way to attaining FEMA funding to assist with needed bracing at the Old Cemetery site. Sanders also told the board the status of the district’s water issues.
These two issues were part of the county’s list of improvements needed, which the Grand Jury listed in its report on the district. https://www.kerncounty.com/home/showpublisheddocument/16676/638580111441330000
Sanders told the board that the district got the FEMA documents all signed. He is in the process of attempting to get the funding for the needed repairs to the Old Cemetery. He told the board that WZI’s engineering report, with the compaction report that they did, was complete. It is signed and ready to go. Trustees had a copy of the report. “We are just waiting now for a date to start the work,” Sanders said. He told the trustees that they could read the report in their spare time. The report was regarding to the barrier on the cemetery site on the side, which is near the river. For more information on this barrier and the water issues at the cemetery district please see https://kernvalleysun.com/cemetery-manager-updates-on-staff-improvements-and-old-cemetery-rescue-plans/
Regarding the water well, Sanders said, “We are doing great with water. We did a bunch of maintenance.” He explained that after the acid wash, in the water well, the acid broke everything down into kind of a liquid form instead of being solid against the pipe. After that the workers turned the pump back on to flush it all out. They found out then that the iron deposit, which they were trying flush out, had worn down the impeller in the pump to the point that it wouldn’t pump. Therefore when they were done, they realized they had less water pumping than before. They pulled all 75 feet of pipe out of the ground and figured out that they still had sediment stuck inside the pipe. They flushed all of that out, cleaned it out, and put it back in and then had to buy a new pump. “Now it is pumping tons of water,” said Sanders. He and the Grounds Keeper, Reno Shadden, were evaluating how many minutes were getting on each circuit and have been checking and cleaning the drip lines. He said, “It costs us some money to do this maintenance and get it done. But it’s way cheaper than buying another well.” Sanders could not promise how long such repairs would make the well last or whether they’d need a new well down the road.
This type of sediment that builds up doesn’t go away. It will build back up according to Sanders. The district will probably have to do an acid wash annually and do maintenance a couple of times per year. Sanders said that they used the company, Piute Pump for this process. “I used them at the Rodeo grounds as well and have a good rapport with them. So we’ll keep you posted on that,” he said. The drip systems water the trees and bushes.
Everything got clogged with iron algae. So when they turned the sprinklers on they were getting plugged up with the algae and the drip system has the iron algae as well.
The district will soon be laying out signage, pointing out sections of the cemetery, to help people find their loved ones and granite signage, they ordered from Legacy, for each of the urn banks and at the hexagon ones. Sanders said his goal was to have all, or at least most, of the signage up by Veterans Day.
The district has been working on a SIM Sites computer system, which is interactive and will lead people to find their loved one’s burial plot. This could take close to a couple of months to get solidified for employees to train in how to use it. I will be based on the district’s current mapping system and could be updated by employees regarding new burials.
