Madison Quarry Dive Report (7/1/06)

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mike_s

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Several of us checked out Madison Quarry for the first time this season. This is the 2nd weekend they've been open this year.


The water was down about 10 feet due to the 'water board test' in the past month, but that didn't stop the diving any. About the only thing that hindered was the use of the docks for an entry point. But no one seemed to have any problem entering from the road bed.

Attending from Scubaboard was myself, ScubaLuke, Rocketman, Boomer7, and Rbarbis1. We got together with some other divers and grilled out for lunch.

Water temps were GREAT for this time of year. Temps on the bottom were 74-76f, which is extremely warm for this time of year. Bottom temps last year this weekend were 66f for example. I expect bottom temps to be close to 78-80f by the end of the month, which is almost unheard of for quarry diving.

Vis was decent. 30 foot plus in some areas.... down to 5-10 feet in a couple areas that got a high amount of traffic. but that is about the norm for this quarry.

We got to visit most of the "items" sunk in the quarry on these dives. Icluding the rock crusher, horizontal tubes, the S-10 pickup, F4 fighter, minuteman missile, Titan Missile capsule ride, bridge span, NASA Observatory, NASA spacelab mockup tube, Houseboat, several small boats, the Firetruck, etc.


For anyone wanting to dive here, the quarry is open through a "limited use agreement" with the city water board. Right now the only shop you can dive it with is SDIScuba. I think a couple other shops are inquiring about setting up dates. For SDI dates, see http://www.sdiscuba.com


So..... A good day diving. we'll be headed out again if anyone wants to go.
 
Mike,
Great report. I had other duties that prevented me from diving or doing anything else really fun yesterday. I hope that we can get a dive in later this month.
Howard
 
mike_s:
The water was down about 10 feet due to the 'water board test' in the past month, but that didn't stop the diving any.
Jeez. I knew the quarry would be slow to refill, but not that slow. The water board should have left it alone, and gone and dug some new wells elsewhere.

Basically their emergency water supply consists of whatever is in the quarry plus an extremely slow refill from the ground water....

In any case, it is good to have the quarry back open!

David
 
bigDave:
Jeez. I knew the quarry would be slow to refill, but not that slow. The water board should have left it alone, and gone and dug some new wells elsewhere.

Basically their emergency water supply consists of whatever is in the quarry plus an extremely slow refill from the ground water....

In any case, it is good to have the quarry back open!

David

Is this bigDave that's from England?

Anyway, the quarry is refiling way too slow. But that most likely would mean that they couldn't use it as a viable water source. You'd think they would have completed the tests on this before they land did the 'land swap'. It's obvious that they did all this in a 'panic' and without much research or planning. It kinds puts egg on their face, but it mostly can be blamed on the person who just retired as head of the water board. He's been trying to "free" the waterboard from buying water from the City of Huntsville so they can claim they are self reliant, at the tax-payers exspense. It's all politics that goes back years.

I don't know if they'll use this as a water source in the end or not. The amount of water gained in such a short pump period might not be worth the isntallation of equipment, pumps, and water purification systems for such a short pump out.
 
Nope, I live in wonderful Madison. I was at one of the city council meetings where I pointed out that the quarry was easily pumped dry when it was still a quarry, and might not make such a good water source.

Not that they were interested in hearing anything like that....

David

mike_s:
Is this bigDave that's from England?

Anyway, the quarry is refiling way too slow. But that most likely would mean that they couldn't use it as a viable water source. You'd think they would have completed the tests on this before they land did the 'land swap'. It's obvious that they did all this in a 'panic' and without much research or planning. It kinds puts egg on their face, but it mostly can be blamed on the person who just retired as head of the water board. He's been trying to "free" the waterboard from buying water from the City of Huntsville so they can claim they are self reliant, at the tax-payers exspense. It's all politics that goes back years.

I don't know if they'll use this as a water source in the end or not. The amount of water gained in such a short pump period might not be worth the isntallation of equipment, pumps, and water purification systems for such a short pump out.
 
Well BigDave, if you're in Madison you should come out and join us diving out there one weekend. We had a good time this past weekend.
 
Good report. I have never dove in a quarry before...interesting.
 
Its like diving a junkyard, but because its underwater, its actually a heck of alot more fun than it reads :D
 
I was there too! Met some new folks, but had to leave at 12 (you know, family obligations...).

It was my first time at the quarry and it was pretty nice; I think it will be better once the water level comes back up. The weather was good, and me and my dive buddy got to practice a little bit more before our upcoming ocean dive in Myrtle Beach next week.
 
butlersl:
I was there too! Met some new folks, but had to leave at 12 (you know, family obligations...).

It was my first time at the quarry and it was pretty nice; I think it will be better once the water level comes back up. The weather was good, and me and my dive buddy got to practice a little bit more before our upcoming ocean dive in Myrtle Beach next week.

heck, hate we missed you. I didn't know to look for you.

we were in the area where the two sun tents were put up together behind a green Tahoe. with a small grill set up between us and one othe sun tent next to us.
 

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