1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to drainage for land areas. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system for draining land areas, such as golf courses and farms through the collection of water into a principal catch basin having permeable walls, and subsequently siphoning the water collected from the catch basin to a distant exit point such as a lake, canal, ditch or the like. There could be further included a series of secondary catch basins draining into the principal permeable catch basin, so that an even larger area may be drained through siphoning from a single control system.
2. General Background
In the present state of the art, drainage water such as water from heavy rains or the like may be collected either by a catch basin or a sub-surface drainage system that collects water through seepage. At the present time, a catch basin, which consist of a substantially box-like chamber is set within the ground and positioned at a low point where water would flow under gravity and be collected within the catch basin. At this point the water is exited through a solid pipe at a one percent slope whenever possible, so that the water then exits into some type of collection system such as a lake, pond or creek. However, often times there is insufficient fall from the point of the collection system to the exit point to either obtain a 1% grade or any positive grade at all. The only alternatives, therefore, in the past, have been to either not attempt to do the drainage at all or to attempt to build a gravel sump, dry well, or sump pump. The concept behind these systems relate to the fact that the gravel sump will provide some temporary storage capacity for the water moving out of the collection system and maintain it until it can slowly seep back into the soil profile. Often times there will be a dry well built that will extend deep enough to reach a permeable strata below the less permeable layers that are near the surface. The system has two main problems, i.e., (a) the sumps have very little capacity, and once the storage capacity is filled, the collection system will back up and stop functioning; and (b) for a system to extend deep enough into the ground to hit a sand strata, it can be a very expensive system to install, depending on the depth of the sand strata. The Environmental Protection Agency is now concerned that bringing surface water down to these strata may contaminate the water table.
The other alternative is to build a sump pump which operates a pump off of a float switch and pumps the water out every time the level of the water activates the float switch. The problem with these systems is that they require a large amount of maintenance, are expensive, and a pump has to be located at each sump.
There also is a problem with the existing type of catch basin that is presently installed. These systems operate very well when they are surrounded by an impermeable surface, such as asphalt or concrete for street or parking lot drainage. However, in land drainage such as farms and golf courses, these systems are surrounded by permeable areas of soil. The problem is that before the water can enter the catch basin system, many times a large amount of water is trapped into the permeable soil profile surrounding the catch basin itself. Once that water is trapped into the soil profile, it cannot enter through the solid walls constructed of concrete or brick, and stays in the soil profile, thus creating a wet soggy saturated area. The other problem with existing catch basins is that they are designed only to stop the largest particles from entering the pipe that is used to drain the water out of the catch basin. Therefore, many contaminants such as small rocks and branches become lodged into the piping system. To prolong the time period before clogging occurs in drainage pipes, it has been a common practice to oversize the pipe in relation to the amount of water that is necessary to be drained. This oversizing of pipe to prevent clogging increases the expense of materials for the piping, as well as the installation costs because larger amounts of dirt must be excavated to install the pipe. Also, there is no system provided in existing drainage systems for allowing the escape of air trapped within the soil profile. This air reaches an equilibrium with the infiltrating water and stops the infiltration of the water into the soil profile. If this air were allowed to escape, a larger portion of the profile could absorb the infiltrating rainwater.
There have been several patents which address the drainage of water in a system. The most pertinent are listed as follows, including a narrative of each submitted in applicants Prior Art Statement, filed herewith:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. INVENTOR TITLE ______________________________________ 4,299,697 Curati, Jr. "A Liquid Containment And Storage System For Rail- road Tracks" 1,734,777 Pike "System Of Draining" 462,864 Hershberger "Catch Basin For Sewers" 2,432,203 Miller "Catch Basin" 4,472,086 Leach "Geotextile Fabric Construction" ______________________________________