LATEST ARTICLES

By Sam Rice, certified pond professional/landscape designer

At Francis Tuttle Technology Center in Oklahoma City, Wilson Falls was dedicated to a former director of facilities.

BB Mofic, LLC installed two pumps in the water feature with a total capacity in just under 14,000 GPH. The waterfall is connected to the existing pond with a 75-foot, cascading stream. Total grade change from the top of the waterfall to water’s edge at the pond is about 11 feet.

The director of facilities at Francis Tuttle Technology Center in northwest Oklahoma City said that they wanted to have a waterfall built (at an existing pond). This would serve as a tribute to a former director of facilities and name it “Wilson Falls.” Sam Rice and his contracting business, BB Mofic, LLC decided to take on this project pro bono at the vocational technical school.

This water feature was built adjacent to a walking trail that the school was installing as the project was built. It’s unlikely there’s another school in the metropolitan area with a walking trail and a water feature of this magnitude.

Rice agreed to build the project for them at a heavily discounted price. He didn’t charge them for design/individual time or labor. The center was only charged for out of pocket hard material costs and the costs of labor (crew and machinery hire). The business donated about five tons of rock that had been left from previous jobs as well.

The project was dug in one day with the heavy equipment operator roughed in. Work began full time around April 1. Rice took on the project for several reasons. It was a chance to build an upscale water feature project in a public setting. The school had decided that they were going to install a walking track for public use and the waterfall was to be sited next to it.

The retention pond/streambed was dug with a Bobcat 341 mini excavator, primarily in one day. Some hand-work was needed in shaping the edges and where the stream cascaded down to the next level. A Case backhoe was used in conjunction with a combination of straps and chains to move large boulders.

Little was done to grade the site, except for in front of the retention pond. Excess dug-up dirt graded up to boulders on the front side of the retention pond. The rest were hauled to an area on the back of the school...the site sloped to the existing pond, allowing to build the stream to grade.

Two pumps served on this project. The primary pump was a Sequence 11,000 gph external pump housed in a weather resistant pump vault. The secondary pump was an Atlantic TidalWave 2 Pump 2,400 gph that operates a secondary waterfall in the streambed about two-thirds the way down the stream towards the pond. This secondary pump is designed to be run while the big pump is operational and simply gives more flow.