Heh: Went back to check on that stock tank today…
Cistern is near empty.
Ground is saturated all around it.
Plumbing to the stock tank works, though. This is simple as can be: The stock tank is just a bit downhill from the cistern so it gets water any time water is available. There’s a valve with a float, like a toilet tank valve on steroids, to keep the level where you want it. It’s under that mesh so the cattle can’t screw with it.
But it only works when the cistern level is higher than this. Which it no longer is.
I suppose next they’ll either recoat the inside of the cistern or maybe drop in a plastic tank and plumb it to the outlet pipe. Dunno. Looks as though they left the generator to run out of fuel last night; I see no sign that anybody was around there today.
A plastic tank is probably the most expedient solution. But yes, it will be interesting to see what they do.
When one of the rain-water tanks at my parents’ place had a leak, somebody suggested truck-bed liner.
Empty the tank, scrub it clean, spray on the liner – problem solved.
It doesn’t even really matter if it never fully bonds to the concrete surface all that well, as it forms a semi-rigid giant plastic bag. The concrete takes the load, and stops the bag from shifting or bursting.
Might be difficult to transport the mixing and spraying equipment to THAT site though. 🙂
Is it paranoid of me to think that, if it were my cistern, I’d have a trail cam set up to see if any disgruntled locals were messing with my water? Yeah, probably just paranoia.