I had never seen a tank like this before. The tank receives hot water from the plant, then cools it by raining it down into a pool below. The pool is about five feet deep with a 12 foot reservoir at the end that is fitted with four pumps that send the cooled water back out to the plant.
The job was twofold - vacuum out the fermented ick that tags along with the water from the plant, then clean and inspect around the pumps.
My co-worker and I handled the hydradyne vacuuming work in the main pool and my team lead handled the dive work to clean around the pumps. Working around the pumps is extremely dangerous - these pumps are around 20" wide and will suck a man through without missing a beat. While we ensured that the pumps were turned off one by one as my diver was working around them, this work is still very dangerous because an umbilical or cleaning hose can potentially be sucked into an active pump, pulling the diver through afterward.
To ensure maximum safety, I kept the diver on a very short leash (minimal umbilical was let out to ensure it couldn't be sucked into an active pump).
Since the pool was only five feet deep, my coworker and I wore our dry suits during the cleaning. Unfortunately, we still got completely soaked... probably from moving around so much in chest-deep water, climbing over and around the wooden structure, and standing under the water that rained down with the intensity of a hurricane. The worst part was that the water smelled like activated yeast... there was actually yeast floating in areas of the pool. We were wiped out by the end of the job.
The first portion of the job - cleaning the pool - took about three hours for my coworker and me to complete. The second portion - cleaning and inspecting the pumps - took about 45 minutes. It would have gone faster, but the lock-out, tag-out process and cycling the pumps off and on took additional time.
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