Chapter 341 The Unsolved Mystery of Chencun Reservoir
Chen Zongqing is the reservoir manager of Chencun. He is in his fifties and is about to retire.
Fortunately, reservoir management is not a difficult job. On weekdays, you just need to take time to inspect the reservoir to see if the water level exceeds the standard or observe whether the water body is polluted.
When the flood season comes, the gates of the reservoir station are activated, the drainage outlets are opened, the drainage volume is increased, and the water level is stabilized below the warning range.
No one wanted to do such an easy job in the early years because the salary was very low.
It was not until the economy developed in recent years, subsidies and benefits continued to increase, and An County began to pay attention to water resource protection, that the salary of the reservoir manager rose to around 3,000 yuan.
You don't have to go to work every day. You can just find time to go a few times a month, which is equivalent to earning a living just by lying down. Some old men and women in the village expressed their envy.
But don’t think this job is easy. When it’s windy, rainy or there’s a typhoon, Chen Zongqing becomes very busy.
As there had just been a heavy rain and the flood season in summer was relatively long, Chen Zongqing specially put on a raincoat and went to the reservoir overnight in the heavy rain.
Seeing that none of the instruments in the reservoir's management room sounded an alarm, Chen Zongqing breathed a sigh of relief. He felt that he had been a little too cautious.
After all, the Chencun Reservoir has been built for more than half a century and no major problems have occurred.
Only once every few years when the sluice gates are opened to release water and clean up the garbage and silt at the bottom of the reservoir will villagers from miles around come to go fishing in the reservoir.
"It's raining heavily, I'd better stay here a little longer." Chen Zongqing thought so and stayed in the management office to pass the time by browsing his phone.
With the popularization of smart phones, middle-aged people in rural areas like him have also become addicted to watching short videos.
When the rain gradually stopped, Chen Zongqing cut off the power in the management office, folded his raincoat and prepared to go down the mountain.
Before going out, he paid special attention to the water level. After all, it was his duty.
But when Chen Zongqing spent a few minutes slowly walking to the temple at the reservoir exit, a very loud "plop" came from the reservoir area behind.
"What's that sound?"
"Are the fish jumping?" Chen Zongqing muttered in his heart. The ground was muddy after it had just rained, and the air was damp and cold. He didn't take the noise seriously and went down to the reservoir early.
But when Chen Zongqing came to check again the next morning, he was dumbfounded!
The water in such a large reservoir dried up completely overnight!
Dead fish were everywhere, lying belly up in the mud. The cracked bottom of the reservoir looked like a drought that hadn't been seen in decades. The dry land had even turned the silt in the reservoir into sand.
There is only a small stream flowing slowly upstream of the reservoir.
But faced with such a large reservoir area, the water from the mountain stream is simply not enough to store it!
Even if it can be fully stored, it will take ten days or half a month, unless there are several more heavy rains like last night.
"What's going on?"
"Why did the water drain?"
"The gates were clearly sealed tightly last night!" Chen Zongqing's eyes widened and his mouth opened wide.
He was afraid that some ignorant village kid had misbehaved and sneaked into the management office to drain all the water from the reservoir overnight. If that was true, the crops in the villages below the reservoir would be flooded.
Thinking of this, Chen Zongqing hurried to the management office to take a look.
The lock on the door was intact and the door was closed.
The gates inside were also closed, but the surveillance of the reservoir area seemed to have been affected by some kind of electromagnetic interference last night. It was now completely out of order and turned into a snow screen.
Looking at the dry scene in the reservoir, Chen Zongqing knew that this matter could not be concealed.
Besides, such a big thing was beyond the control of a manager who only earned 3,000 yuan. Many villagers who got up early in the morning were already on the dam watching the excitement.
So, Chen Zongqing called the county water bureau without saying a word and asked them to send someone to find out what was happening at the Chencun Reservoir.
…
Although the Chencun Reservoir does not directly supply drinking water to the water plant, it is used to irrigate crops in several nearby townships and some factories also draw water from this source.
Once the reservoir dries up, it will not only cause damage to the environment, but also affect the economic benefits of the villagers. This is a top priority for the staff of the Water Bureau.
In addition, the country roads were well built and the reservoir manager's urgent report soon led to an office director from the Water Affairs Bureau and his men driving hurriedly from the county town.
"Old Chen, you said the reservoir was fine last night, but it dried up overnight?"
"Yes, Director Zhou! I came here for an inspection at around 8 o'clock last night. Everything was fine before I left. When I woke up this morning, the reservoir had become like this. It's really strange."
Director Zhou, who was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, immediately patrolled the edge of the reservoir after getting out of the car, and then called Chen Zongqing to ask a few questions.
Seeing that he had no clue, Director Zhou asked several technicians who came with him to check all the machines in the management room.
"Xiao Liu, is the gate data normal? Is there any record of the gate opening due to short circuit?" Director Zhou asked with a frown.
"No! Director, the gates in this storage area are all old-fashioned mechanical switches. They won't start automatically unless the motor is started."
“And look at the peak discharge volume. Even if the gate is fully opened, it won’t drain the water like this overnight.” A technician touched the machine and shook his head.
At this time, several staff members who had gone down to the bottom of the reservoir to check the situation had climbed up with the water samples and biological samples they had just collected.
One of the men wearing glasses wiped his sweat and reported, panting, "Director! There is a very deep pit in Curry, it looks like it was caused by a meteorite!"
"We also found a lot of signs of boiling water on the shore. Look at these dead fish and water plants. They have obviously been boiled."
"Meteorite?!"
"Are you saying that a meteorite fell into the reservoir last night?" Director Zhou's glasses widened, and he hurriedly followed several staff members down to the bottom of the reservoir again.
After walking through a large area of dried-up mud, everyone saw a scene that they would never forget!
In the central area of the bottom of the reservoir, there was a huge sunken pit with a diameter of more than 100 meters.
Along the edge of the giant pit, you can see traces of stacked layers like waves, as if there is a high-temperature object in the center that releases a large amount of heat to the outside.
Even though the heat source had disappeared, Director Zhou and his colleagues standing by the pit could still feel a bit of heat.
"It really looks like it was smashed by a meteorite!"
"Because of the meteorite falling, all the water in the reservoir was evaporated?"
"It shouldn't be like this! If there really was a meteorite of such great power, the reservoir would have been blown away long ago." Director Zhou pursed his dry lips and took a look at the intact dam. He felt that he had really encountered some difficulties during this trip to the countryside.
So, after investigating the scene for a while, Director Zhou called the county leader.
After the news was reported to higher levels, the county also sent experts from the cultural relics and geological and mining departments to conduct an inspection.
After searching the entire storage area, the experts were depressed because they didn't find even a single piece of meteorite fragment!
Instead, dozens of carcasses of invasive species, such as scavenger catfish and bearded catfish, were found in the dried-up reservoir . It was probably that they were deliberately released into the reservoir by pilgrims from some temple.
After several days of such trouble, the mystery of the reservoir drying up remained unsolved. Instead, the staff of the Water Affairs Bureau who came to investigate gave a stern verbal warning to the monks of the small temple next door that the village spent millions to build, to prevent them from instigating believers to throw strange things into the reservoir again.
When the reservoir was filled with water and restored to its previous state, the matter finally came to an end and became a topic of conversation among villagers in several nearby villages.
