Expert: Richard J. Raridon - 7/31/2008

Question
A town consumes 145,000,000 gallons of water per day.  This amount of water is collected in a holding pond.

Calculate dimensions of the pond.

Thanks for your assistance.

Answer
Since you didn't give the depth of the pond or whether it is round or square, I have to make some assumptions.  First of all, there are 7.477 gallons in a cubic foot so 1.45x10^8 gallons = 1.94x10^7 ft^3.
Let's assume the pond is x feet deep and is round with a radius of r feet.  Therefore, the volume of the pond is (pi)xr^2.  Set that equal to 1.94x10^7.  If you assume the pond is 5 feet deep, then the pond has a radius of 1111 feet.  Or you could assume a radius and calculate the corresponding depth.