That concrete pit sounds rough, maybe call ahead and ask about their enrichment plan before visiting places like that.

Yep, that tracks with a job I had on the Red River a few years back. Plain suction through that sticky blue clay was a nightmare, we were pulling it every 10 minutes to clear the intake. Swapped to a cutterhead and got almost double your numbers, it just broke up the clay way better before it ever hit the pump. The difference is night and day on that stuff, plain suction is worthless once you hit anything cohesive.

Man, that's the thing - we're so obsessed with cheap and fast now that nothing's built to last past the warranty. Wonder if any of our modern concrete slabs will even be standing in 50 years, let alone a century.