Identify and Solve Problems with an Older Well

After a wet summer it has been an unusually dry fall. These are the perfect conditions to discover if your old well is failing. Unlike machinery wells failure can be a slow and gradual process, for a small household that thoughtfully conserves water an old well can be nursed through several dry spells before having to address the problem. Natural groundwater levels usually reach their lowest point in late September or October, but the oddly dry fall has resulted in declining water levels into November. The highest groundwater levels tend to be during March and April, but the unusually dry fall has produced a slew of failing wells around here. Remember, a mechanical component is much more likely to fail than the well itself. If your water supply has lost pressure, and seems to be drizzling out of your faucet your problem could simply be a loss of pressure in the pressure tank or damage to or a leak in the bladder in the pressure tank. If your water pulses as it comes out of the faucet, the most likely cause is short cycling of the pump, which could be caused by inadequate water supply or another faulty component in the pump system. However, there are times that the problem is the well and the water supply.

A well that is going dry may produce water that looks muddy or here in Virginia with so much red clay it may look rusty. The water flow might sputter as air comes through the line instead of water as the pump draws air. If you have water first thing in the morning and again when you get home from work, but the supply seems to run out especially after doing a load of laundry or taking a shower. Then you may have a groundwater problem. According to Marcus Haynes of the PW Health District the effective yield from a well can fall 40-50% or more over 20-30 years, so a low yielding well ( a well that recharged at under 5 gallons a minute at completion) might have an effective life of only 25 years. Over time sediment and mineral scale build up inside the well closing the fractures that allow water to flow into the borehole.

To avoid be penny wise and pound foolish the first thing you need to do is figure out what is going on with your well. Do not call a plumber. A plumber is not trained to ascertain what is wrong with your well and the first thing that must be determined is if the problem is with the well or the mechanical components. Make sure that the service provider is licensed to service wells in Virginia (not all states require well drillers and well repair companies to be licensed). In Virginia a well driller should have at least a Class B contractor license and the service provider must be Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, DPOR, certified Well Water Providers. Since 1992 private drinking water well construction has been regulated in Virginia and well drillers have to be licensed. In many other places well drilling and water wells are still not regulated.

You can waste a lot of money if you do not understand what is going on with your well and implement the wrong repairs. You will need to spend money to test the well, test the well equipment and test the water quality. When you have a private well you pay for your water in the maintenance of your well and pump system. To isolate the problem with your water supply both your well and pump system need to be tested and examined. It costs about $200-$300 to have a well driller to do a flow test on your well and determine the water level. The flow test will tell you how quickly a well is recharging essentially telling you if your well has water and how much. You also need to know the condition of your pump and pressure tank which will cost about $200 to have those checked. The pump should be checked for amp load, grounding, and line voltage, and the pressure tank checked for psi, a functioning pressure switch (check the contacts for corrosion), and checked for leaks. Call the County Health Department to get a copy of your well completion report that will tell you how deep your well is, how old, the location of the water recharge zones and flow rate at completion. Ask the well specialist about the geology in your immediate location to know what can be done to restore the flow. Finally, you should test your water quality. At a minimum test of your water for iron, manganese, nitrate, lead, arsenic, fluoride, sulfate, pH, total dissolved solids, hardness, sodium, copper, total coliform bacteria and E. Coli bacteria, appearance, taste and anything else of local concern. Virginia holds a series of subsidized water testing clinics at various locations throughout the year at a cost of $49 privately this analysis could cost $100-$200. To identify the problem with your well and water supply will cost $500-$700.

At this point you should know what is wrong with your well, but the best way to fix your well is not always black and white. If the problem is the well, you have more options than just drilling a new well. Generally speaking, a new well costs $12,000-$20,000 plus other costs for piping to the house, a new pump and pressure tank. However, drilling a new well is not always the best answer. Cleaning a well or hydrofracking a well may restore the flow to a usable rate, but this can only be accomplished in bedrock. Hydrofracking can cost $3,000-$4,000, cleaning is cheaper.

Hydrofracturing, commonly referred to as hydrofracking, is a well development process that injects water under high pressure through the well into the bedrock formation. This process is intended to flush and remove fine particles and rock fragments from existing bedrock fractures and/or increase the size and extent of existing fractures, to increase the flow of water to the well. This technique can be used for older wells and can be very successful in parts of the Piedmont and other bedrock rock formations, but the improvement may not last beyond a few months. In diabase geology hydrofracking may do nothing and in siltstone it is unpredictable what may happen to the fractured system. I could not find statistics on long term failure rates for hydrofracking (only the impressions and experience of the VA DEH and USGS), but hydrofracking could work at least for a period of time- whether that time is months or years cannot be predicted. It is a good first step in trying to restore a well with a viable aquifer, and that is structurally sound.

There are times that the water table has fallen and lowering the pump or re-drilling a well might restore the well to a lower aquifer. Lowering the pump is the cheapest fix, for several hundred dollars you might be able to restore water to your home. However, there is generally only about 50 feet below the initial pump level to the bottom of the well. With the right equipment, an existing well can be re-drilled to a lower aquifer. Re-drilling a well can cost $10,000-$20,000 depending how deep you have to go to hit a viable aquifer, and not every well hits water. Not every well driller has the expertise and equipment to hydrofrack or re-drill wells, and locally based well drillers are familiar with the geology of a region. Well drilling equipment is expensive to move great distances- if your hire an out-of-town well driller, chances are they will subcontract the actual drilling anyway. Stay local when hiring well drillers.

If the well testing you performed tells you the well is still reliably producing water in the neighborhood of 0.5 gallons, there are ways to deal with it. First is water conservation and the second is to increase water storage within the system. Water conservation involves changing water–use behavior such as taking shorter showers, but usually involves installing water saving devices like a front-loading washer (saves over 20 gallons of water for each load- about half), low flush toilets, flow restricting faucets and shower heads. Installing water saving appliances can reduce household water use by up to 30%. Disconnect any water treatment systems that consume water. Water softening systems typically use 25 gallons in the 10 minute for each backwash cycle. Reverse osmosis systems use a lot of water. They recover only 5%-15% of the water entering the system. The remainder is discharged as waste water. A reverse osmosis system delivering 5 gallons of treated water per day may discharge 40 to 90 gallons of waste water per day to the septic system. Also, check for plumbing leaks. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency one out of every 10 homes has a leak that is wasting at least 90 gallons of water per day.

Water conservation may solve the problem of a 4 gallon a minute well, but increasing water storage can make a reliable 0.5 gallon a minute well viable for a modern household. An intermediate storage system can either be the well itself if deep enough or a storage tank, reservoir or cistern that can be installed between the well and pressure tank. The reservoir or storage serves as the primary source of supply for the pressure tank supplying peak demand. Ideally, the storage tank or cistern should be able to hold at least a day’s water supply and be regulated by a float switch or water level sensor. A 0.5 gallon a minute well can pump 720 gallons per day more than adequate for a household, you just need to capture it. The rule of thumb is to size a storage tank or cistern at 100 gallons per person in the household. Every two feet of well below the static water level holds almost 12 gallons so that 120 feet of well below the static water level will hold 720 gallons. It is important to use disinfection if you have a cistern.

New York Fracking Report Leaked to the New York Times

Extent of Marcellus Shale within the Devonian Shale of the Northeast- USGS

Last Thursday the New York Times reported that an analysis on fracking prepared in early 2012 was leaked to their paper. This analysis was prepared last year after the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s 2011 draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on drilling comment period was closed and might have been prepared in response to the comments received. The 8 pages obtained by the New York Times were characterized by the paper as containing an analysis that showed that hydraulic Fracturing, or fracking, could be safely done in New York by implementing the proper mitigation measures. The report, obtained by the New York Times from and “expert who did not believe it should be kept secret,” was characterized by State Department of Environmental Conservation, DEC, as an out of date summary that was nearly a year old and will undergo significant changes. The revised version of the Environmental Impact Statement has not yet been completed or released and the DEC’s health assessment is being reviewed by three outside experts. I think someone may have violated the terms of their consulting contract.

The report (or summary) the New York Times had seems to be in agreement with the recommendations made in the report of the Shale Gas Subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board in 2011. That report had a rational approach to regulation recommending disclosure, testing, evaluation and modification of regulation and practices based on the information and data obtained. It assumes information and data will be gathered and analyzed and seems to be the accepted view, but fracking is a highly complex issue whose greatest risks are to our water resources. There needs to be much more data collected over time and analyzed. That has not being done in the past and until extensive data is collected and studied we will not truly know. The data needs to be collected on a state by state basis and provided to the US Geological Survey (USGS) and US EPA to consolidate on a national level. It is essential that the USGS be involved because of the unique expertise and research in geology and water resources.

In 2011, the EPA began a series of research projects into the impacts and potential impacts of fracking on water that are scheduled for completion in late 2014. These projects will be the basis of their actions and future regulations for oil and gas operations. Whether the EPA will regulate oil and gas exploration nationally or leave the oversight in the hands of the states is an open question. There is an argument that water resources and geology are very local phenomena and cannot be generalized over the nation and that hydraulic fracturing should remain under local oversight. According to the New York Times the leaked report rejects performing a quantitative risk assessment because such an assessment would ‘involve making a large number of assumptions about the many scenario-specific variables that influence the nature and degree of potential human exposure and toxicity.”

The EPA research projects may help with that though all the answers will not be known in 2014.  The current fracking projects at the EPA are a series of studies. Existing Data from multiple sources have been obtained for review and analysis. Well construction and hydraulic fracturing records provided by well drillers are being reviewed for 333 oil and gas wells across the United States; data within these records are being examined to assess the effectiveness of current well construction practices at containing gases and liquids before, during, and after hydraulic fracturing.

Computer models are being developed (or expanded) to identify conditions that may lead to impacts on drinking water resources from hydraulic fracturing. The EPA has created hypothetical scenarios for water acquisition, well injection, and wastewater treatment and waste disposal stages of the water cycle that they hope to have the models evaluate. Computer models are also being used to explore the possibility of subsurface gas and fluid migration from deep shale formations to overlying aquifers in different scenarios. The effectiveness of the models would be dependent on how closely the model predicts transport behavior in rock and shale and the similarity in behavior of different formations.

Laboratory studies are being performed to identifying potential impacts of inadequately treating hydraulic fracturing wastewater and discharging it to rivers. Experiments are being designed to test how well common wastewater treatment processes remove selected contaminants from hydraulic fracturing wastewater, including brines, heavy metals, radionuclides and organic contaminants. Since wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove more than biological waste and bacteria, any removal of fracking chemicals and contaminants would be incidental.

The EPA has identified chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids from 2005 to 2011 and chemicals found in flowback and produced water. The EPA is performing toxicity assessments based on chemical, physical, and toxicological properties for chemicals with known chemical structures and using exiting toxicology models to estimate properties in cases where information is not available. The important thing that EPA is doing is bringing together all the data and previous work to get as complete picture of what we know about how hydraulic fracturing may be impacting our water resources and that would allow a broad quantitative health risk assessment to be performed along the identified routes of exposure.  

New York placed a moratorium on drilling in the Marcellus Shale in 2010 while it assessed the effects of fracking. New York DEC’s draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on drilling was released in the fall of 2011 and recommended that drilling be permitted, but with conditions. The comment period was extended and the DEC began a revision to the EIS that has been going on for over a year. The leaked report indicates that the DEC is recommending lifting the ban on hydro fracking in New York, but that is not certain and fracking remains controversial for good reason.

A large swath of southwestern New York sits atop the Marcellus Shale, which is the third-largest natural gas field currently known in the world. The Marcellus Shale alone is estimated to be 500-trillion-cubic-feet of gas reserve. This resource could heat our homes for a generation or more, and power our electrical generating plants, even fuel cars either directly or through plug in hybrids. The possible impacts to our economy and environment are far reaching. The potential risks are also far reaching.

Our ability to recover natural gas buried a mile or more beneath the earth has increased. Advances in horizontal drilling which allows a vertically drilled well to turn and run thousands of feet laterally through the earth combined with advances in hydraulic fracking, the pumping of millions of gallons of chemicals and water into shale at high pressure have increased our ability to recover natural gas from shale. Hydraulic fracking while old has made tremendous advances in the past 15 years have made it possible to economically access this gas. Our knowledge of the impacts from fracking has lagged behind our ability to access the gas.

 

In hydraulic fracking on average 2-5 million gallons of chemicals and water is pumped into the shale formation at 9,000 pounds per square inch and literally cracks the shale or breaks open existing cracks and allows the trapped natural gas to flow. Each stage of the fracking water cycle is a potential area for impact to drinking water supplies especially from human error and irresponsibly and improperly handling chemicals and contaminated water and poorly managing and protecting our water resources. Water used for fracturing fluids is acquired from surface water or groundwater in the local area. Billions of gallons of water will be used in each region for fracking. Wastewaters from the hydraulic fracturing process (flowback or water produced in the well) needs to be properly treated before it is returned to the waters of the earth. The reality is all water on earth has been here for 4.5 billion years and no new water is being created. The fate of the water that flows back after fracturing has to be addressed, but not all fracturing fluids injected into the geologic formation are recovered. The EPA estimates that the fluids recovered range from 15-80% of the volume injected depending on the site. The long term fate of any residual fluid has not been studied.

 There have been documented cases of seepage into drinking water wells through improperly sealed or abandoned drilling wells.  An ongoing monitoring and data collection program needs to be part of the permitting process. Potential impacts to our water supply from hydraulic fracking needs to be studied over time and regulations modified to better protect our water supplies and natural resources as fracking expands in the region. Our water resources are sacred and irreplaceable. The gas will be there when we know how to access it safely.  The least risky course might be to delay lifting the moratorium until the US EPA finishes its research in late 2014 and then slowly allow a limited number of wells that will include monitoring over decades of the groundwater resources in the area with all the data given to the USGS for analysis.  Any area in consideration for fracking should have several years of quarterly groundwater testing and analysis before fracking begins to establish a base line for groundwater study. Now would be a good time to start developing groundwater monitoring programs.    

After Your Well Goes Dry-What Can Be Done

In my corner of Northern Virginia there seem to be a slew of well failures lately-maybe more than usual or maybe it just seems that way. There was no snow melt this year and we flirted with drought all summer. Even if an aquifer is sound a well may fail. In a well, a diminished water supply is characterized by a short period of adequate water in the morning (or after resting the well for hours or days) and then almost a complete loss of water. Another typical symptom is loss of water after doing a load of laundry. (A top loading washing machine uses about 51 gallons of water and a front loader uses 27 gallons.) What is happening is overnight the well bore hole is filling with as much water as it can still produce and the pressure tank gets filled- a tenth of a gallon a minute will still be able to fill the pressure tank overnight and give you enough water for a bit of a wash up (depending on whether you have low flow toilets, sinks and showers). This low flow to the well can be caused by drop in water level in the well due to drought or over pumping of the aquifer, or the well could be failing due to a buildup of dirt, sediment and gravel reducing the flow to the well. There are times that the steel casing that lines the first 40-60 feet of a well does not extend deep enough and the well walls crumble over time filling the well with dirt and gravel. One or more of these factors could be the cause of a well problem.

The natural fluctuations of groundwater levels are most pronounced in shallow wells and wells that are failing, both tend to go dry in the fall of a drought year. Groundwater levels are usually highest in the early spring in response to winter snow melt and spring rainfall when the groundwater is recharged. Groundwater levels begin to fall in May and typically continue to decline during summer as plants and trees use the available shallow groundwater to grow and streams draws water from the groundwater aquifer to keep flowing. Natural groundwater levels usually reach their lowest point in late September or October when fall rains begin to recharge the groundwater again.Geology also impacts groundwater, fractured siltstone is very porous and filled with water while diabase stone has very low yielding wells.

Groundwater supply can change because groundwater systems are dynamic. The Piedmont where I live is bordered by the “fall zone” on the east and the Blue Ridge Mountains on the west. The Piedmont is the largest geological region in Virginia and has a diverse geology largely dominated by igneous and metamorphic rocks, with some areas of sedimentary rocks. The fractures and fault lines formed in the rocks store and transmit groundwater. The size and number of water bearing fractures decrease with depth so significant supplies of water are generally located in the first few hundred feet. There is a wide variation in groundwater quality and yield ranging from under 1 gallon per minute to over 50 gallons a minute depending on location and specific site geology. The largest yields are obtained where fracture and fault system are extensive. In other areas of the Piedmont there are carbonate rocks within the areas of Karst terrain with the most robust and easily contaminated wells and finally there are also area where disintegration of the granite bedrock forms a zone of granular material with slow recharge and relatively high and annoying amounts of iron and sulfur. To be productive a well must be located within a fracture or pass through them.

In the Valley and Ridge of Virginia the geology is characterized by unconsolidated overlay underlain also by fractured rock. Fractured rock systems tend to be water rich areas of Virginia, but not uniformly so. Fractures can run dry. In unconsolidated sediments of the coastal plain ground water is pulled from the saturated zone which is being overtaxed and may be significantly impacted by drought. In the Appalachian Plateau which is a flat layered rock system with horizontal fractures, the coal seams are typically the aquifer and groundwater is typically shallow. Coal country is the location of many shallower dug wells which tend to follow the weather and be noticeably drier every fall.

If your well has gone dry or is down to a dribble you have four basic options: do nothing and hope the well replenishes after the winter, drill a new well, hydrofracture the existing well, or re-drill the existing well down to a lower aquifer. What is the best solution is dependent on geology, the condition of the aquifers, whether there is another likely location for a well on your property, and your financial resources. In many parts of the Piedmont, with enough money you can fix a well. Many wells draw water from more than one aquifer- there is more than one water zone. If you look at the water well completion report that you can obtain from the County Department of Environmental Health, VA DEH, you will see more than one water zone. Recently, I have seen wells where the shallow water zone appears to be dry and the lower aquifer still has some water, but is not providing enough flow to support a household.

It is impossible to look at a well and know if the aquifer has failed or just the well. The best proxy is the U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, monitoring wells and other wells in the neighborhood. Checking with VA DEH, the USGS and neighbors and the HOA will give a better picture of the aquifer. Several wells in a particular neighborhood in Prince William County have failed, though it did not seem apparent to individual homeowners, the problem was with the shallow aquifer. According to the nearest U.S. Geological Survey monitoring wells the lower aquifer appeared to be fine, and there is a possibility that there is some flow left in the shallow aquifer (around 60 feet) foot aquifer even in the drought water levels have fallen only about 10-12 feet in the USGS monitoring well. The aquifer itself cannot be seen so intelligent speculation is the best that can be done.

In Prince William County, the aquifers are not over pumped, but wells can still fail. Over time debris and deposits can build up in a well and the small earthquake that occurred last fall could have increased the deposits then this year’s drought reduced the water quantity and suddenly the well has failed. Fall and winter rains might recharge the shallow aquifer and the problem could be a seasonal or drought related problem, but drought can go on for years and living with limited water for months or having the well bore dry out even more is not an good solution. Using hydrofracking to flush out the hole by might get enough flow back into the well now to function adequately to keep the well itself full of water. Every two feet of well can hold just under 12 gallons of water, so a well producing half a gallon a minute with 100 feet of well below the static water level can support a household.

Hydrofracturing, commonly referred to as hydrofracking, is a well development process that injects water under high pressure through the well into the bedrock formation. This process is intended to flush and remove fine particles and rock fragments from existing bedrock fractures and/or increase the size and extent of existing fractures, resulting in an increased flow of water, and a larger network of water bearing fractures supplying water to the well. The procedure is often used to increase well yields of new deep drilled wells with inadequate water production rates. It may also be used for older wells that have diminished water recovery rates over time, which is usually caused by the build up of minerals and fine particles in the rock fracture over time. It can be very successful in parts of the Piedmont and other bedrock rock formations, but the improvement may not last beyond a few weeks or months. In diabase hydrofracking may do nothing and in siltstone it is unpredictable what may happen to the fractured system. I could not find statistics on long term failure rates for hydrofracking (only the impressions and experience of the VA DEH and USGS), but hydrofracking could work at least for a period of time- whether that time is weeks, months or years can not be predicted. Hydrofracking a water well should cost $3,000-$4,000. It is a good first step in trying to restore a well with a viable aquifer, and that is structurally sound.

If restoring an existing well does not work or does not appear to be an option because of geology or the condition of the aquifer, then it will be necessary to drill a new well or re-drill the existing well to a lower aquifer. There are times on a small property with only an acre or two of land that there are no other likely locations for a new well or that the cost to pipe the water from a distant corner of the property makes using the existing well bore the best choice. With the right equipment, an existing well can be re-drilled to a lower aquifer. Not every well driller has the expertise and equipment to hydrofrack or re-drill wells, and locally based well drillers are familiar with the geology of a region. Well drilling equipment is expensive to move great distances- if your hire an out-of-town well driller, chances are they will subcontract the actual drilling anyway. Stay local when hiring well drillers. Get references, check insurance, and licenses. Since 1992 private drinking water well construction has been regulated in Virginia and well drillers have to be licensed. In many other places well drilling and water wells are still not regulated. Generally speaking, a new well or re-drilled well costs $12,000-$20,000 plus other costs for piping to the house, pumps and pressure tanks.

If a property has a low producing well in the neighborhood of 0.5 gallons, there are ways to deal with it. First is water conservation and the second is to increase water storage within the system. Water conservation involves changing water–use behavior such as taking shorter showers, but usually involves installing water saving devices like a front-loading washer (saves over 20 gallons of water for each load- about half), low flush toilets, flow restricting faucets and shower heads. Installing water saving appliances can reduce household water use by up to 30%. Water conservation may solve the problem of a 4 gallon a minute well, but increasing water storage can make a reliable 0.5 gallon a minute well viable for a modern household. An intermediate storage system can either be the well itself if deep enough or a storage tank, reservoir or cistern that can be installed between the well and pressurized distribution system. The reservoir or storage serves as the primary source of supply for the pressure pump supplying peak demand. Ideally, the storage tank or cistern should be able to hold at least a day’s water supply and be regulated by a float switch or water level sensor. A 0.5 gallon a minute well can pump 720 gallons per day more than adequate for a household. The rule of thumb is to size a storage tank or cistern at 100 gallons per person in the household. Every two feet of well below the static water level holds almost 3 gallons so that 120 feet of well below the static water level will hold about 175 gallons this may be adequate only if water use is spread out throughout the day.