The Well M&R Gateway

As in medicine, the uninformed find themselves at the mercy of the Vendor and Expert. There is temptation in some circles to offer authoritative-looking brochures (and reports and recommendation letters) threaded with technical jargon -- but offering conclusions and advice that do not necessarily provide for a long-term solution.  

We want you to become well-informed (as the utility pictured here has become) to avoid "snow jobs".To help you do that:
 

Look through these briefs and articles linked below and...

Come to or schedule our well rehabilitation and maintenance seminar or one of the associated topical presentations at your place or meeting.

Hardly -- Well maintenance and rehabilitation planning is NOT new. It is just neglected. The "recent" surge of interest began again in the early 1980s. Essential references have been out since the early 1990s (some bits and pieces before). Unfortunately, any new such bandwagon has its share of stuff of which to be wary and it seems like every chemical sales rep is a well cleaning expert anymore. Our goal is to guide you to good ideas and reliable practitioners of these arts. So, to start with, here is some BRIEF advice: 

• Design and Well Construction Materials Aspects: The design or materials selected were not the best for your wellfield situation or water biochemistry. Sometimes wells are just OLD. The well hydraulics or well location may not be the best, or the in-ground situation may have changed over time. Well development may not have been complete. Symptoms: Sand or turbidity, loss of flow, sudden changes in water quality, gradual drop in performance.
• Well Water Quality Indications: Symptoms: Water quality shows relatively high variability.
• Biofouling indicators: Symptoms: Sudden slugs of brown, black or red water, or unexpected and unexplained changes in water treatment performance. Short well and especially short pump life. Gradual to severe drop in performance.

    (1) Rehabilitation is usually done first to correct past mistakes and problems. This step has two axioms: (a) There are no "magic bullets" and (b) Treat - then establish a maintenance program. Maintenance can be established immediately on new wells. Maintenance is essential or rehab is a total waste of money.
    (2)Maintenance: Maintenance monitoring and treatment as necessary are less costly and far less disruptive to budgets, operations and system performance than repeated emergency rehabilitation over typical well life (20 years+).

Components of Maintenance Program:

A preventive maintenance program can be established to limit or retard well deterioration as part of an overall wellfield and water plant O&M plan. The goals of the program should be a combination of:

• preventive design and material selection,
• regular monitoring of indicators of possible well deterioration (maintenance monitoring) to detect changes that signal the onset of well and water system deterioration, and
• preventive treatments to control well and pipeline fouling in its early "light" stages.

Record-keeping is essential to effective well maintenance.

Improving the craft of well problem prevention and maintenance: Some simple ways.

What better way to avoid all the expense and grief of developing new wells or dealing with a water crisis next summer than to take good care of the good wells you have? Good well maintenance optimizes well efficiency and also water quality. Benefits include:

There is typically a cost (actually investment) to "getting in maintenance mode": Developing a rational plan, determining what deteriorating conditions may result in problems, equipping wells for easy flow and drawdown measurements, starting a regular PM program.

However, experience and calculations consistently show that these investments pay over a well's life span (actually within 10-20 years) in lower total costs and certainly in an evening out or "normalizing" of costs.

Such wellfield PM is part of a "Total Wellfield Management" approach: wellfields sited based on solid hydrogeologic study, protected from contamination, and pumped in a sustainable manner.

As mentioned at the top, a lot of people (including those proposing solutions) "follow false gods." Examples:

Why chlorinate a well? The little postcard asks me... "I don't know, why?" We ask. If you have to use a drop-pellet chlorinator to repress coliform bacteria, you need a new well, a liner, or to remove the source. Period. As for suppressing iron bacteria growth, these work OK for smaller-flow wells where ultimate decline in performance due to impaction on the borehole wall will not be noticeable. Otherwise, for your more critical wells, go for periodic maintenance cleaning with an appropriate mixture.

• If you're going to use one of these things, the design should keep pellets from lodging on metal parts, and pellet design and feed rate should ensure that pellets dissolve in the water column. Make the rep prove it and not try to divert you to some other topic like the sexy new case design.
• Plan on having to clean that calcite ooze that will accumulate in the well bottom.
  
• The companies making and selling these should also publicly address the formation of disinfection byproducts formed when chlorinating organic-laden biofilms.

The heartache of phosphorus in wells. In 1997, the Wisconsin Society of Professional Engineers honored a chemical product manufacturer for a "well conditioner" product (which is also NSF 60 certified) to be fed into a well in low dosage to "clean mineral precipitates and biological fouling."
This is a long-chain polyphosphate-based compound which is JUST FINE in a controlled water system pipeline environment, but in a biologically active ground water environment, it supplies just what organisms lack in ground water -- phosphate for metabolism and cell membrane formation. In this way, it is NO DIFFERENT than all the other nasty primitive phosphate compounds used for years.

• Polyphosphates in various forms provide impressive results in the short term. However, a pattern of accelerating decline of performance then begins.
  
• Please do not use polymer feeds as a well maintenance tool.
  
• DO NOT use phosphoric acid in well cleaning for the same reason. Recommendations to use it in the uncontrolled environment of wells are misguided even though well-intentioned.
  
• Please note that this is this author's professional opinion, to which others are entitled to disagree ("at their peril", he mumbles...). See a dialog with an earnest (but so far unrepentant) polyphosphate chemist on phosphate use in well cleaning.

"Biofouling is not too important in wells, mineral encrustation is more important and easily controlled using our special, exclusive method." Many false prophets are out there, and often claim exclusive possession of Wisdom. This heresy, from someone who should know better, has inexplicably reared its head again in influential circles after we spent years demonstrating otherwise.

"Tank cleaning" -  Water well intakes are predominantly cleaned by the proper application of force, augmented with chemicals. In some cases, you can soak a well in the appropriate solution and do some good, but tank surging (pumping into the well from a tank, raising the column height, then pumping to the tank - repeat) has a serious limitation. That is - the inability to apply force over the length of an intake to clean it all.  The tendency is for return water to 1) exit the top of the screen, 2) exit preferentially clean intervals, bypassing closed off intervals, and 3) channeling through weak zones in a screen's filter pack to recycle into the well bore. Tank cleaning should be confined to maintenance cleaning applications where performance has not seriously declined.

END of Misguided/Misinformed (formerly, insensitively, called the "Dumb") Idea Department.

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• We sort out what your problems are: We work hard to stay current on causes, and we use a combination of our microbiological and physical-chemical water analysis (lab and field) methods, determining corrosion and incrustation, sources of slimes, and odors. We also perform a variety of custom services in environmental microbiology. All to rapidly and definitely get to what is at the bottom of your well ailments.
• We supply you with a specific plan of action: Real action, nothing vague or "cookie-cutter."
• We supply qualified field supervisors for project supervision, training and evaluation: We make sure you get the best possible results, and document everything.
• We don't offer advice and analysis, then sell you chemicals. Think "physician" and not "hearing aid salesman."

• "Oh Lord, another Expert"
• "What Is It You Do?"
• "We can't involve you in this project, what do we do?"
  
• "How Do I Sell This to My Board" or "What Do We Get Out of This?"

• Our goal and purpose is to work on behalf of the best interests of the well user.
• Our objective is to get the well user improved wellfield performance cost-effectively and into "maintenance mode".
• We work with wellfield or other facility operators directly, or with consulting firms or well contractors if your goals and objectives are the same as ours: to help you serve your customer best.
• We won't recommend a treatment process or equipment, or service provider, unless the recommendation serves the end user's needs best.

• We keep up on the science, technology and methods - probably better than your chemical sales rep does
• We even literally helped write (are writing) the books on the subject.

"OK, Tell me again, what is it you do?" And does this apply just to wells?

We find out the environmental, mechanical, and hydrologic causes of well problems so rehab and maintenance can be planned exactly. Based on that information, we develop rehab and maintenance plans for your wellfields and your needs.

• If you are a wellfield operator or consultant -- Helping you select the best contractors and methods, and supervising the work to get the best results most cost-effectively.
• If you are a contractor -- Helping you (1) outsmart and outmaneuver your competitor and (2) do the best job you can for your customer, most cost-effectively (we also look out for the customer....) Come on, who can't stand to learn a new trick or two?

We document results: Analyzing water quality and well hydraulics testing (doing it properly too).

We teach you anything you want to learn to maintain your wells. Each of our dozens of projects required a thorough understanding of how well hydraulics, construction, water chemistry, biology, and operation inter-relate. We seek to help you understand these issues on your job and teach you what to do. We can teach informally, and classroom and hands-on. Good ideas department top

"How Do I Sell This to My Board" or "What Do We Get Out of This?" Think Total Wellfield Management for peace of mind:  You obtain the best possible rehabilitation results for your expenditure.

• Your wellfield operations go from crisis to maintenance modes.
• Well and wellfield (or drain...) life are extended, water quality and performance are more predictable
• Money is saved and budgets normalized.

• Demonstrate that they know, are equipped to, and employ proper well testing technique - Proper orifice weirs or meters, measurements taken until stability on log time scales, no/few leaks, no engine-driven pumps if possible. Employ generator and electric pump.
• Supply all data as well as results - Someday in the year 2525, a hydrogeologist may need to derive. 
• Don't act like you're from Mars when you insist on such standards.
• Demonstrate a flexible and informed knowledge of well cleaning and foreswear use of phosphates.
• Prefer to use mechanical development (surge blocks, airlift, Sonar Jet or shockblasting).
• Are flexible and informed about recent improvements in pump, pipe, and other related equipment to improve service, equipment life, and maintenance ease.
• Send properly informed and trained people to work on your project.
• Don't try to sell you down or lower your expectations.
• Are willing to call on hydrogeologists and other experts when needed.

Just wells? We've worked on a number of structures for which these principles apply: Earthen dam toe drain systems, dewatering systems, even tanks, pipelines and water treatment plants. What's scary? Drilling below a full dam in the pouring rain -- and nothing coming out of the toe drains. Keep these working, willya?

Read our articles posted online - but don't just take our word on it, although most of these have our stamp on them. See a longer list.

Alford, G. and Cullimore, D.R. 1999. The Application of Heat and Chemicals in the Control of Biofouling Events in Wells. CRC Press Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL.
Howsam, P., ed. 1990. Water Wells Monitoring, Maintenance, and Rehabilitation. Proc. of the International Groundwater Engineering Conference, Cranfield Institute of Technology, UK. E.&F.N. Spon, London (includes referenced Smith, 1990).
Roscoe Moss Co., 1990. Handbook of Ground-Water Development, Wiley-Interscience, New York.
Smith, S.A. 1992. Methods for Monitoring Iron and Manganese Biofouling in Water Supply Wells. AWWA Research Foundation, Denver, CO. Out of print, only available to AwwaRF subscribers. Check library sources.
Borch, M.A., S.A. Smith, and L.N. Noble. 1993. Evaluation, Maintenance, and Restoration of Water Supply Wells. AWWA Research Foundation, Denver, CO. Out of print, only available to AwwaRF subscribers. Check library sources.
Cullimore, D.R. 1993. Practical Ground Water Microbiology.  Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL.
Sutherland, D.C., P. Howsam, and J. Morris. 1994. The Cost-Effectiveness of Monitoring and Maintenance Strategies Associated with Groundwater Abstraction - A Methodology for Evaluation. ODA Project Report 5478A. Silsoe College, Silsoe, Bedford, U.K.
Clancy, J.L. and S.A. Smith. 1995. Iron bacteria, Chapter 2. In: Problem Organisms in Water: Identification and Treatment. American Water Works Assn.
Smith, S.A. 1995. Monitoring and Remediation Wells: Problem Prevention, Maintenance and Rehabilitation, CRC Lewis Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Australian Drilling Industry Training Committee (including S.A. Smith). 1997. Drilling: The Manual of Methods, Applications and Management. CRC Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL (successor to the 1992 Australian Drilling Manual).

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