It's Done: The Well That Is.

The guys showed up at the Aerie early this morning and did all the work necessary to connect the new well to the old pipe, dropped the new pump (and pipe and electric wires) down the new well, back filled the trench and then packed up and left just before 4 PM.

Now comes the period of slowly purging the well and then refilling the cistern. On the guys' advice, I'm running the pump for 10 minutes every hour or so. At first the water was really red but it's getting better. By tomorrow morning...after it's been sitting overnight...things should be even better.

Some particulars about the well:

• They drilled down 320 feet.
• The pump is five feet above the bottom.
• The static level of the water (the top of the column when it's not being drawn down) is 80 feet below the surface. (That leaves a column of water in the well that's 235 feet tall.)
• Each foot of that column amounts to 1-1/2 gallons of water for a total of 345-350 gallons.
• The pump can pump 5 gallons a minute.
• The well recharges at a rate of 3 gallons a minute.

Although it would take quite some time, I could draw the well down to nothing since the recharge rate is slower than the pump. But that would be BAD. As it is, drawing too miuch water at one time would really stir things up and produce huge amounts of sediments. Hence the ten minute run time that I'm using. Once things are purged and the cistern is filled, there's a float switch in the cistern. It will come on when the water level drops a certain amount, the pump comes on and fills the cistern to an upper level and then shuts off. There's about an six or seven inch difference between the two positions. Each inch represents five minutes of run time and about 25 gallons of water. Therefore, six inches of water would be 150 gallons of water. That's about half of the supply in the well and drawing down that much at one time shouldn't be a problem.

Even so, I'm going to be looking into rain barrels this spring. The garden will need watering!

Meanwwhile, the excavation really made a mess! Sure, it's at the end of the driveway and not the middle, but there will be a need to remove some of the rocks that were brought up to the surface. Then, after Mother Nature has tamped it down with her frost heaving, the earth will have to be leveled. Luckily, there's still room for the Aveo and Jeep to be parked next to the house and not out front with the Tundra and RV.

Cold and Waterless

A chilly 17 degrees here at the Aerie this morning. At least the wind has stopped so it doesn't bite right through you. The birds have found the feeders on the deck and have been putting a dent in my sunflower seed supply. It will get busier as winter takes hold. So far only one squirrel has been spotted on the deck/in the yard. Often there are a dozen or more fighting for their turn at the bounty of black oil sunflower seeds.

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The water well at the Aerie is shallow (only about 150 feet) and slow to recharge. As a result, we have a 550 gallon cistern in the utility room to provide all the water we need. The well also passes through a mix of shale and clay which proves problematic. If we stress the water usage (doing lots of laundry and washing dishes, or trying to water a new lawn, or spending too much time watering the garden, etc.) we will get a cistern full of water that's just loaded with colloidal red clay. This despite limiting the well pump to just 3 or 4 minutes at a time and then only after a 90 minute interval, and we have a whole-house filter that is supposed to screen out anything over 1 micron in size.

Apparently, we over stressed the well (again) when Terry returned and commenced to do her laundry after three weeks on the road. Add all the bedding (which, in hindsight could have waited) and the dinner dishes. The "water" in the cistern took on the consistency of a mud wrestling pit and the water coming from the taps would have been useful for the folks filming the shower scene in Psycho.

Yesterday was spent draining the the cistern and swabbing out the insides using all the big fluffy bath towels we could scrounge up. I got the bloody (no pun intended) thing cleaned out and then tried a new filter from Monsanto's 3M company. It had no micron rating but said it was good for sediment, rust and soil as well as odor and other stuff. I should have read the label better. In addition to some red sediment, I got a shot of carbon from the damn filter which is not really meant for a cistern application. The directions state clearly that you should run the water for several minutes to purge the lines after installation. That must be to clear the lines of the carbon the filter releases.

This morning we went back to our plain old 1 micron filter. The water, after a night's rest in the well, is coming through clear. With luck, we should have water back in the cistern deep enough to turn the house jet pump (for water pressure and supply to the house lines) sometime tomorrow. I'll probably have to change the filter at least once before the cistern fills. I've three more filters on hand and a dozen on order. (They aren't on the shelves locally so I have to mail order them.)

It will be nice to have water flowing again. Jugs and bottles of water are okay for cooking and drinking, but the dishes are starting to pile up and flushing the toilet....

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Today, Terry and I will be going up to Bath to pick up the RV from Camping World. They were doing some minor (?) repairs on the Winnie Access and finished a couple of weeks ago. We just haven't been able to find the time to go pick it up.

 The only other item on our schedule is to keep a close eye on the water situation. And keep warm.

Oh, and a Happy Birthday to my Little Sister, Ruthann.

Whoosh!

3rd manmade Grand Canyon flood planned

PHOENIX - For the third time since 1996, officials plan to unleash a manmade flood in the Grand Canyon next month in an effort to restore an ecosystem that was altered by a dam constructed on the Colorado River decades ago.

When Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell were constructed it changed the flow of water through the Canyon. Waters released by the dam are usually from the bottom of Lake Powell, where temperatures are cooler. Silt and sediments are trapped by the still waters of Lake Powell and they do not flow down the Colorado into the Canyon. The Water flowing through the Canyon is, therefore, cooler and less muddy than it was before the Glen Canyon Dam was constructed.

So what, you ask. The water is clearer and cooler. Big deal.
Ah, but it is a big deal to the native species that grew up in that warm muddy water and depended upon the silt and sediment to provide nutrients and sand bars.

Without spring floods to flush the system and help rebuild beaches and fish habitat, native species suffered even as non-native fish thrived. The shift helped speed the extinction of four fish species and push two others, including the endangered humpback chub, near the edge.

Okay, you got that. Several species of fish have finned their way off this mortal coil because the dam has altered the ecosystem where they lived. (Apparently the Grand Canyon is the only place they lived.

What to do about those that are still threatened? Why, create a replica of the annual spring floods, of course. That ought to do the trick!

If approved by the U.S. Department of the Interior, next month's flood will scour and reshape miles of sandy banks on the floor of the Grand Canyon. The department's decision is expected this week.

If approved, flows in the Grand Canyon would increase to 41,000 cubic feet per second for nearly three days — four to five times the normal amount of water released from the Glen Canyon Dam. What scientists and environmentalists want to see is what will happen to the fish and the canyon when the gates close at dam and the staged flood recedes.

As the headline says, they’ve done this twice before starting in 1996. Huge amounts of water are released from Glen Canyon Dam. It scours the Canyon and reshapes the sand bars and beaches in the little nooks and crannies. No word of how the fish fare, Do they get flushed as well, like some belly up goldfish won at the local carnival?

Where’s all that “flushed” material go? Why to the next impoundment downstream, of course. That would be Lake Mead. You know, the major electrical for Las Vegas and water source for half of the southwest. No mention of the troublesome sedimentation filling Lake Mead, however.

According to an article in the Goat, a High Country News blog:

Lake Powell, on the Arizona-Utah border, was created to benefit Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Three hundred miles away, on the Arizona-Nevada border, Lake Mead stores Colorado River water for Arizona, California and Nevada

So water will be pulled from one groups supply and dumped (along with lots of mud and other rubbish) into the holding tank of another group. Doesn’t sound so bad, especially when BOTH reservoirs are only at about half their capacity do to 1) drought and 2) over use. (The former problem may be alleviated slightly this spring when all that snow in the Rockies melts. See: Wet Snowpack Holding for Now from February 22, 2008 for an idea of what the problem might be come April and early May—Hint: it won’t be drought. “…over a wide area of the Rocky Mountains. Statewide, the snowpack is 132 percent of normal, with the highest levels recorded across the southern half.”)

Hopefully, the current snowpack will be absorbed by both the reserve capacities of the manmade lakes all up and down the western rivers and the thirsty soils of the agricultural areas. Otherwise, we’ll be reading about gargantuan flooding along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers—again. (Who am I kidding? There will be flooding as there is every spring whether the snowpack is above or below average. With some luck, however, the melt may be a long, slow event and there won’t be the serious flooding that occurs from a rapid warm spell.)

See The Future Is Drying Up, published in the NY Times last October 21, 2007, for an interesting look at the usage of and claims upon the water supply in the American southwest.
Also from the NY Times of December 10, 2007: Western States Agree to Water-Sharing Pact

More farookin rain!

Since I returned to the Aerie from the Bolt Hole on Monday it has been a steady—or nearly steady—period of overcast and rainy weather. After a summer of gloriously warm ad sunny weather that led to declarations of drought, it seems ole Ma Nature is trying to make it all up to us in one month. That rain that was in Blacksburg, VA the other night for the BC vs VT game has slid northward along the coast and reaches far enough inland to soak us here in north-central PA. After a very brief respite from the rains of Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the cloud cover arrived late Thursday night. All day Friday the overcast sky prevented the temperature from fluctuating much and the 7 AM reading of 50 degrees remained about the same all day. It was still 50 degrees whenever I checked throughout the day and at 7 PM. The rain didn’t start to fall until around 3:30-4:00 Friday afternoon but it has been steady ever since. Forecasters are calling for well over an inch. The bird bath is overflowing. Earthworms are drowning. It’s quite depressing.

I know, from looking at the AOL Welcome page, that the US is in dire straits as far as water is concerned. (The Drudge Report also posted the story: Much of U.S. Could See a Water Shortage ) Reservoirs are at record lows, lakes and rivers are drying up, etc. But looking at where much of the “shortage” is, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not because:

1) More people have moved to desert environments (read the southwest) where there is precious little water in the best of times

2) We haven’t had a real hurricane season on the east coast in years (Katrina and Rita were NOT along the east coast—they passed to the west of the areas of major concern—Georgia, the Carolinas, etc., and the last two years haven’t even seen a hurricane come close to Florida). Hurricanes used to be the primary source of water in the Everglades, for instance. Oh, and all that ditch digging to drain swamps back in the ‘50s—not a good idea after all.

3) NYC still hasn’t stopped all the water leakage in its vast system and has absolutely no way of monitoring how much is lost/wasted as it pumps water from the upstate reservoirs to homes and apartments. And how many of those homes and apartments in the city have meters, anyway?

4) With all the growth in human population and the corresponding need for freshwater, why has there not been a massive move to dredge the existing reservoirs to increase their capacity or to create more reservoirs? Wouldn’t a period of low water be the ideal time to do so? If coal miners can level mountains, couldn’t much of the same strip mining equipment be used to scoop out reservoirs?

5) Why do city planners in some of the southwest permit green lawns of Kentucky Blue Grass in desert environments? Why do they permit golf courses to plant grasses of any type? Or trees that are not native to the region? Until some or all of these issues are faced, people will simply look around and wonder what the heck the alarmists are talking about. Water shortage? Why, look at the pictures taken from the blimp at the PGA tournaments in February. Can’t be a water shortage. The course was green as could be and every house had a swimming pool.


Ya know, my fishing buddies and I have done some miraculous things re: water shortages. Every time we go to northern Quebec we’re warned about the dry conditions, be careful of any outside fires, watch your cigarettes, yada, yada, yada.

And 9 times out of 10, before the float plane is out of sight, the clouds will roll in and it will rain for the entire week. Perhaps we should contact some Chambers of Commerce here in the states and see if we can’t arrange a couple of fishing trips. We won’t even charge them anything beyond lodging, boat, bait and gasoline if we don’t produce any rain in a week—or maybe two. (Of course, we would want a disclaimer stating that we are not responsible for any damage caused by excessive rain, lightening, tornado or hurricane that might occur while we were in residence.)

Wait a minute, it stopped raining outside and I can see some nearly blue sky to the west. I’m going outside. Got to run a few errands before I go pick up my new truck.

See ya later.

UPDATE: The rain gauge must have sprung a leak. After about 18 hours of steady rain, it had just 0.3 inches of water in it. That just seems...wrong.

Wells: Another way to spell "Trouble"

Actually the problem is not in the well so much as the lack of rainfall and the subsurface strata here at the Aerie. June was pretty dry (I'm not sure just how dry because I didn't get the rain gauge set out until July 1) and July has produced only 1.85 inches of rain, 0.85 having fallen in some heavy T-storms over night. Average precip in this area is 4.4 inches in June and 3.3 inches in July. We are well below those numbers. Sure, others across the valley got much more rain than we did at the Aerie, but that doesn't help us at all.

The subsurface is mostly slate/shale with clay mixed in. Now, the slate/shale combo allows for lots of water through all the cracks and layers but the clay is so damn fine that it easily moves through those cracks and into the well. It stays suspended in the water due to its tiny particle size and enters the house system even through a 5 micron filter. There is a 1 micron filter available and that will be our next purchase--as soon as I can find them! There is no odor or taste problem with the water so a chemical filter (at $35 per cartridge) isn't necessary. Wally World has 1 micron cartridges at $17.50 each--when they're in stock.

We thought we were lucky to have found a lot that had all the amenities (well, electricity, septic) in place. Looks like we'll have to invest in improving the well, however. It will cost us to have them set up their rig ($600), pull the pump (which will probably have to be replaced if we go down much further), punch the well down another 75-100 feet ($15 per), and probably add more casing to line the system. Still, it will be cheaper than drilling a new well.

A few years back i had to have a well drilled for the Bolt Hole up in the Adirondacks. The first 100 feet or so was through glacial moraine--mostly sand and a few boulders--and produced some surface water. The next 300 feet finally went through rock--mostly granite. Yeah, it went down about 450 feet and cost mucho dinero but that water is the purest, sweetest tasting stuff! I should bottle it and sell it.

I hate well water!

Actually, just the water that is coming from my well right now.

I switched to running the pump for five minutes every three hours and that was fine for awhile. Then the water became cloud despite the very fine filter on the line. I had a 5 micron filter in the canister but don't think I had it screwed in as tight as I should have. Some super fine particles were getting through. I tried with all my might and managed to tighten the filter housing another half a turn and that seems to have stopped most of the fine sediment from getting in. unfortunately with half the cistern filled, I'm not happy with what is in there. So tomorrow, after going birding in the morning, I'll be running out to purchase a couple more filter cartridges. Then I'll have to pump the 200 or so gallons I've already collected out and start all over again.

I'll stretch things out a little more too, by going to five minutes every four hours. (It'll be just like when the kids were babes and had to get bottle fed during the night, I guess.) Scheduled pumping at 8, 12, and 4 and repeat. I get about 2 inches of water every five minutes so with a depth of about 30 inches,two days of pumping should do the trick...if the well don't go dry.

Of course, being as it's only about 135 feet down, I guess i could get a driller in to punch it down a bit further, say another 100 feet. But even that could produce a problem. Some wells in the area (I'm not sure how close to me) have had some sulfur problems. I don't need that!