Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Artesian well digging?

Here's the picture. 45 yr. old pond , 1/3 acre, artesian well running at 21,000 +gallons / day from a pipe 2 ft. above water. Pond was 5-6ft overall with max. depth of 8ft.. Recently excavated, deepest spot estimated at 15ft. with 30% of pond in 12-14 ft. range- background

Began driving a well point into ground to add another artesian well to increase flow (48 degree water). Bought hardened steel pipe and well point made for this purpose, constructed a 4 legged "pod with a pulley system and a 4 ft. long 4" diameter pipe with 30 lbs. of weight. Was able to impact drive the wellpoint and added pipe sections down about 25-28ft and am stuck. Won't gop any further. Did I hit clay or rock or what too much friction? No water yet and there it sits. Have yet to add a bit more weight and work the pipe extension so it drops from 5 ft. isntead of 3-4 etc.

Any advice out there on strategies to break through?

Mike:

Where are you located in Michigan?

How deep is the artesian well?

Steve:
The pond is located in West Branch MI, where there are more artesian wells than I've seen anywhere. You drive down the road and there is another free flowing pipe every 1/2 mile or less. West Branch is little more than half way up north in the Lower Peninsula, or about 130 miles north of the Detroit area right up I-75 if you know MI.

We are unsure about how deep the flowing atrtesian well is. I suppose it might be worthwhile to remove the rubber elbow bend pipe connection and actually shove a measurement stick down there to check it out. Scary, I never of putting anything in there (so as not to mess with a 50 yr. old good running flow). Might be a good next step- duh on me?

All I currently know is that a neighbor said he hit water at 32 ft. and our current impact well project is stuck at about max. 28 ft. (negihbor is perhaps 1000 ft. away.

Mike:

Can you tell me the township and Section number and general location within the section (NE, SW, etc.), if possible. When I have time, I'll look at a few well logs from your area. With the number of artesian wells that you describe, there should be a significant hydrogeological feature resposible for the flow. Your well log may even be in the file.

If you put something down the well for measurement purposes, make sure that nothing can break off. The casing may not be straight and the pipe joints may be rough.

Feel free to email the information if you prefer. Here\'s some light reading

Steve:
Wow- that DEQ artesian well handbook is really amazing. It's like a whole course on artesian wells! Thanks much! I will read it with great interest - all 54 pages! I appreciate your help with this project. I'll dig up info. on township and seciton #. I have some topo maps and official land survey info. I can dig out and send the data on. and yes, I will extremely careful not to drop anything into the live well etc. More later

X2 ... great link ...

Steve: Well, (pun intended) I just finished reading through the 54 page MDEQ Artesian well document. Pretty interesting reading overall. I found it particularly intriguing that West Branch was mentioned first as having a multitude of artesian wells with Rose City (just 15-20 miles away having even more. It confirms my anecdotal experience of seeing more artesian wells in West Branch than anywhere else in my travels in MI.

What I was able to find about the pond location re: section is a notation on a land appraisal completed recently indicating "CENSUS TRACT" 129, Map reference 9505. Also- the pond is at 970 ft. topographical elevation, just off Dow Rd. 1/2 mile from North of Houghton Rd (Main Street). I'm not sure that is enough info. to look it up.

thanks for all your help!

Mike are you sure you're not making this a little hard on yourself and being penny wise and pound foolish?

If a well driller comes in and drills for only 8.00 a foot and you don't have to put in a well pump because you've hit artesian flow, that's not bad considering you will also get a larger casing for more flow. Average casings now are 4 inches. Not to mention the back breaking deal of doing it yourself. Did you know some states won't allow you to drill your own well?

Cecil:
Good point. I was not aware that you could get a well drilled for as little as $8/ft.- that is really cheap. I would gladly toss down a couple hundred buck etc. to get this done. My expereince is that there are two well drillers in the WEst Branch area and the lowest quote they gave us three eyars ago was $900, which when they were re-contacted went up to $2,000, out of range for us at this point! Less than $500 is alot different than 2k. Here what we have determined. That these guys have more work than they can handle and they therefore crank up the prices.

To be honest, I had no idea you could get a well drilled for as little 8 bucks a foot- that is nothing. Imagine if that were 50-60 dollars a foot when you went shopping around. These guys typically have a several month backlog and now I have some idea they are eith severely over-charging or they are quoting into the atmosphere to cover any contingent problems that might occur. We've already "sunk" (good work here) almost $400 into the parts for this impact well that is stuck at the "confining layer". Wow- time to spend more time widening my search for other well drillers. It seems like these guys basically have a monoploy going and naming their price. Thanks for the info.

Anyone else out there can tell me how much per foot they ahve paid for well drilling???

About 1 1/2 years ago I paid $3965 for a well drilled 100 feet deep with 35 feet of water. This included an expansion tank of about 85 gallons and a high capacity pump 3 hp, 4 inch submersible rated at 60 gallons per minute.

I should add a note here- it seems that a few of these guys in the West Branch are charging premium prices for well drilling for what they may percieve as small jobs that they might not want to hassle with, since it may be less than 1k in total. Maybe that accounts for the price gouging? In any event, I ahve located a list of ALL the well drillers in MI and have a listof at least 20 who are less than a hour drive away. We'll see what I find??

Mike:

I'm trying to help you figure out how deep your well needs to be so you can determine if the hand method can work or if drilling is needed. Since we are talking about an artesian well, you will most likely need to penetrate an impermable confining unit, which is probably what stopped your progress. If you can look at some well logs and adjust for differences in elevation between the wells, you might be able to figure it out.

My best guess from your description is that you are either in Churchill or Ogemaw Township. The section number that I requested refers to square mile (640 acre) mapping units that are numbered from 1-36. There are generally 36 sections in a township. Dow Road is the dividing line between the two townships mentioned above. The MDEQ arranges their boring log records by section number. Based on your description of 1/2 mile north of Main Street off Dow Road I found the following two options:

West side of Dow: T22NR1E Sec 24 (Ogemaw)
East Side of Dow: T22N R2E Sec 19 (Churchill)

You can follow the link to look up the well logs and hopefully find a couple close by that will give you an idea of the geology.

Our drilling rates are approximately $10/foot. Costs increase incrementally with depth. The well string, screen, etc. and labor to install the well would be additional. That is for hollow stem auger drilling which is primarily for environmental work. You will probably find cable tool operators to be less expensive.

As you saw in the Artesian well document, a permit will be necessary to install the well.

Michigan Well Logs

I paid $2000.00 for an 88 foot well after another well driller quoted me double that. I think the well pump itself was over half ot that.

My well driller was really busy too (I was actually going to go with the $4000.00 guy but he never showed up) and I called this local well driller on a whim. Turns out he had one day on his calendar he wasn't putting in a well and came out the next week. He also had the best and newest drilling rig in the county.

Shop around!

MIke,

Steve is obviously right about the hard confining layer potentially separating you from your artesian flow. Maybe Limestone?

A friend in Ohio that has a trout farm has a confining layer composed of limestone. Once you punch through that layer all hell breaks loose! He has 1500 gpms of water shooting out of the ground with two wells and more than he can handle with the excess going into a nearby river. He's sold that though just recently and is putting in another farm nearby on the same property. He's learned a few things over the years and wants to incoroporate those ideas into his new farm.

One intersting caviat though... When he put in a third well recently the ground caved in and became bigger and bigger. He had to invest $10,000 in limstone and build a mound to keep if from imploding more. He said it was the scariest thing he had ever seen. He almost lost the farm. In his area they have this things they call blue holes which are old wells that have caved in and gotten bigger and bigger. He has one on the property that is 60 feet deep but only about 100 feet wide. Instant trout pond! He actually puts trout in them and they do just fine!

Cecil:Wea reon the East side of Dow Rd, only a 1/2 mile from the railroad tracks heading away from town if that helps. I couldn't find any on-line or paper documentation giving me th esection #. My brother Paul may have that- I'll check with him. Thanks for the hep with this- you are a great resource in getting this pond up to snuff!

Prices I'
m getting from other drillers are anything from $12/ft (75ft. minimum) plus casing cement (added$2/ft) plus extras to $14/foot plus $500 for allt he stuff at the bottom (screen/plates etc.) to $16/foot all included. Everybody prices it a little differently I am finding.

I did read Steve's link tothe Flowing Weel MDEQ pdf file- wow- quite a resource and some pretty wild stories of wells that got out of control- can you imagine a 12,000 gpm geyser- that's only 17 million gallons a day- basically a new river popped up!

Any idea what thos ecounty / city well permits cost??? Am I in for more sticker shock?

Hi I am Michael Ebaugh's brother and have the legal description of the property. It is:

TWB-19 23
Sec 19 T22NR2E 34.15A and 8.03A

Interesting reading! I'd kill for an artesian well! That would be no bill for $100.00 per month when I run the well!

Don't know about your permits up there, just know the Michigan DEQ has gone off the deep end. I'm all for the enviroment but these people are ridiculous!

Steve's the expert on geology, wells etc. I think you got me mixed up with him. I just talk a lot.

Michael, I reviewed the historical records in the scanned DEQ system. This system has 25 pages of records from 1976 until 1991. Apparantly, the post 1991 records are in another system (must be on-line and I can browse the DEQ site).

There were two records of wells drilled very close to our property. Both of these were flowing wells with one 10 and the other 15 gallons per minute flow. One was at 27 feet and the other at 35 feet. I beleive the soil strata data shows sand-clay-water.

Cecil, yes no electric bill and it keeps on flowing at least for the last 45 years since my grandfather had it drilled. At 15 gpm it is not as strong of a flow as we would like for the pond and are looking at more than doubling the flow hence we are looking at a second well.

What HP rating of pump do you use to get your 38 gpm flow rate? My cursory research into submersible well pumps shows that the ones used in our area for domestic water use, ie. 5-10 gpm are 1/3-1/2 HP units yet to get the higher flow rates of say 30+ gpm you are at 3-5 HP! I understand that there are many factors in this. BIG difference in electric bills between a 1/3 HP and a 5 HP.

We figure we could run it during the daytime in addition to our artesian well in May, June, July, august and September at 30-40 gpm and with our artesian well we would have a total of 45-55 gpm of 47 degree water entering the pond at the top layer to keep the surface water temperature cooler than what we have it now. This might be a reasonable compromise on pond performance and electric cost.

An interesting find on our property is that we have a creek running through the property and the flow ( guess it to be 500-1000 gpm) is largly due to artesian wells that are upstream several miles. I talked to one old-timer about a well-drilling about 50 years plus ago that went bad and the flow created the head waters for the creek or a tributary leading into it.

The property, 42 acres has been in the family for about 100 years and just a few years ago it was handed down to my generation and I decided to walk it. I was following the creek at the edge of the property and saw one and then two small pipes 1" diameter on the banks of the creek flowing about 3-5 GPM each into the creek. These were well into the woods and must have been hand pounded in drill points many years ago. BTW, the creek has been known to harbor a number of browns that lurk in the shady holes and are tough to catch yet a real pleasure when done so.

Our property is also part of a several square mile oil field in the West Branch Michigan area and we always have had 2-3 wells pumping oil out of them. My grandfather, when he first dug the pond had the oil company pipe over some excess natural gas to his house and the pond and he had a pipe in the middle of the pond sticking up 6 feet out of the water with a 2 foot high perpetual flame burning 24x7. Besides looking awesome and giving some great light for evening fishing, it was an effective tool to attract the bugs, kill them and grille them up as tasty morsels for the trout. A real natural resource wonder. a free flowing artesian well, free natural gas, an effective bug zapper and a trout feeder to boot. Unfortunately the oil company doesn't supply natural gas to any of its land owners any more due to liability issues (don't you love lawyers.)

To play Devil's Advocate on something that Steve Young at least should understand - when do you reach diminishing returns on drilling additional artesian wells? If there's only one pressurized aquifer being tapped, wouldn't you (possibly) have a situation where one 6" hole 30 feet deep would produce, say, 20 gpm, but adding a second 6" hole 30 feet deep only gives you a total of 35 gpm?

I would imagine that this effect (and whether or not it could even be noticed) would vary greatly depending on the nature of the aquifer (how much water was available and at what pressure) as well as how close together the wells were.

I think you have a good imagination Theo!

Theo, it makes it difficult to predict what may happen with a pressurized aquifier. We have come to learn that the artesian wells are the result of a significant geologic formation in the area. I can see some logic that if two wells are placed in close proximity that the second may affect the first yet I believe these things are on such a grand scale that a few pinpricks in the fabric wil not deplete the water. We are looking at placing the second well 100 feet or more away from the first.

Another factor is we need a longer term replacement for the first well since it is 45 years old and it may stop when the 2" pipe er rust at this point crumbles and plugs it up. I had to do some repair of the old pipe 4 years ago when the right angle elbow fitting at the top crumbled and I had to dig down a few inches to get access to the top of the pipe with some integrity to it to attach a rubber coupler and PVC pipe. It may last for another 50 years but who knows.

I would like steve's input on this.

Theo :

You are correct. Just ask any petroleum endg. or geologist. I think George could verify that. It is the very concept behind and basis for the regulation of oil and gas wells in the producing states and water wells in many states. The concepts are referred to as the rule of capture, correlative rights , drainage and waste.

Originally Posted by Theo:
To play Devil's Advocate on something that Steve Young at least should understand - when do you reach diminishing returns on drilling additional artesian wells? If there's only one pressurized aquifer being tapped, wouldn't you (possibly) have a situation where one 6" hole 30 feet deep would produce, say, 20 gpm, but adding a second 6" hole 30 feet deep only gives you a total of 35 gpm?
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Theo:
There are a number of unknowns about the 45 yr. old artesian well-one is how deep, another is what kind of screen and how clogged up some of it may be with sand (sand comes up regularly when we turn on a side valve for occasional drinking water).

Also- fyi- after a time of hard rain, we notice the well running noticably heavier, perhaps at 18 gpm (still not enough for a 1/3 acre pond now holding 800-900,000 gallons. Another piece of info. is that we beleive the newly re-dug pond is leaking. After all, it used to drain out (via a 5" pipe) half of the water that went in via a pipe installed on the far side a couple feet below the surface (we installed a pvc s curve extension to bring the level of the pond to max.) It is possible that the leaking water is making it's way back to the aquifier indirectly?