My water well has filled with sediment

[Sportsman762]

they had a lot of trouble with sand/gravel and originally put down a 8" casing to hold the loose stuff back until they got into rock, then they put in a 6" steel casing

That makes sense. I have only been in the Harrison area a few times during my 2 year stint in AR and I was not drilling at the time. I am guessing you have granite or some other hard igneous rock if I remember right. Very pretty area, reminded me of where I grew up in OH, except we had sandstone instead of the hard rock you have. You have a loose formation of gravel above the rock. To drill rock you have to use down hole hammers which run off of air. They drilled down with a tricone through the loose formation to the rock formation, set 8" working casing then switched the rig over to air and drilled down through the 8". Once they had an open bore they drove 6" into the hole sealing it to the rock and pulled the 8". It sounds like good construction to me. However they might not have sealed up the 6" into the rock, or there is a fissure in the rock letting the sediment in. Without being a local and knowing the geography I am just guessing. (don't take anything I say to heart as I have no clue about hard rock drilling).

In November they tried using a bailer to get the mess out, but it would not go very deep into the gravel, so they gave up on that idea.

That sounds like a good try. Most modern drillers do not have the heavy cable tool bailers that could penetrate a gravel mess and pump hoists are not as good as a cable rig for baling.

They are coming to take another look at it later next month, I will see what develops.

Glad to hear that they are working with you. Its hard to say if the issue is their fault or not. Without using gamma loggers, calipers and other very expensive equipment its hard to tell whats going on in a well so errors can happen. The oilfield folks have all the cool toys, water well drillers are not charging the hundreds of thousands it takes to pay for a wire line van to show up to check the well construction. We made it a point to be very friendly with the state geological survey and the state health department as they both had some cool toys and if you sweet talked them they would come out and log a well when we had concerns.

Sounds like you should keep working with the crew if they are going to try to make it right. I suspect the solution will cost you and the driller some money. Keep us posted, this is an interesting issue.

 

[1Mech]

According to USGS, this is what lies beneath my property, mostly a form of limestone.

Source Geology
"Unit/Name: Ocjc Cotter and Jeferson City Dolomites
Description: Cotter Dolomite---Dolostone of predominantly two types: a fine-grained, argillaceous, earthy textured, relatively soft, white to buff or gray dolostone called "cotton rock," and a more massive, medium-grained, gray dolostone that weathers to a somewhat hackly surface texture and becomes dark on exposure. Contains chert, some minor beds of greenish shale, and occasional thin interbedded sandstone. Thickness is about 340 feet in the vicinity of Cotter but may range up to 500 feet thick in places. Jefferson City Dolomite---Light- to dark-tan, fine-grained, crystalline dolostone and considerable chert with some rare thin beds of sandstone, shale, and oolite"

 

[ponytug]

According to USGS, this is what lies beneath my property, mostly a form of limestone.

Source Geology
"Unit/Name: Ocjc Cotter and Jeferson City Dolomites
Description: Cotter Dolomite---Dolostone of predominantly two types: a fine-grained, argillaceous, earthy textured, relatively soft, white to buff or gray dolostone called "cotton rock," and a more massive, medium-grained, gray dolostone that weathers to a somewhat hackly surface texture and becomes dark on exposure. Contains chert, some minor beds of greenish shale, and occasional thin interbedded sandstone. Thickness is about 340 feet in the vicinity of Cotter but may range up to 500 feet thick in places. Jefferson City Dolomite---Light- to dark-tan, fine-grained, crystalline dolostone and considerable chert with some rare thin beds of sandstone, shale, and oolite"

That sounds great, but it doesn't sound as if it matches what is coming up your well by color alone.

Good luck on getting it fixed. I thought that @Sportsman762 has a nice summary of the possible things going on.

All the best, Peter

 

[steve tym]

Dirty water calls can be the hardest to troubleshoot.

 

[RobertEH]

I had a similar issue with our well at the last place we lived. The well was about 75 yards from a salmon stream as the crow flies (but the area the well was dug at was a good 100 feet higher than the elevation of the creek-fi that makes sense...). I want to say the well was about 350 feet deep with the pump sitting about 100 feet off the bottom. We were getting really really bad silt/fine black sand. There was a sock filter set up and it would pack the filter with silt in about 1 day when things were bad. The silt got into the washing machine and gummed up the works there too. It would show up in our drinking water. It was terrible.

Had a well guy come out and look at it. He tried to pull the pump, but it was mired down in sand so bad he almost could not get it out. He said he had to run the pump to loosen the sand around it so he could extract it.

They did a refurbish on the well and pulled out 100 feet of sludge from the bore hole. He then looked at the filed info on the well when it was originally built, and he found that the screens had been installed to 200 feet (or something like that). So the pump had been sitting below the screens!! Anyway, he raised it until it was no longer below the screens. We sold the house about 2 years after this work was done, but our pressure increased and the silt/sand was 100% gone. Not sure how long it will take to fill back in, but getting it fixed was a game changer.

 

[1Mech]

The well driller came out yesterday and said the casing had a twist in it, maybe from forcing it in and that it would be a real challenge to fix it. They are drilling a new well today, further from the creek, about 150 feet, at the base of a big hill. Hopefully this one will work well. He charges $18 / foot.
I figured rather then spend money on the old one with no guarantees it would work out ok, I will go with a new one.

 

[ponytug]

Good luck with the new well.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Quaffer]

Talk to a REPUTABLE (not the cheapest) well driller in your area. Wells are local. Don't take the advice of a guy from NH that knows about wells in his area, but probably not in your area.

Very good advice.

My next door neighbor drilled a well and hit water at 4 feet. Across town, I saw one well go 700ft deep.

In another property I own in a different State, same thing. A good experienced well company is invaluable to sort it out.

 

[nyone]

You can make an air pump with a compressor and a trip to homedepot. Look up how they work. There prety cheap and simple. It would prob cost half as much vs just the service call for the driller.

 

[1Mech]

You can make an air pump with a compressor and a trip to homedepot. Look up how they work. There prety cheap and simple. It would prob cost half as much vs just the service call for the driller.

You can make an air pump with a compressor and a trip to homedepot. Look up how they work. There prety cheap and simple. It would prob cost half as much vs just the service call for the driller.

Sportsman 762, an experienced well driller, stated trying to blow it out with compressed air would likely cause bigger problems, so that is not an option. We are currently drilling a new well, but have not found water yet down to ~120 feet. They are putting casing in now then will continue drilling. If that doesn't work, I am considering drawing water from our spring fed creek through a personal water filtration system. The creek runs dependably year round. The photo is the source of the creek about three miles upstream. At one time it was used as Yellville's municipal water supply. I am currently pumping out of the creek for toilet and washing water in the rv.