Help! New well has poison smelling water

[beppington]

How deep is the well??

Water table is 15' below ground
Pump is 20' under the water
Casing goes down 55'

im in for the resolution..
brian

Will post as soon as I have one. Too cold tonight to do the bleach "shock" thing. Will do ASAP though.

 

[shaley]

Do you have PVC or galvanized casing?
Hydrocarbon migration and contamination is common in porous carbonate rocks/soils found in typical Fla. shallow aquifers. I only know what I've read about Fla. ground water hydrology but we deal with some of the same issues here in VA. Definately have that checked out. The Health Dept should be able to help.

 

[SandburRanch]

In case anybody else didn't know this (I sure didn't), I found step-by-step Procedure for Sanitation of Private Water System (Well Shock Instructions) from my local health department:

1. Mix 2 gallons of household bleach/chlorine with approximately the same amount of water in a plastic container. AVOID INHALING FUMES.
2. Turn off pump switch
3. Remove cap or plug at top of well casing and pour the bleach/chlorine and water mixture into the well using a plastic funnel or similar device.
4. Replace well cap or plug and ensure that it is airtight.
5. Start pump.
6. Turn on the faucet/spigot closet to the well and let the water run until you can smell bleach/chlorine, then shut that faucet/spigot off. Repeat this procedure at each faucet/spigot outside and inside the house (including showers/tubs), working from the well to the furthest faucet/spigot. Flush all toilets once.
7. Allow the bleach/chlorine mixture to remain in the system for a minimum of four hours. We recommend that the solution be left in the system over night.
8. After the minimum four hours have elapsed, open up all the faucets/spigots (one at a time) and allow them to run until odor has dissipated.
9. Use this system for 3-5 days then collect another sample from the same two locations as was tested previously, even if one of the samples was satisfactory.

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I have no idea where your health department came up with the 2 gallons of bleach number but if I were you I'd do some google research for the correct number for the type of bleach you choose.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Water table is 15' below ground
Pump is 20' under the water
Casing goes down 55'

With a shallow well like that, you may be picking up contamination from an old chemical spill. It could date from the '50s, long before anybody was concerned about that sort of thing. My parents bought a farm in 1961. The first year, we planted a garden on a nice looking patch of dirt right next to the well, and nothing grew. It turned out that was where some farmer had washed out his spray rig, and just dumped any leftover chemicals on the ground. Not only was the soil sterilized forever, the shallow well was poisoned. It never recovered. We turned that dirt into a parking lot and filled the well with concrete.

You need to deal directly with the lab for water testing. The Health Department will be primarily interested in coliform bacteria. The lab can test for chemical contamination.

On the off chance that the water will clear up, after you chlorinate the well, set a sprinkler or two and run them for a week. A 2 gpm Rain Bird will pump 20,000 gallons out of the well in a week, which should flush out anything that accidentally got into the well bore.

 

[captaincrab55]

With a shallow well like that, you may be picking up contamination from an old chemical spill. It could date from the '50s, long before anybody was concerned about that sort of thing.

That old Termite Juice "Chlordane" banned years back, can hang around for many years to come... I don't wish that chemical on anyone...

 

[RippySkippy]

Not affiliated with the group...just used them in the past.

By my nature, I wouldn't contact the health department yet. I don't like involving a group like that until it's clear they have something to offer.

I would however test the water...one source I've used in the past is the University of Iowa Hygenics Water testing Kit order. With a little googling, there maybe a similar service closer.

 

[jinman]

Do you have PVC or galvanized casing?
Hydrocarbon migration and contamination is common in porous carbonate rocks/soils found in typical Fla. shallow aquifers. I only know what I've read about Fla. ground water hydrology but we deal with some of the same issues here in VA. Definately have that checked out. The Health Dept should be able to help.

Steve, I had a house in Deep Creek, Va in the early '70s that had a 35' well. The water was awful. It was hard as nails and turned everything bright red. It was my first experience with a water softener and salt. I hated it. The only thing good about wells in that area was how easily they could be drilled. A friend had city water near Portsmouth, but "washed" a well with pipe in his back yard to use to water his grass. He put it in by himself over the weekend and it pumped 5-7 gpm.

 

[shaley]

Jim,
That must have been on the backside of the Dismal swamp. That is a unique shallow aquifer over there. Like you said, lots of Iron.

 

[jgrreed]

This is the procedure I used on my newly drilled well at our cabin. My understanding was that the clorine would disinfect the pipes and so forth. Not sure it does anything to the well it self. Anybody know more on this?

I do.....

We call this 'shocking' wells.

For a shallow, large casing (ie 30") well, I'm told shocking is pretty much useless. The chlorine will just treat the water sitting in the casing at the time, and that's it.

The best way to do a deep, small casing, well is to get yourself a good sized water tank (250gal or more) and brew up a mixture of water and Sodium Perchlorate (industrial bleach). Not sure of the calculation - i do it 'to smell' - if it smells like bleach, carry on.

Fill the tank right up.

Run down your well for a few hours by running sprinklers, taps, whatever...actually, use it to fill your tank.

Put the hose from the tank in the casing, and crack the valve WIDE OPEN and let it run until you either drain your tank, or fill the casing. The goal here is to get a hydraulic load of the chlorinated fluid on the bottom of the casing so that the chlorine pushes out into the formation.

Run all the taps in your house until you smell chlorine. Don't forget about the hot water circuits, the toilets, and the showers.

Let it sit for as long as you can. I tried to do it before I left for a couple days.

When you get home, run as much as you can out of an exterior drain onto somewhere that isn't growing anything important - like a gravel driveway. Minimize how much you run into your home sewer, especially if you run a field system that is dependent on bacterial breakdown. Run your taps until the chlorine smell is gone.

If your contamination is bacterial, this'll help. If it's chemical....... uuuuggghhh...... that sucks, bad.

Fracturing (Frac'ing) gas wells is a problem for sure. An even bigger problem is the relatively new Coal Bed Methane (CBM) programs that rely on huge frac pressure to get the gas to flow from the rock formations.

Flares from kitchen taps definitely do happen, but there are places in Alberta where that's happened long before the invention of a frac truck. There are a lot of coal seams near my place in Hinton - there's actually several mini ones in my yard - and my water there is very 'sulphury'.

Hope that helps.

-Jer.

 

[PHIL850]

It is my understanding that Percholrates are associated with Rocket fuel and or explosives.
They are also not good to ingest. I believe you ment to say Sodium Hypochlorite. This is liquid bleach or liquid chlorine as used in a swimming pool. Swimming pool bleach runs about 12% and store bought laundry bleach is about half of that. To treat 10,000 gal of water to 1 PPM (part per million) you would need about 13 fluid ozs of liquid Pool bleach (12%) or twice that for store bought laundry bleach.

To shock the water, 10 ppm would do the trick nicely. I would figure the volume of the standing water in the casing, adding additional for the volume below the casing and poor / hose the solution down the well casing and let it sit over night. Then run the pump till you don't smell any more chlorine. Note if you have a supply of Powdered Pool Chlorine (Calcium Hypochlorite) the ration is 2 Ozs to raise 1 ppm per 10,000 gals of water. There are various types of powdered pool sanitizer. Most containers will list how much you need to add to how much water to obtain the desired results.