Spring Development (water)

[MDM]

Still weighing my water supply options. I have a spring that I have been catching water from and pumping to my house the last couple of years. I just use the water for laundry and flower beds/garden. The spring itself is near the bottom of a 15ft ravene just about 30 ft from my well. There is a hole about 10" in diameter where the water comes out of. Kinda of resembles a groundhog hole. I just shoved a pipe up in the hole a couple of feet and I catch the water in a 150 gallon tub, then pump it up to my house to a 425 gallon plastic tank in my garage. This spring generally runs from October to the first of June. It stops running during the summer months. My FIL told me that since it stopped running out on the surface of the ground that is was just a "wet weather spring". I just pretty much left it at that.

My question is, could this possibly be developed into a spring with holding tank and all? It will be of no use if it doesn't produce water during the summer.

Even though it stops running out on the surface in the summer months, is it possible there is still a spring there in the dry season, but it is just below the ground? Could it be that there is water there, just 6 or 7 feet below the surface?

I contacted my county soil and water office and they are sending me a list of contractors that could help me out. What do you guys think? I guess I'm asking if there could still be a spring there in the dry season, just not running out on the surface?

 

[ToadHill]

A former owner of my property had a spring like you described. He dug it down about 15ft and lined the walls with stone. It produced water all year for him. By the time I bought the property 20 years ago, it had mostly caved in, but water still runs from the rock pile about 9 months of the year.

 

[mjarrels]

I have a spring that is feed into a half buried septic tank and exits back to the creek at a higher level pipe... stays full all the time and pumps to the old house.

mark

 

[caver]

Could be a karst type spring. I have one on my property and I suspect there is a small cave system inside the nearby hill. Flow is pretty good right now at probably 10 gallons a minute (wild guess) down to less than a gallon a minute during the dry summer months. Karst springs are sort of like area creeks only underground.
I'm not a geologist but spent many a weekend crawling around in cave systems.

 

[WayneB]

Not knowing the lay of the land around the spring it is difficult to say just what you might have there, but you might be able to drive a water point into the ground 10 to 15 feet and draw water out.

Driving a Wellpoint

I have one at our summer place and it has worked fine for us for over six years now. Trick is to find the water source and then tap into it. By the way with me it was pure luck. Just drove it in about 10 feet and there was water at the bottom 5 feet of pipe within ten minutes. So we hooked up the pump and it started pumping water immediately. An hour later it was still flowing full stream so we decided it was going to do the job.

Then I added filters and a UV lamp system and we use it for our main source of water.

Worth trying I would think.