How dry I am…When you’re in business of selling water, a drought has always been good for the water well industry. But now it’s the rainy season of the wet year. Now it’s like water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink from the poem “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Either way business needs to be able adapt to take advantage of changing weather patterns. It’s easy to stay busy in dry weather but what opportunities exist in the wet years. This is a good time to consider profitable solutions like enhanced well decommissioning.
Every well business has what it takes to make decommissioning profitable. You have equipment, knowledge of the customer base, and a purpose to protect the source of your livelihood. The irrigation well is the farm’s key asset closely followed by the domestic well used for raising livestock and human consumption. So proper decommissioning of the old well is of equal value, and the cost should be paid by the end user because of the protection it provides for the other two. Cost share from local NRD’s should be increased to defray these costs as cleaner groundwater is a benefit for all. We all live upstream and downstream of someone. The typical enhanced decommissioning takes on average 4-6 hours and the product is permanent once installed properly.
To understand the scope of potential of a business model, currently Nebraska has approximately 95,000 to 100,000 active large diameter- high- capacity water wells. Thousands more have been abandoned and not properly sealed. About 90% of these active wells do not meet the minimum standards for grouting and casing integrity needed to safeguard the aquifer. Consider data from the Department of Natural Resources well registration database per 2024.
Things got better in 1988, but improvements still are needed. Beginning in 1988, non-watertight casing was no longer allowed and in 2014 standards for all new wells include full length borehole protection using grouts and annular filling materials designed divert seepage and runoff water away from the borehole back into the natural filtration of the ground. But well decommissioning standards remain focused on filling the casing and not sealing the borehole for any well.
How do we make things even better, where do we begin? Let’s start with the thousands of abandoned wells already out of service. Excavate them and properly seal the borehole. Next, when the 60% of active irrigation wells drilled between 1930 and 1988 are replaced, they need to be properly sealed to protect the groundwater from future pollution potential. If not, these wells will still pose a substantial threat to groundwater potability. Third, any large-diameter active water well built from 1988 to 2014 needs to be re-grouted at the proper intervals and sleeved with watertight casing or decommissioned once they become a hazard to the groundwater. Finally, proper sealing of the borehole for all abandoned wells regardless of being completed in a confined or unconfined aquifer closes the easy pathway for contamination to reach the groundwater.
The chart below illustrates how much open area can be found in the borehole of a large diameter well. By closing the entire open area of the casing and the borehole in a onetime cost and effort, maximum protection of the drinking water of our state will have been re-established
Enhanced decommissioning alone won’t solve the problem of nitrate contamination, but it is a good place to begin as this has the lowest impact on the well-owner. To completely address the issue the steps outlined in this article need to be seriously applied. With NRD’s and State and Federal officials working with end users hand in hand these efforts will turn the tide on nitrate contamination in Nebraska and that is more important than ever before.
Currently the University of Nebraska Medical Center is researching a link between pediatric cancer and other cancers with high levels of nitrates in drinking water. Whatever the outcome of this research it has elevated the awareness of water quality and the product this profession produces and demand for sustainable, abundant, clean, inexpensive drinking water for humans and livestock. We as an industry can step up and lead the way and provide protection for our customers and the future of the water well industry and develop a sustainable income stream for those “rainy days”. The numbers indicate that if 1000 wells per year were properly sealed, the industry would have approximately 85-90 years of work.
The rain is going to fall, and we can’t do much about that but manage the aftermath. However, we can do something about restoring the natural filtration of the subsurface that’s protecting our states greatest asset, our groundwater. Finding and sealing the leaking wells is a good place to start.
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