 |
2007 Ground Water Summit |
Tuesday, May 1, 2007 : 11:00 a.m.
A Comprehensive Approach to Improving the Effectiveness of Well Rehabilitation
Historically well owners have focused on the use of one or two approaches when rehabilitating a well. The favored approach may be a mechanical method such as surge and bail or high pressure water jetting. Alternatively, one may favor an approach that uses chemicals along with surging. Over the past several years, well rehabilitation research and field experiences in Europe and the US have demonstrated the effectiveness of a more comprehensive approach to rehabilitation. With a better understanding of the mechanisms of mechanical plugging and biological fouling, a successful rehabilitation process should include the use of a combination of methods along with specific monitoring and testing steps to enable determination of subsequent steps. Typically a rehabilitation process will include the following steps:
1. Mechanical brushing,
2. Video Inspection,
3. Use of mechanical or impulse generation technology with pumping,
4. Isolation surging/pumping,
5. Video inspection,
6. Repeat steps 3-5 as needed,
7. Chemical treatment if used,
8. Final video inspection
The use of a comprehensive rehabilitation process improves the chance of a successful rehabilitation and increases the effectiveness of the results, reducing the frequency of future rehabilitation work.