Well Asset Management: Not Just for Utility Water Supply
Well deficiencies or failures can be hard to detect in a timely fashion. However, current or potential issues can be detected and tracked with available methods, permitting preventive maintenance actions and treatment.
A feature that wells and wellfield arrays have in common with other engineered systems is the benefit provided by good design, material choices, and expert construction. Thus, a total life-cycle asset management program for “wild” wells involves planning, design, baseline documentation of performance, environmental condition and performance tracking to establish trends and make decisions over time, and planning service events proactively based on that tracking.
This presentation will focus on these points:
- Some challenges that wells face
- Planning that optimizes life-cycle cost management
- Maintenance monitoring recommendations (more than water level and flow rate, but please do that, too)
- Integrating the “wild” wellfield into your total asset management program.
A final point is that such asset management of wells is as viable for small systems with one or two wells as it is for large municipal systems. The tasks and goals are the same, but can be managed under time and budget constraints. In fact, small systems, without financial buffers for major service or capital replacement events, need such a well maintenance program most of all.
Groundwater-source utilities are “well-advised” to implement such designed proactive programs, including training, as an alternative to delegating well service in a reactive way (when performance declines or components fail) to well service companies.
