Using Private Wells to Cost-Effectively Complement and Extend Groundwater-Level Monitoring Networks, Build Consensus and Facilitate Sustainable Management
Using Private Wells to Cost-Effectively Complement and Extend Groundwater-Level Monitoring Networks, Build Consensus and Facilitate Sustainable Management
Presented on Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Groundwater managers, private firms, consultants, and research scientists are expanding groundwaterlevel monitoring networks to provide greater spatial and temporal density of groundwater-level data required to meet new and changing sustainability goals. The primary limitations to monitoring expansion, however, are the costs of installing new monitoring wells and monitoring equipment, and the inability to monitor on private, stakeholder property where the groundwater risk is high, and little is known. The logical next step must, therefore, be to expand monitoring to private domestic and small agricultural production wells. To do this effectively requires new monitoring systems that don’t present the risk of groundwater contamination, loss or damage to equipment in a pumping well, and that can provide research and management ready data. Simple acoustic sensors connected to a cloud-based system provide the means to incorporate accurate, real-time data from private, production wells without touching water, while enabling tracking and tagging of sensor readings to handle pumping influence, and providing secure, flexible access to data online. Online access enables well owners and local stakeholders to have their own secure, account where they can have control over data sharing, monitor well operation, and view groundwater trends and seasonality. Expanding monitoring to private wells, with the appropriate technology, supports new requirements for dense groundwater-level data, but additionally provides the opportunity for direct stakeholder engagement with data, new and broader understanding of shared resources, and a smoother path to consensus around management strategies, supporting implementation and advancing progress towards sustainability goals.
Marian Singer, CEO
Wellntel, Inc., Milwaukee, WI
Marian Singer is the CEO and co-founder of Wellntel Inc. As an equal partner in the firm FiveTwelve Group, conducting research for Fortune 250 companies including GE, Schneider Electric, ITT, Bucyrus, and Johnson Controls, she spent many years studying the global water business. Most recently, her focus has been on groundwater exploration, access, contracting, financing, regulation, costs, operations, and the global and local conditions that drive its use and threaten its sustainability. Singer founded Wellntel in 2013 with co-founder Nick Hayes.
Charles Dunning, Ph.D.
Wellntel, Inc., Milwaukee, WI
Charles Dunning leads Business Development for Wellntel, with responsibilities that include working with clients to define individual monitoring needs for characterizing their water resources and to consider the value of insights gained by expanding data through networks of monitored wells. Charles has advanced degrees in geology and civil engineering, and has had a 35-year career in geology and hydrogeology serving in both the public and private sectors.
Joseph Fillingham, Ph.D.
Wellntel, Silver Spring, MD
Joseph Fillingham is the Science Lead at Wellntel Inc. where he works to improve the usefulness and power of groundwater information collected with the Wellntel system focusing on water and environmental dynamics. He also supports the Wellntel technical team in the development of new ways to sense important properties of groundwater. Fillingham received his Ph.D. in freshwater ecosystem dynamics from the School of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
