The well saga continues…
I recently had my well deepened bec a pump wore out its splines from excess fine sand in the water at the previous level, 144′.
Now it’s deepened to 270′, i have lots of sand-free water, but i’ve discovered the scourge of iron bacteria that turns the water orange and makes a scum on every surface, plugs filters, faucet screens, etc.
I’ve pumped continuously for a week with the exception of a 24-hr. period of shocking with chlorine bleach, using the top end of guidelines for ppm to kill the bacteria.
I don’t have as much slime in the water now, but now that the chlorine is gone, it’s turned from clear to light yellow again, and i’m betting i’m heading back to the deeper hues in short order. I’m starting to collect slime in the faucet screens again.
I’m going to shock the well again today. If that doesn’t help, i figure i have a couple options: install a chlorinator, or grout the well at the new level to close that water off and get the casing re-perforated at the old level, then deal with the fine sand instead. I’ve never heard of anyone doing the second thing…anyone else ever heard of it?
I’m looking for experiences people have had with chlorinators, brand names of reliable equipment, pros and cons, esp in regard to human and plant health. Also, ANY advice anyone might have for dealing with Fe bacteria on a private well would be welcome.
Replies
*bump*
have you checked with the county ag extension office?
Does you well ever hit solid rock? Saw in the other thread where you brought up chunks of wood and that can't be a good thing for h2o quality.
No rock; this is all ancient glacial lake bed, which is why the wood bits were in there...ancient forest the glaciers scraped off and deposited. It was kinda neat, seeing it...The ag extension agent is new, kinda clueless when i last spoke to her about soil testing a couple months back. The experienced guy just retired. I haven't had much chance to do anything but read about the bacteria so far. I've got a call in to the sanitarian...haven't heard back yet.
I have a hydrogen Peroxide system to deal with Sulfur but I am told it will take you iron as well. I would look into those in addition to chlorination. I had the option of using chlorine but the Hydrogen peroxide is in my opinion a better way to go.
Thanks. That's an alternative i hadn't seen yet and i'll read up on it.
Where do I find info on the hydrogen peroxide system?Thanks,Al Smith
I just googled <<hydrogen peroxide iron bacteria>> and started reading. I haven't gone through many of the articles, but there's lot of reading on the hit list.Care to elaborate on your experiences and why you're interested?Gotta run now, be back in a few hours...
We are in a small southern town New Hampshire with lots of granite bedrock. The 200' deep well for our church parsonage has larger than desirable amounts of iron, manganese, sulfur ( with sulfur reducing bacteria), and more recently measured uranium ( not radon). There appear to be a number of straight forward solutions to subsets of what we have, but it appears that treating all of them may require a rather extensive and expensive system ( $5-$9,000). So I am interested in potential solutions that need less than 4-6 stages of treatment. At the state level, we have a Water Resources Division, with a specialist in residential water systems. After we found out about the uranium, I sent him the results of the water testing and had several lengthy phone conversations with him about alternative approaches to treatment. He tends to steer people away from water softeners because if everybody in a small village starts using one ( perhaps 600 pounds of salt per house per year), then pretty soon we have excess sodium levels and can't drink the water. You may have a similar specialist to contact in your state.
Thanks for the info...you have a real job sorting that one out. I was hoping for the magic bullet of cleaning out the iron bacteria with shocking the well, as i cleared it of sulfur-reducing bacteria a few years ago. I'll try it again and report if it appears to make a difference. It's better after the first shocking than a couple days after the drillers left, for sure, so i'm still hoping i can get a handle on fixing the problem instead of fixing the water.I'll post anything i learn from the local agents and drillers. Today marked the final day of planting the Community Gardens, so i'll have more time to beat the bushes for a solution.
Hi Colleen,I have iron bacteria and e-coli in my well water, so had no choice but to chlorinate. I have a chlorine injector pump that feeds a 30:1 solution of water and bleach into the the water line just before the pressure tank only as water is being pumped. It is far more precise and controllable than just dumping pellets down a hole. You run tests to see just how much chlorine solution is needed, and adjust the rate of pumping and strength of solution to get it right. You have a thirty gallon holding tank for the solution, and you have to keep an eye on it so it doesn't run out. I wind up refilling it every few months.After the pressure tank you need holding tanks to assure that the water stays in contact with the chlorine for 20 minutes. With a 7 gpm pump that means 140 galls of holding tank (I have two 70 gallon tanks).After the holding tanks it goes through a large activated carbon filter (10 inch diameter by about 60 inches tall) which back-washes every few days. I send the backwash out the foundation drain, not back into the septic system.Total equipment cost: 2K from a wholesaler. I installed it myself. I'm supposed to test the water post-carbon filter and see if there is any residual Chlorine, but I never do. In ten years or so I've had to change the media in the carbon filter once. Pump has never broken. Backwash head on the filter had to be replaced once. I have a client right now that has high manganese, hard water, and high ph and we are doing a similar setup, but with a vinegar injector rather than chlorine, followed by a carbon filter and a water softener. About 2.5K in equipment.All systems require maintenance. Thats the bummer.Steve
Thanks, Steve, that's in line with cost and complexity for what i've seen. The advantage to having the holding tanks would be water storage; i was caught really short when the pump broke, it was hot, and the trees and greenhouse depended on my hauling water from the neighbors place. Installation and maintenance i could handle, and i could T off before the tanks to put untreated water on the plants. Still, i've read stories about IB plugging up pumps themselves if the well itself isn't treated. Do you have any feedback on that? This pump was producing 15 gpm right after the drillers left; now down to 10 gpm ten days later. I also have hard water and i'm REALLY interested in the vinegar system, if it would perhaps deal with the bacteria. I haven't read about it in all my googling...is it something you're experimenting with? I read about acid washes down the well casing, in lieu of or subsequent to a chlorine wash, but that was hydrochloric acid. Vinegar seems quite tasty by comparison!I was lying awake last night wondering if anyone has ever tried electrocuting the little bastards. I was musing about tossing a small TV into their bath water...
My pump has been in about 10 years and I've had no problems with it clogging. I been meaning to drain the holding tanks one of these years to see if they are full of crud at the bottom, but I've not screwed up the courage to do so.T-ing off before the holding tanks would not work the way I have it set up, as the chlorine injection point is where the well line enters the house, before the pressure tank, as per the mfgs. instructions. I'm not sure if it would matter if it was after the pressure tank. So if you Teed off after the pressure tank, you would have chlorinated but unfiltered water.The chlorine injector pump is connected to the electrical line for the well pump so that when the pump kicks on, it turns on the injector pump as well, and squirts the requisite amount of chlorine into the moving stream of incoming well water before it goes to the pressure tank.By the same token you wouldn't want to use the water in the holding tanks without filtering it, as it's full of chlorine at that point. After the carbon filter, it's supposedly pure as the driven snow...The vinegar pump for the well I'm looking at treating now is to lower the ph, not kill bacteria.I looked into UV light systems, but the iron bacteria slime fouls them in short order, rendering them useless.Steve
If i wanted unchlorinated water for irrigation, i'd have to have a different control for the injector than the pump turning on, like a control that would sense water flow past the injector. The water coming out of the well and diverted to the sprinklers wouldn't affect anything downstream then, would it? Hmmm...i'm wondering if the "spring" action of the PT would "milk" the chlorinator. Thoughts?If i chlorinated and filtered a thousand gallons a day of sprinkler water, i'm assuming i'd see equipment failures and running costs much in excess of yours. Beyond installation costs, do you have any idea how much your electrical usage increased with the chlorinator and carbon filter?I looked at UV as well, which wouldn't work bec of the turbidity, let alone slime.
May be of interest...I read a short while back about how bleach alone does not kill as much bacteria as most think. (Something like 28% in a commercial kitchen.)But that a solution of one cup bleach, and one cup of white vinegar, in one gallon of water, killed 100% of the little buggers.You might try dumping several gallons of bleach AND several gallons of white vinegar down the well at the same time...Something is only impossible... Until it isn't...You are always welcome at Quittintime
I've just been reading about adding vinegar to the mix, too. The bleach raises the pH, which inhibits killing the bacteria. The vinegar lowers pH again to a free-fire zone. The recommended amount of bleach is 2 gallons, according to most sites i checked. I used 9 quarts last time i shocked the well. This time i used twice as much chlorine, and i'll add a gallon of vinegar to it tomorrow morning and recirculate it some more, then let it sit until afternoon before draining it all out. Then i'll wait a few days and get the water tested to find out exactly what i'm dealing with.I think we're getting all your rain. It drove us out of the gardens today at 5 and hasn't let up more than ten minutes at a time. I'm thinking gutters and a big cistern would be a whole lot simpler...
"I was lying awake last night wondering if anyone has ever tried electrocuting the little bastards. I was musing about tossing a small TV into their bath water..."Sorta, you can use electrolysis to breakup the water into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombine them for distilled water.Or you can give them a fatal sunburn. (UV-treatment).Your talk of the slim reminds me. Twice I have run into gel like substance in pipes. In both cases the sources where treated water. One a good city source. The other a RWD and I really don't know how good or the original source of the water was.In the first it was an old house where they added some copper and connected it directly to the old galvy riser to the vanity. As I was redoing the pipes I was adding in dielectric union and when I tighted it up the galvy elbow split. Looking at it and the galvy pipe it was full of corrosion and a gel.In the other case they had the water line coming out of the basement floor and attached to a main shut off. Then it branched out into what looked like a well head Christmas tree with several shut off valves. I picked one ball valve that was not being used to extend a new line. When I finished and opened the valve I did not get a drop of water. The extension was with PEX and a sharkbite so it was easy to disconnect it and found that the valve opened, but still no water. So I shut off the main and removed the ball valve and the bottom of it was coat with a gel. I did not see any corrosion, but brass valve had been connected to a galvy Tee.I am wonder in both cases if the electrolysis had released a small amount of iron and over the years enough bacteria came along to form the organic slime?Anyway back to your problem. It seems that you might have more complicated situation than simple iron. Before you get get any equipment or change the well you really need to get a full lab test on the water.You might also want to check with these people. Specially before you make any decision about grouting and reopening the well at different levels.http://mbmggwic.mtech.edu/http://www.deq.state.mt.us/wqinfo/swp/StayWellCkYourWell.htm
.
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
The more i read, the more common this IB problem is, esp in certain areas in the northeast and uppper midwest. And yes, i already am certain i have IB and not simply iron.UV doesn't work on turbid water very well, and it's expensive, in any case, with annual replacement of the bulb called for. I'm not buying any equipment before i try shocking the well thoroughly and then getting the water tested after a few days, but it's good to know my options before i have to throw more money at the problem instead of panicking and being sold a bill of goods by the Culligan man.I haven't read any mentions of galvy/brass interactions with IB, but i replaced a zinc insert fitting in the pitless adapter with a brass one this time just for corrosion reasons. I never had problems with the first connection, but i do now, so i doubt that electrolysis at connections plays a role in slime build-up.The Bureau of Mines site looks promising. Thanks for the link. I'll give them a call.
My experiences where just an interesting sidelight on the question. Just wondering where a gel like material would come from.And this valve had not be used in a few years. And it was not that much. So I assume that, for my example, if the water was used a couple of times a year that it would not build up and no one would every notice it..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
<<Just wondering where a gel like material would come from.>>Iron bacteria isn't a health hazard to humans, just that it fouls machinery, tastes bad, looks worse. "Treated" water may not be treated for iron bacteria, which is pretty danged hard to get rid of once it gets a toehold. The slime is actually the protective layer of dead material that shelters the underlying live bacteria from chemical eradication. Treatments for a severely infected well including abrading the bore of deposits, surging to dislodge deposits in the screen, even steam cleaning the bore. There's no end to how much a body could spend fixing this...
read about this feature of Google in SmartComputing. http://scholar.google.com/ Seems to sort out a lot of chaff.
They say about themselves: Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature
The search results: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=iron+bacteria&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search
might be helpful, might be a waste of time.
I don't have a chemistry background, so most of that's over my head. Cool, though...i didn't know such a thing existed and i'll check it over more closely after a night's sleep. Those Google guys and gals...what'll they think of next? Thanks!
Lots of good advice/info so far. My two internet-cents worth to follow.
Well-water problems are somewhat unique.....to a degree. And similar some degree. Bottom line advice is to get a full-blown water test before engaging into a treatment program. Will advise test for bacteria, turbidity, tannins, heavy metals, arsenic, iron content, Ph, etc. IOW, the works. The results will render what you need to know before embarking on an appropriate treatment plan.
The fact that you have 'clear water' in a bucket upon initial delivery , but 'orange-ish' discolored water after it sets for a while leads me to believe to that you have ferrous iron (iron in solution) content in the raw water. Although this may seem like a big bummer.......in some instances......some iron content is actually your friend. Case in point - If you also have an arsenic content in the water..........the arsenic will bond to the iron in the presence of oxygen (from chlorine or hydrogen peroxide for examples). This iron can then be removed with a sand filter....leaving you with totally acceptable levels/very low levels of arsenic. A softener alone can remove 50% of the arsenic content. Add that oxygen source and some iron...... plus a filter-sand unit and the arsenic content can be reduced ten-fold. Our raw-water arsenic content was 51ppb which is only one point above the acceptable limit until a few years back when the acceptable limit was lowered to 10ppb. After treatment ours is down to 3.4 ppb. (Note that the filter-sand unit I speak of is not the same as a green-sand filter. These are two different critters for different purposes/applications/points of treatment. Which one is applicable/best for any specific situation....depends.)
If you do end up using a pellet-chlorinator, it's super-easy to toss a switch in the line to it so that you can turn it off while watering your plants. I installed an outdoor/sealed switchbox for this right by the chlorinator itself.
Speaking of which......to the best of my current knowledge there is no pellet-chlorinator or liquid injection device that is compatible with a VFD or CycleStop valve. These treatment devices are metered/adjusted to introduce 'x' amount of chlorine to 'x' amount of water.........on a pump-running-time basis ('x' gallons of delivery per minute of running time). A VFD pump or a pump running with CS valve will deliver variable amounts of water per minute of running time. Hence the incompatibility with any chlorinator and liquid injection system I'm familiar with. You would need a system that meters the quantity water passing thru it to be compatible with a CS or VFD.
Hydrogen peroxide treatment systems have gained much acceptance/popularity around here in the last 5 years or so. Had a long talk with the fella that runs the lab at the bestest well-driller's biz around here concerning that about a year ago. Wanted me to partner with him, market and install the things, but was/am already too swamped to take on yet another 'sideline'. He knows his stuff and then some when it comes to water treatment. I can give you his phone number if you like, but we are halfway across the country from your locale. He'll know right away that you aren't gonna be a customer. <G> Nonetheless, he may be willing to share what he knows. He really likes to talk about water and water treatment. <G>
Our well casing and pipes had a 'very' substantial buildup from decades of iron algae colonies/slime when we bought this place back in '87. The pellet-chlorinator has cleaned that all up very nicely and has kept it clean. Pulled the pipes about three years ago to install a new submersible to replace the old deep-well jet and there was zero sign of any IB present. When we got here the toilet tank, et al....was covered in flocks and gunk. Argh. Heavy iron-staining everywhere on the sinks, tubs, etc. Not anymore. Constant contact inside the well casing slowly made it's way thru the accumulated layers of IB slime. I'd say it took maybe 6 months total to get a kill thru all the built-up layers. Today.......you'd never know that there is 4.5 ppm of iron in our raw supply.
We installed an Autotrol pellet-chlorinator many years back. But brand isn't so important as is......is the unit you install capable of delivering/dropping pellets fast enough to meet your particular needs. This is where that comprehensive water test comes in again. How much oxygen do you need to introduce to get the deed done........and at what rate does your well-pump put out water? A unit that can keep up with treatment demand coupled to an 8 gpm pump won't necessarily be able to keep up with the need from a 12 gpm pump.
Speaking of which......to the best of my current knowledge there is no pellet-chlorinator or liquid injection device that is compatible with a VFD or CycleStop valve."For the record I don't think that is true in general. IIRC some systems used by some public water systems are metered. But they are also a completely different class of equipment.BTW, the technology is such that could be done for residential applications and probably will be some day. My guess is that there is not enough demand for it yet..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
I suspect you are indeed correct. Shoulda said "for private/residential applications" I guess.
Seems to me that these metered residential/private treatment units should be available by now...... in this day and age. Afterall, metered heads for water softeners have been around for some time now. And yet......I don't know of/haven't heard of any for cholorinator units, etc. Neither have my guys at the plumbing supply. Sure wish they were. Then it would be easy/easier to combine a VFD pump with water treatment units.
HootOwl, that's just a ton of good info there. Thank you so much for the encouraging tale of fixing your slime. I was afraid i'm just screwed myself on resale value ever, but i guess not. I'm thinking the switch for the chlorinator could be set on a timer, so that i could water in the very early morning without chlorine, then have the chlorinator come back on...? I'm really going to push for learning about the H2O2 system instead, though. It sounds too good to be true, from what i've learned so far. I just got done shocking the carp out of my water, with excess chlorine, vinegar, and then i plugged all my extension cords together and tossed the end down the well. If only i'd had about thirty dozen tea bags... ;^)If anything lived through that, it's not leaving any time soon, but i'll get a sample analyzed next week, then see where i stand. Depending on that, i may take you up on your offer to use your friend as a consultant. There have been just so many, many aspects of construction that i've beat my head against the local brick wall when the information existed elsewhere, but i just had to open the right doors and be persistent. You give me hope!PS: I gave up on the cycle stop valve, plus i'm watching my PT gauge and seeing it's just not too difficult to keep the pump running full-time.
Edited 6/10/2009 2:01 am by splintergroupie
I feel your pain. When we had our well dug, it produced 20 gal./minute. I was thrilled. When you filled a white sheetrock mud bucket, it came out cold and crystal clear. But . . . when you looked at the bucket about five minutes later it was this unbelievable orange-brown color that stained everything. When we had a water testing company come out and do their thing, they said it was a very high iron concentration with iron bacteria. They said the iron in the water in the well is in a ferric state and when it hits the air it oxidizes and changes into its ferrous state. (I could have that backwards, . . . been a while since chemistry). They suggested a dispenser on the well head that drops a chlorine pellet down the well and the iron precipitates out.
I didn't like the idea of all that iron precipitate filling up the bottom of the well so we had a different water company come out and they came up with a much more elaborate system which we went with.
The water comes out of the pressure tank in the basement, then into a sedimentation tank which has a small amount of a dilute bleach (sodium hypochlorite) solution pumped into it from another tank which you fill every month or two with a gallon of bleach to thirty gallons of water depending on the demand. the sedimentation tank was on a timer and flushes itself daily at 3 a.m. with the iron sediment going into the sewer.
From here the water goes thru a carbon filter column to remove the chlorine. That filter back flushes every two or three days into the sewer.
From here the water goes thru a water softener to soften and remove any residual iron. That thing back flushes every two or three days into the sewer.
Finally the water goes thru a small cartridge filter and into the domestic water line.
The water tastes great and has no color or odor. That's the good news.
The bad news is that with all those tanks, pumps. piping, back flushing etc. things do break. It was also expensive to install but the monthly costs of bleach and salt for the softener are reasonable.
Good luck. If I can answer anything else just shout.
I'm also on a private septic system, so i'm considering that flushing chlorine into it might net me even more, bigger problems. The drillers measured about a 150' of standing water in the casing, so i may have room to let the precipitate build up, but i'm more concerned with the chlorine effects long-term. In your system, the water inside the well casing isn't being treated, so have you have any problems with slime building up on your pump or well screen? You have a softener in your set-up...is that req'd? I know the pain of looking in that 5-gal bucket of pure, clear water and feeling you hit the jackpot. Then...sludge....Edit: one more Q...did you ever try shocking your well first to eradicate the bacteria at the source?
Edited 6/8/2009 1:48 pm by splintergroupie
To answer your question about bacteria slime in the well. My understanding of our problem is that the iron in the water is very high and that it also contains iron bacteria, but the iron doesn't cause a problem until it hits the air and oxidizes. In other words, the well doesn't have a slime or bacteria problem.
Shocking the well with bleach might kill the bacteria but the water that is drawn into the well simply has a high iron content and aside from causing the immediate iron to precipitate out in the well, I'll always have the iron problem with the "new" water that replaces what is drawn out.
What you have may not be the same as around here, but this is from our perspective....
First, using liquid clorine rarely works well. It does not run to the bottom of the well, but only mixes into the top 50-70 feet of your column of water. using Clorine tablets that sink to the bottom and dissolve more slowly is what cleans the bacteria out of a well.
In the presence of manganese, clorox will stain white clothing in laundry or white porcelain bright orange so while it is killing the bugs, it LOOKs like it is not working, fooling you.
constant pumping stirs things up and adds more color to the water. Mine only shows colour if I irrigate all day and night. Normal uzseage shows no colour.
We use a carbon filter at drinking faucet
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I've shocked several wells before with good luck, even got rid of sulfur-reducing bacteria one time, which i was told couldn't be done. I deal with the mixing issue by circulating the water through the hydrant into a hose and back down the well for a couple hours. It sounds like you're dealing only with iron in your water, not iron bacteria. Different thing. The bacteria die, form sludge that coats all the machinery and screens. Less use makes it worse. It can be naturally occurring or can be introduced in the drilling process, which would be potentially more treatable. I'm not sure which mine is, is the current dilemma.
I'm interested in how the water looks that comes out of the Hot Water heater. Does the heat kill the bacteria? Is the water clear or a little more clear after it sits for awhile?
When our deep well was drilled in 2003, and then ran overnight to clear the sand and drilling mud, I didn't realize how it affected the rest of the house when it was finally tied in. Even six months later I'd find a slick fine sand below the fill valve in the bottom of the toilet's tank. I didn't realize how much got caught in bottom of the 40 gallon water heater. When I attempted to drain away the buildup, it plugged the drain valve after 20 minutes and the drained water left a red sand where the drain hose ended. I replace the 8 year old water heater last November, and even though empty of water, it was really really heavy....
Might check/drain your water heater fairly regularly for awhile and save $400 plus labor for a new one... ;>)
Bill
I have an on-demand water heater (Aquastar), so there's nothing to drain. You have a sediment problem, which is what i had before having my well drilled deeper. I had a whole-house filter that kept up with house use, but not irrigation, so we drilled deeper to a sand-free layer. However, what i have now is a bio-contaminant problem, so it's a different kettle of fish.
We have high iron, sulpher and hard water with our well. Our setup in the basement of the house is as follows:
- The pump is in the well casing and protected by an auto shutoff switch in the basement for when the sensor detects a power surge when the pump draws air (we have a very low flow rate - 4 gpm)
- after entering the basement, there is an air admittance valve to allow air to be drawn into the water to assist in iron/sulpher removal
- the water then goes into the pressure tank
- then into the potassium permanganate filter to remove the iron and sulpher. The pot perm is used to flush out the iron/sulpher from the medium. It requires some small injectors and 1" filter screens be cleaned every couple of months. Pot perm gets added every 4 months or so to the side tank
- then into the salt softener to remove calcium. Same cleaning of injector and filter screen required
- then through a sediment filter (replace cartridge every 6 mths) and after that a UV filter (changed once a year) by our water techie (who also checks/cleans the entire system to make sure it is functioning properly - well worth the couple $100)
What you may have in your water is just a high iron/sulpher content, rather than bacteria. A UV filter would take care of the bacteria anyway. Have your water tests confirmed the bacteria/mineral levels?
We were having sulpher bloom issues with our hot water. Turned out the iron filter was not functioning properly. The air admittance valve was added to assist the filter in removing the iron and sulpher. Before it was fixed, I would add bleach to the sediment filter, but that would only work for a month before the smell came back. Our water treatment guy was adament it was not a bacteria issue, just a problem with the filter. No problems for 3 months now.
It's pretty easy to see i have the iron bacteria bec of the characteristic yellowish slime. If it were just iron, i could filter it out, but this stuff GROWS overnight. I haven't done a water test yet bec i'm trying shocking first, and bec i've been successful at other times doing that for sulfur-reducing bacteria and E. coli indicators. Interesting about your air-admittance valve. I've been reading more about treatment with hdrogen peroxide instead of chlorine. The part that seemed interesting was a byproduct of the chemical interactions with H2O2 is extra oxygen left over that aerobicizes the well water to inhibit bacterial growth. Coulda been hooey, since the site had a 'pitch', but it sounds promising.
Are you aware of anyone re-perforating the pipe? How is it done? I have a neighbor who got greedy for more water and went way too deep. He got lots of water but it was contaminated with boron. We were thinking of trying your second alternative for his well but have to do the perforating part. I'm wondering if it's doable.
The perforator goes down in the well casing and just blows out a divot in the side, right through the steel. It's a special thingie the well-drillers can send down, not DIY. The thing is, it's like putting quills on the casing, going the wrong way, so it's almost impossible to drive it any further if necessary. I'm absolutely sure i won't be going any deeper, so i may try it, and if you can get the boron-producing level sealed off, it may work for you. I'll actually have to do a cost-analysis and see if a new well will be cheaper to drill, since i have lots of room to sink another one.How did your friend discover the well was contaminated with boron?
I believe he had it tested, although I'm not sure. Apparently the boron contaminated water will work for his walnut trees and one other thing he has growing on the property but pretty much kills everything else.
I'll tell him about the perforating option. I know he's already got a ton of money into the thing.