# Tell me about wells?



## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

First of all -- I abhor any and all kinds of precipitation. However, we've lacked rain for quite a few weeks now (well rained a tad three times but not enough to soak the ground). Interestingly enough, areas of my yard still grow and I still have to mow! UGHH. Anyway, I'm on a well and I'm hearing rumors of folks with wells drying up a bit south of me. So, now I'm totally worried to death that my well is going to dry up! Quite annoyingly, the ground under my mobile home is still wet! ](*,) ](*,) 

Where does the water come from? How long can it last? Does the pressure slow before it dries up? I live about five miles from Kerr Lake -- should that make a difference?


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## turbomkt (Mar 31, 2004)

How deep is the well? IIRC, you should be able to find out how deep the water table is. 

Distance from Kerr Lake may help, but not necessarily. There are different sources for how the water gets to you...and it is not always tied to your rain.

Do you pump from the well to a tank first? Or straight to the mobile home? If to a tank first, you might never see anything until the well pump completely loses suction. If you're worried, keep an eye on water levels in your tank if you have one. Watch how long it takes to fill. Wait a week and check again. If it's slower, there may be an issue. But also remember that wells can have high and low "tides" and this could affect your fill rate (head pressure and all that).

It's been a while since I've been on a well, so take the above as mostly opinion


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

I can't remember how deep the well is, but I'm thinking it wasn't that very deep. Maybe 86 feet? I can't remember.  I do have a tank, but it's solid -- I can't see it. Water pressure seems good still. We had a 'drought' a couple years back and my well didn't dry up then, but lots of other's did. I think I'm worrying unnecessarily but what is an aquarist without water????


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## turbomkt (Mar 31, 2004)

*what is an aquarist without water????

*A 5 gallon can carrier?


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## stcyrwm (Apr 20, 2005)

Piscesgirl, 

Any well that deep is a drilled well and is down in an aquifer which generally are not affected by seasonal droughts. Most of the time when folks refer to dried up wells they are talking about shallow wells - 5 to 15 feet deep which are much more sensitive to short term weather changes. I wouldn't think from my own professional experience up here in Vermont that you'd have anything to worry about.

Praying for rain,
Bill (with his plumber hat on)


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Turbo - but where would I carry that 5 gallon can from?  I live 20 minutes from town! 

Thanks Bill -- I'll take hope in that! I'll have to search around for the paperwork when I had the well drilled, but I'm way sure it wasn't shallow like that!  Thanks again!


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

Piscesgirl said:


> We had a 'drought' a couple years back and my well didn't dry up then, but lots of other's did.


That one fact is the best thing you have going. It will probably take a drought of Bibical proportions to affect your well. Hopefully, the current one is way short of that.

I've seen Kerr Lake 15 feet low during the summer before, but that was many summers ago. strange to see all those floating docks sitting on the ground (they drain Kerr to keep Lake Gaston from going low, so Kerr looked worse than it should have).


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Aquaverde -- do you come down this way often? It's funny you mentioned Kerr Lake being low sometimes -- I noticed as I came home today that it isn't low at all at least per the 'little island' that I look at as I pass by. Sometimes it isn't an island!


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

Not recently, as I’ve been living in NY for the last 10 years, but I’m a native Virginian from the Tidewater area, and had relatives that lived on both lakes after retirement. In the 60s (I’m no spring chicken) my family vacationed on Lake Gaston a number of times. Later I spent a lot of time traveling Rt. 58 and you can see the lakes from the road. I would notice if the level on Kerr was low.

The scuttlebutt back in the day was that Lake Gaston, which is maintained by Va Power, had to be kept within (I think) a foot of it’s normal height, and that’s why the docks aren’t floating, like they are on Kerr Dam Lake. Kerr got the short end of the stick in this arrangement, having to make up the difference, and a lot of lake bottom can show in a dry year. The worst I ever saw it was once in the middle 70s, don’t remember the exact year. Most of my time was spent at Gaston rather than Kerr, anyway, and this is old info, but probably still true.

To tie this in to the hobby, did you know they dropped Gaston’s level 10 feet one winter in the late 80s to try to get rid of an aquatic weed supposedly introduced from aquariums (elodea, maybe). It didn’t kill the weed, but if I had been thinking at the time I could have tried to find my High School ring which was dropped to the bottom in one of the coves about 35 years ago. I have a feeling if it could have been found, someone probably already did, as I saw a lot of people walking the shores with metal detectors that winter. It was spooky to see some of the flooded roads and all the stumps come into view with the water dropped like that.


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Wow,thanks for the 'history'! Actually, they still are fighting the aquatic 'weed' I think it's Anacharis! I could be wrong, but I thought I remembered reading an article about it not too long ago. I remember thinking that they should just harvest it for the aquarium hobbyist community! 

It doesn't surprise me that Kerr gets the shaft -- seems the whole community does!


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

Ain't politics lovely? I now live near the Ashokan reservoir, the land for which was snatched by NYC using eminent domain. It provides the drinking water (along with some other sources) and is the reason why my aquarium water is just like the water for a lot of other aquarists 90 miles away.

An aquaintance from back home who had a place on Gaston liked to fish. He dropped some old Christmas trees/pine tree branches off the end of his dock to attract fish and was fishing for crappie one day. He gets a nibble and starts reeling in when _wham_ his reel starts screaming line out. 45 minutes later he lands this huge striper, with a crappie in its mouth. The catch became the bait! He had them both stuffed and mounted. One of my favorite fishing stories.


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Actually, I can't stand how politics really are and yet that was my major in college! I think books make things sound so much better than they really are! 

Poor fishies  I know that has to be a great fishermans' story, but poor fishes


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

Piscesgirl said:


> Poor fishies  I know that has to be a great fishermans' story, but poor fishes


OK, here's another one then. My stepdad's son (who I grew up with) told me they had some guys down diving on the dam at Gaston to do some maintenance, and one of them was new to the job. Shortly after he went in, he came back up, quit the job, packed up and left. Evidently he came across something bigger than him in the water, and that was all she wrote.

You just never know what's in that deep water. I figure it had to be a catfish of some sort.


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Hehe that's very funny! Maybe the Loch Gaston Monster?


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

A legend in the making  

Honestly, though, I think it's mysterious and enticing to imagine what may be below the surface. I went whitewater canoeing a long time ago in the Clinch river in SW VA. The Clinch runs west into TN and we debarked 4 days later in a little town called Dungannon. There was an old timer there on the shore who lived in a little house with his daddy (who must have been 90 or so). You won't like this part- a hydroelectric plant had spilled acid in the river 4 years previous, which killed the fish, and the old timer told us there was stuff floating up that no one had any idea was in the water- e.g. hundred-pound catfish and the like. That's why I thought the diver at Gaston might have seen a catfish. But I like the Loch monster idea better!


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Poor fishies  And ultimately, poor us in situations like that  Good thing plants clean up the environment to some extent.

I have the utmost respect for creatures in deep water, dark caves, dark/thick forests, etc. etc. heh, and I let them be! I'm too chicken to go down there and face! I'd be like that diver - bye folks! see ya! Y'all can deal with the Loch Gaston monster -- I'll stay on the shore!


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

Agreed! Anyway, far be it from me to spoil a good legend.

Maybe we can start one about wells... :^o


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Now don't you tell me there is a catfish in my well!!


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

"Um, sorry ma'am, your well didn't go dry. You have an obstruction..."

I could move back and start a catfish-extraction business. Oh, the possibilities...open a restaurant chain serving..you guessed it...

OK, I'll stop. Meanwhile, I see your weather report has a chance of thunderstorms in the next few days. Hopefully you'll get some rain out of it. This has been the hottest summer I've seen in NY since I've been here. It's like a normal SE VA summer.


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

I don't like thunderstorms....booohooo...but we need the rain. Why can't it just rain? Why does there have to be a thunderstorm complete with lightning to have rain? hmmf!

Catfish extraction business...hmmm.....sounds promising...but what about something more menacing? Like maybe giant worms?


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

I love thunderstorms. I don't go out in them anymore after lightning struck too close one time. I watch them from the garage if I get the opportunity.

I'm leaving worm extraction to others. A man needs to know his limitations.
[smilie=p:


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

We have rain! Yuk I hate it, but it is welcomed right now (for a little while, hehe). Luckily and strangely, it is not in the form of thunderstorms but a slow steady rain off and on (more on than off) and so far today too, but more lightly. Yay! water changes can commence! 

oh come on, Aquaverde -- a few worms won't hurt ya! hehe (and thunderstorms can!). Actually, my yard needs tick removal, but that's another thread altogether!


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## aquaverde (Feb 9, 2004)

Best kind of rain to have when it's dry is a good soaker spread out over a few days.

And ticks can go on the list with worms. They weren't bad enough, now there's Lyme disease. Ecch.


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## Clone (Mar 9, 2005)

Well drillers often write the depth of well on the underside of the well cap.


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## Piscesgirl (Feb 25, 2004)

Oh I'm sure it's there under the concrete block -- I'm just not about to lift it to find out! That concrete block cover is larger than me! It's on my bill too when I had it drilled, I just don't want to go through all my paper work to find out!


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