BELLEVILLE – For the most part, Ontario’s 750,000 wells offer an abundant and healthy water supply. But the 1.5 million abandoned wells, the majority of which are not maintained or tested, provide a direct route to the aquifer that puts health status at risk, meetings of dairy farmers across Ontario were told over the fall. And at least one Ontario resident died falling into an abandoned well last year.
"Private wells represent a pathway for contamination to reach aquifers and must be considered in source protection," Mary Jane Conboy, the executive director of Well Wise at Orono, told hundreds of farmers over four meetings, funded in part by the Canada-Ontario Water Supply Expansion Project.
"A well that has been properly decommissioned should not affect the future use of that land." Conboy said old abandoned wells can be found anywhere, from that pipe sticking out of the ground in the yard to inside of small buildings. They can be concrete pits, covered by old lumber or metal, in the floor of a home addition, or straddled by deteriorating windmills.
The Ontario Drinking Water Standards has operational, aesthetic and health- related parameters, she said noting that Well Wise’s six different available packages test for bacteria, metals and minerals, pesticides, gasoline and solvents, oils and diesel.
Her sobering, yet humorous presentation took a look at the practices which once took place in the rural countryside.
Showing a photograph of a well decorated as a fire hydrant, and telling tales of finding snakes and their waste in wells, she outlined common sense practices for the location and maintenance of wells as well as a step-by step explanation of well remediation.
Between 10,000-20,000 new wells are being drilled annually. But most punching their way into the earth were built before the province’s Bill 908 went into affect.
Conboy is assisting the Dairy Farmers of Ontario campaign to help protect and upgrade water quality on dairy farms.
"Your well needs to be located outside... and down gradient from a source of contamination." At the same time it should be up gradient from natural ponds... as it’s possible and likely that the ground water could carry the contaminants directly to your well," Conboy said as she tag teamed with licensed well driller and instructor Jim Smith.
Drilled wells should be set back a minimum of 15 metres with at least six metres of water tight casing in the well. That casing should extend 40 centimetres up and Conboy discouraged any camouflaging of wells. Increasing that set back is a good idea if the well is placed in a shallow unconfined aquifer, a highly fractured bedrock, down grade from sources of contamination or near a potential flood zone.
Wells should also be marked to differentiate them from other pipes sticking out of the ground.
"Masking or covering the stick-up leads to potential problems," she said, showing photos of a variety of no-nos, from decorating the well head as a fire hydrant to drilling a well inside a dug well without first sealing the original well.
"Chipped concrete on the well pit cover allows vermin and other contaminants to enter the well."
Smith, from Lindsay, demonstrated the steps taken in upgrading large diameter wells. It begins with excavation and replacement of damaged tiles and waterproof sealing between each tile.
Concrete grout should be applied around the exterior of the casing of the well and a waterproof seal should surround the pump line. The job is finished when a new cap is installed and the above ground grade is sloped away from the well, Smith said.
The two recommended the people not "shock," their wells. Conboy said it is too complicated a procedure for even an expert to contemplate.
"A well that is properly constructed and maintained should not need to be shocked regularly," she said, noting that the contractor will "shock" it when he has completed his work.
News
January, 2008
Vol. 32, No. 1
NEWS
