For home and garden edition

To go with three photos

Searching For Clean And Plentiful Water––

One Of A Homesite’s Most Valuable Assets Is Hidden Underground

By Andrew Gorosko

Home buyers out shopping for a place to live will pay close attention to the style of home that suits them, the number of bedrooms, the kitchen counters, the landscaping, and of course the location, location, location. What they sometimes forget to consider is the quality and quantity of the water supply. Life can be difficult in a home with bad water, or not enough water.

Although Newtown contains two large public water supply systems fed by high-yield water wells, the large majority of local dwellings are served by individual domestic water wells situated on the house lot. It is estimated that approximately 6,500 of the approximately 8,000 dwellings in Newtown, or about 80 percent of local homes, are served by such private water wells.

As a public health safeguard, the plans for drilling such private wells, plus the quality and quantity of those wells’ output, are monitored by the town health department.

Newtown Health Director Donna M. McCarthy said the quality and output of those wells may vary greatly, even among wells that are near each other.

Some wells produce copious amounts of water, while others have scant yields. Some wells produce high quality drinking water, while others yield water with high mineral content, requiring chemical treatment before consumption.

The majority of local wells are located within bedrock. Those wells intercept the water that drains downward from fissures within that bedrock.

Wells that are drilled into stratified drift, however, are more likely to have higher water yields. Stratified drift is a glacial deposit of sand and gravel that is highly porous and has great water holding capacity. Both of Newtown’s public water supply systems obtain their water from the stratified drift deposits of the Pootatuck Aquifer.

A typical four-bedroom house requires approximately 600 gallons of water daily, Ms McCarthy noted. Domestic usage includes water for drinking, bathing, laundry, toilets, dishwashing, lawn watering, and car washing, among other uses.

Health officials, however, would prefer that the residents of a four-bedroom dwelling not consume 600 gallons daily, given the continuing need for water conservation. “We want to see people be more conservative,” Ms McCarthy said.

As the quality of water-saving, low-output water fixtures has improved during the past several years, people have become more inclined to use those fixtures to conserve water, Ms McCarthy noted.

A domestic water well that produces one-half gallon of water per minute stands at the low end of the acceptable well-yield range, she said. For a well that produces that little water to be acceptable, it would have to be at least 450 deep, or have 600 gallons of accompanying water storage in a tank, she said.

People with such low-yield water wells may have their well “hydrofractured” to produce additional water yield, or may drill a second well on their property, or may use a water storage tank, she said.

On the high end of the well-yield scale, some wells may produce more than 50 gallons per minute.

Well drillers often create wells that produce about seven gallons of water per minute, Ms McCarthy said.

Well Drilling

Before a well is created, a well driller files an application with the health department describing exactly where the well would be drilled. Health department staffers then go to the property and check for any potential sources of water pollution within 75 feet of the well site. Wells must be at least 75 feet away from septic systems and at least 25 feet away from watercourses. Wells should be drilled uphill from areas of activity on a property.

After the well is drilled, the health department receives a completion report from the well driller describing the well and its output.

The department also receives a report on water quality from a testing laboratory. Laboratories conduct bacteriological tests on the water for total coliform bacteria and fecal coliform. Physical testing concerns turbidity, alkalinity/acidity, color, and odor. Chemical testing checks on the water’s hardness and the presence of both nitrate and nitrite nitrogen, sulfate, sodium, chloride, copper, iron, and manganese.

Locally, water wells that contain iron and manganese are fairly common, Ms McCarthy said.

High mineral levels may alter the flavor of water and cause staining on water fixtures and stains on clothing laundered in that water.

The incidence of high mineral levels in well water is scattered throughout town, Ms McCarthy said.

 Well water with high mineral content may require water treatment to neutralize the problems. After a well is drilled, it takes about three months for well conditions to stabilize to determine whether any water treatment is needed, she said.

Water treatment may involve filtration, the addition of water softening chemicals, or may employ the process of reverse osmosis to achieve the desired water quality, she said.

The depth of wells varies greatly, with depths often ranging from 200 to 500 feet, depending on subterranean conditions. Wells may be as shallow as 100 feet deep. Some wells in the area of Old Green Road are reportedly 800 feet deep.

To ensure that a domestic water well is producing safe drinking water, Ms McCarthy suggests that property owners have periodic water quality testing performed. She further suggests that if a property is near an industrial area, that the well water be tested for the presence of volatile organic compounds.

On Site

On a recent warm day, well driller Jody Tuttle used a “cable tool” well rig to create a new water well for a home on Swamp Road in Botsford. The well rig created an intense, repetitive “boom-chang, boom-chang, boom-chang” sound.

The well rig employs pounding pressure to pulverize subterranean rock. The powdered rock is mixed with water, brought to the surface in a slurry, and then discarded. The deep shaft created by the rig is lined with a steel well casing to make the well permanent.

Mr Tuttle, who is president of Howard Tuttle & Sons, Inc, of Oxford, said his firm creates about 45 to 50 water wells annually in Newtown. Wells drilled by the cable tool rig typically are about 200 feet deep, he said.

Mr Tuttle said he seeks to produce a well that yields at least five gallons of water per minute. An engineer often decides where to drill a well on a property, after considering technical requirements.

Mr Tuttle said that during the past 40 years, his firm has created about 1,000 wells in Newtown.