OUR WELL HAS GONE DRY
Donation protected
We are having a drought. This has been a beautiful summer, but also dry. The dryest summer I can remember. As a photographer, I’ve spent a lot of time around dams and other waterways. All of the dams are locked down and many of the riverbeds and ponds are dry.
Today, our well went dry.
We don’t have the option of “city water.” There is no city water in this area. We had the well guy here and he said our well is empty. We had stuck flap on a toilet which is probably what ran the well out … but the well had to be very low for this to empty the entire well.
There are just two choices for us: drill a new well or hydro-fracking.
Our well is deep, about 475 feet. We don’t have enough money — or credit — to drill a new well on the property. The price tag for that starts at around $7,500 and skyrockets from there. That’s more money than we have in savings or credit combined. What’s left? For about everything we have in the world, or starting at $5,000, we can hydro-fracture our well.
Hydro-fracking, is a process of injecting water under high pressure into the bedrock foundation around a well to flush out fine particles and rock fragments from existing bedrock fractures, or increase the size of existing fractures. 99% of the time, this results in an increased flow of water into the well. I'd like to think that we will not fall into the 1% this time.
Today, our well went dry.
We don’t have the option of “city water.” There is no city water in this area. We had the well guy here and he said our well is empty. We had stuck flap on a toilet which is probably what ran the well out … but the well had to be very low for this to empty the entire well.
There are just two choices for us: drill a new well or hydro-fracking.
Our well is deep, about 475 feet. We don’t have enough money — or credit — to drill a new well on the property. The price tag for that starts at around $7,500 and skyrockets from there. That’s more money than we have in savings or credit combined. What’s left? For about everything we have in the world, or starting at $5,000, we can hydro-fracture our well.
Hydro-fracking, is a process of injecting water under high pressure into the bedrock foundation around a well to flush out fine particles and rock fragments from existing bedrock fractures, or increase the size of existing fractures. 99% of the time, this results in an increased flow of water into the well. I'd like to think that we will not fall into the 1% this time.
Well fracturing can be used — this is our situation — on older wells that have lost their recovery rates usually because of mineralization (iron deposits) and incrustation (silt and sediment) of rock fractures.
I am so unhappy and frightened. Unless we can come up with enough money to fix the well, we will be homeless. Soon. This is not an “eventually” kind of problem. We cannot live long without water. Maybe a week, tops.
I am terrified. We are in trouble. Can you help?
I am so unhappy and frightened. Unless we can come up with enough money to fix the well, we will be homeless. Soon. This is not an “eventually” kind of problem. We cannot live long without water. Maybe a week, tops.
I am terrified. We are in trouble. Can you help?
Organizer
Marilyn Armstrong
Organizer
Uxbridge, MA
