ABSTRACT
Water wells, of all “living” creatures, do not show clear signals of impending failure.
As you read the word “living creatures,” it is natural to think of the well as being just
a borehole in the ground extracting water from an aquifer in a physical manner (by
pumping) and experiencing the chemistry that would be associated with the
groundwater moving from a reductive to a more oxidative regime. Two issues here
would be
1. Effects of the oxidation of the water (ferric iron being a more obvious
example) that could be biologically controlled and
2. Movements of solids toward the well which then become locked within
the porous medium directly impacting the water flow toward the well
controlled by the biomass (plugging). If there is a physical blocking of
flow then this is referred to as clogging.