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.