WorldWide Drilling Resource

Through the Back Door! by Jim Kuebelbeck North Dakota Back in July, I received a call from the owner of a farm in western North Dakota, asking if we might be able to help him locate a satisfactory water supply. I politely told him I wished he lived closer so I could possibly help him, but at the present time, we had so much work here in Minnesota, we just could- n't afford to travel hundreds of miles away from home. He asked me to please think about it, because they (he and his son) had drilled numerous dry holes and were desperate. He said he would call back again in a day or two. Thinking there was no way we would travel so far out of Minnesota at the time, I put it out of my mind. He called again some days later, and asked if we might reconsider. I again told him we really couldn't travel so far out of state at the time. Thinking I'd never hear from him again, I told him we'd think about it. Carol had already said there was no way we could travel so far at the time, and then she added, “Jim, I've told you before 'You can't save the whole world', so just put it out of your mind.” About a week later, the man called again and asked what we “decided”. Because I thought we had already made our decision, I hesitated to respond for a few seconds. “Please listen,” he said, “We are desperate out here. We've spent thousands of dollars on dry holes last year, and thousands more this summer. My son doesn't even know if he can con- tinue living on his place. They have a new baby coming and have such a marginal water supply from a deep well on the property, they don't know what to do. He just drilled a 600-foot dry hole on his property, and last week I drilled a 475-foot dry hole in my pasture property. We'd like to winter our cattle there and we desperately need a water supply. We are desperate!” I didn't know quite how to respond, so I asked how he got my name in the first place. He told me someone who knew about their water problems sent him some newspaper articles about our work, and the well drilling contractors themselves told him they had heard of us and were willing to try anything to locate a good water supply. Not knowing what else to say, I told him I'd talk to Carol once again and call him back later that afternoon. After discussing his desperate situation, Carol agreed maybe we should try to help them after all. I called him back and agreed to try to help him with our water dowsing methods. We left Minnesota some days later and drove most of the day, and spent the night in a motel about 50 miles from their property. We arrived at his son's property early the next morn- ing and started to work. To our amazement, we discovered a live water flow about 150 feet away from his 600-foot dry hole and marked the site. Some time later, in a completely differ- ent direction, we located another flow about 200 feet from the 600-foot hole and marked that site also. We could find no other flows on the property. We then went to his dad's property where they were hoping to winter their cattle. We found one flow, which was about 150 feet from his previous 475-foot dry hole. Knowing the previ- ous problems they encountered in their previous searches, we hesitantly (almost r e l u c t a n t l y ) marked the si te. 22 JANUARY 2018 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Kuebelbeck cont’d on page 36.