WorldWide Drilling Resource

CSI Using a Down Hole Video Camera by Ray Roerick Sales Manager, Well-Vu, Inc. While attending the South Atlantic Jubilee this year, I heard a great story from a customer during dinner. Seems this water well contractor received a call in the middle of the night from his local law enforcement. Around two o’clock in the morning, the sheriff’s office called wondering if they could borrow his down hole camera. Apparently, they were investigating a local shooting and had reason to believe the fleeing suspect dropped the gun down a well during the course of his escape attempt. Being the good citizen the contractor is, he dressed and went to the sheriff’s location with camera in hand. When he lowered the camera into the shallow well, the officer on scene thought he could see, on the monitor, what appeared to be the trigger guard of a gun. Obviously, a lot of dirt or what- ever was on the bottom, because all that could be seen was a light, curved object. Putting the contractor’s “fishing” skills to work, they soon fabricated a hook onto some PVC pipe and lowered it into the well. While leaving the camera in the well, they were able to maneuver the hook into what turned out to be the trigger guard, and retrieve the weapon. Now comes the “good news” and “bad news”. The good news is, with the aid of the down hole camera and a dili- gent water well contractor willing to get out of bed in the middle of the night to assist law enforcement, the gun was the clincher that helped solve this case and find the person guilty of the crime. The bad news is, when the contractor got home and told his wife, she was upset he didn’t wake her up to go along, as she was a big fan (as am I) of the CSI and NCIS television shows. My hat goes off to those who are willing to do what it takes, day or night, to assist in making this a better coun- try. Though I never said anything at the dinner table that night, this story was especially touching to me, as I also donate over 1000 hours a year as a reserve deputy sheriff, and have used my cameras several times to assist in investigations. Ray admin@ worldwidedrillingresource.com 71 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® OCTOBER 2014 Monitoring Groundwater at the Corvette Museum Sinkhole Adapted from Information by WKU In February, a devastating sink- hole opened at the National Corvette Museum (NCM) in Bowl ing Green, Kentucky, and swallowed eight rare Corvettes. Since then, a diverse team of professionals has worked with the NCM to access and remediate the col- lapse. Western Kentucky University (WKU) and project partners are collecting data to research different environmental factors which contributed to the sink- hole, as well as monitoring the area during remediation. Southcentral Kentucky is a karst region where water flows underground forming caves and voids as it dissolves bedrock. Since water flowing under- ground is part of the process of sink- hole development over geologic time, and is often difficult to research since it is underground, a method to monitor stormwater and groundwater in karst regions is necessary. YSI Incorporated designed a new, submersible water monitoring sonde, the EXO II, capable of capturing and logging high-resolution, continuous data for several parameters, including water depth, pH, temperature, specific con- ductivity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, and others. The logger provides everything from Bluetooth accessibility to real-time monitoring capabilities with additional peripheral devices available which can be used in wells, streams, or any other monitoring location. An EXO II sonde with multiple water parameter probes was loaned to WKU’s Center for Water Resource Studies (WKU CWRS), for use at the NCM sinkhole site. The sonde is being used to monitor water in an adjacent pond area serving to collect runoff, and exists as a perched water feature. It can pro- vide information of any changes in water from the drilling process or storms which could pose a threat to the remediation process. Monitoring provides an additional measure of safety and data collection to help understand the dynamics of the sinkhole and its natural formation pro- cesses. Data collected through the moni- toring project will support efforts by project partners in their collective work to remediate the sinkhole. It will also provide invaluable scientific information to WKU CWRS’s research on sinkhole processes and karst landscape evolu- tion. ,3 07 -3!*$ 0$$ !7 (*2-, (,,$ .-*(1 "'$#3*$ 3,# 7 - 0# -% (0$"2-01 $$2(,& 6'(!(2-0 $2 3. ,# -1.(2 *(27 -,# 7 .$ )$01 ,# * 11$1 0 #$ '-5 ,/3$2 3"2(-, ,# 1(,- (&'2 #($1 $5*$07 0-&0 + 3$1# 7 ,,3 * $$2(,& .$ )$01 ,# * 11$1 ,# 12 0$1(#$,21 $$2(,& .2(-, * *3+!(,& $%0$1'$0 -301$ -, $#,$1# 7 ##(2(-, * $$ -0 +-0$ (,%-0+ 2(-, 4(1(2 -30 $! 1(2$ 555 +55 -0& (,,$1-2 2$0 $** 11-"( 2(-, 0# ,,3 * 0 #$ '-5 -,4$,2(-,