WorldWide Drilling Resource

11 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® SEPTEMBER 2015 The trouble with working in two different places being 140 miles apart is I am traveling too much by car and truck - five or six hours each way - one week in Eugene, Oregon, and one week in Burns, Oregon. Now I am drilling a well about 60 miles past Burns. That is 60 miles to work, then 60 miles back to Burns every day just to stay in a motel. Burns, Oregon, is in Harry County - the largest county in Oregon at around 10,000 square miles, yet only about 7000 people. Last week, we drilled a well that pumps about 2800 gallons per minute (gpm). It has a static level of 23 feet. The water is being pumped from 195 feet with a 60-foot drawdown, so the well could pump a lot more. This well is in an underground creek, as all other wells are. What you don’t use, you lose - just like any aboveground creek or river. You cannot save water from a creek or river by not pumping it. Saved water in a dam is not really saved, just delayed. Some of it may be diverted - flowing water does not stop. While checking the well sites for water, I also check for saltwater, hot water, gas, and oil to make sure what I am drilling for, and out of, is a freshwater creek and not one of them. There are chemicals and bacteria in the water sometimes, so we have our wells tested. The last well drilled in the desert was tested for boron. The testing lab is in Idaho, and it took a day and a half to get the report back ,and there was no boron in the water. We then finished the well and put in the casing. This takes awhile, making sure each pipe is in line and plumb to each other. In the oil fields, we had threaded casing, which is a lot easier and faster. One well we drilled had about 1000 gpm. By about 160 feet, the water was found in the sand formations. Sandy water is hard on the pump, so the well needed some sand screens. The statements and comments in this article are based on information and references believed to be true and factual. If you have any questions or comments, please forward them to me in care of WWDR . Harold Harold White may be contacted via e-mail to michele@worldwidedrillingre source.com --- *+ )#)('-()$* !(& )(%#'" +)""+ ,'.*,+ -'"/ 0 . 1 1 1 1 Oil/Water Exploration by Harold White