Alien yellow plant life growing in my drilled well - clogging the works!

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Statesman

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I've consulted Culligan and a local well driller, who say they have never seen this before. Five minutes on google seems to conclude that this is iron bacteria. The well is 15 y.o, but 3 y.o. ago we had it drilled deeper then hydrofracked for more water (1300' no water, hyrdrofracked at 500', pump sits at 450'). We were relieved to get 10 gal/min.

Since then our 10g/m has diminished and we ran out again a year ago. The water smells swampy and the filter that has only had sediment, now has organic, floating, weirdness and we're changing or cleaning the filter after a few days. I'm in the middle of a shock treatment with chlorine bleach and tablets, we did this last year also. The Culligan folks are still doubtful it's IB and want to install a chlorination/carbon filter system for the coliform. I don't see how this will prevent the floaty, cotton-like gelatinous material from entering my house and pipes (already had to repair a new Bosch hot water system and my washing machine.)

Should I keep calling around for quotes on systems? Or is this the best solution? Thanks for the reply.

slime and filter from well.jpgchoking filter.jpg
 

LLigetfa

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I'm in the middle of a shock treatment with chlorine bleach and tablets, we did this last year also.

Describe your shock treatment. Depending on the casing/bore size which determines how many gallons of storage you have, you may need to tank up a thousand or so gallons of chlorinated water to dump down the well so that it permeates the aquifer. Anything short of that has very little lasting effect.
 

Statesman

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Describe your shock treatment. Depending on the casing/bore size which determines how many gallons of storage you have, you may need to tank up a thousand or so gallons of chlorinated water to dump down the well so that it permeates the aquifer. Anything short of that has very little lasting effect.

We used 4 gallons of household bleach followed the next day by 20 tablets of well chlorine. First day I ran all faucets in the house until we smelled bleach and let it sit for 24 hrs. Next we ran the hose back down the well for 3 hours and I've been intermittently running faucets and the hose into the woods, slowly, because our pump will trip due to lack of water. It's a drilled well casing, narrow, and the pump sits at 450'. 3 years ago they drilled to 1300' without getting water and hydrofracked. At that point we had 10 gal/min. Bleach smell in the house is very strong. Thank you for the response!
 

LLigetfa

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Google for deq-wb-dwehs-wcu-disinfectmanual_221334_7.pdf and follow the procedure for "Bulk Displacement Chlorination" about half way through the manual. THe way you are doing it doesn't get into the well and aquifer in high enough concentrations to have any lasting effect.
 

Craigpump

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I have NO idea what that mess is, but I don't think you are getting an effective chlorination and here is why. Simply pouring bleach or pellets in the well chlorinates the water but doesn't do much for the fractures that feed the water into the well. Think of it like this, if you were to pump the well down to 1290' then chlorinate, when the well filled with water, the chlorine would get back into the fractures that are feeding the well giving a more effective chlorination by killing the bacteria that are in those fractures. It is very possible that the mass you see on your filters is coming from fractures below the pump and those fractures are not being treated by the chlorine.

Where did the frac crew get their water?
 

Statesman

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They only put water in the well when we ran out, just to tie us over until it recovered. My next call would be to the hydro frack company to see if there was a chance for contamination via their equipment. Thx for the responses.
 
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