Our water well had become "tastey" over the years and pappy decided to clean it out. My oldest brother, just out of the Navy, had found a BIG centrifugal water pump and had traded for it. Belting it up to a big electric motor they started pumping in the morning. By evening the well was pumped dry but it was too late to go down inside to clean it out that day. Pap decided to wait till morning and then just run the pump a little while to pump out what had run in overnight. The well was dug 24 foot and drilled 52 beyond that and was cased with 8" steel casing. The water was always within 3 feet of the top. Next morning pap started to turn on the pump and before doing so had a look see in the well. It was within 3 feet of the top!!!! They decided to wait until evening to start the pump and let it pump all night. They did and it was pumped down by morning. A ladder was lowered into the well. Pap went down inside it, we lowered a 5 gallon bucket on a rope and pap would fill it up while we would withdraw it, dump and return. Most of the day was comsumed by this tiresome work but finally along toward evening the well was finally void of about 6 feet of mud-along with numerous tools and everything else imaginable that we'd dropped in it over the years. As he was filling the bucket with mud we'd have to start the pump every minute or so to withdraw the water running in from the 8" casing. It was gushing out at about 12" above the top of that pipe. We washed down the brick walls and lett'r fill back up. The well had not been cleaned out since. The water which was real good has deteriorated so much that it's unsafe to drink anymore. Oil wells, salt water injection wells, hog confinments and farm chemicals have taken their toll on untold thousands of water wells in the country. My own well isn't real good either. My neighbor put in a hog factory 1/4 mile from my house. With a softner, filter and reverse osmosis system from Sears [$400.] my water is real good now. My well is 160 feet deep and cased 120 with the jet at 98 feet. Still, these water wells are much better than city water. I remember when we used to drink from the creek!

-- hoot gibson (hoot@otbnet.com), June 24, 2000

Answers

Hoot, it must have been wonderful to have all that water!! We have always had to ration water here at this house during the summer time. It would be great to have the water to irrigate, etc.

-- green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), June 25, 2000.