Water Wells and Accidents

Most people don't think of water wells as accidents waiting to happen, but they CAN be if they're not properly cared for.

Between January 1, 2011 and today, a rather cursory Google search counts 93 men, women, children, leopards, lions, cows, horses, elephants, hogs, tigers and deer have slipped, fell, been pushed, jumped, drove, were driven or otherwise ended up in active or abandoned water wells in only 9 Countries around the world.  Unfortunately, only about half were able to be rescued alive, and, these incidences appear to be very under-reported.

These accidents - all of them - should never have happened.  If you have a water well, please take care of it!  If it's an active well, seal it securely.  If it's abandoned, get it filled in and reclaimed properly.  If you think you might have a well on your place, find it, evaluate it and take the appropriate steps to make it completely safe - of course, being careful that when looking or caring for it you don't end up in the well yourself.  There should be plenty of technical help around to guide you in proper procedures, but if you're not comfortable in this regard, hire a well driller to de-commission it. Thanks for listening.

Wells In India - Whew!

I once had the priviledge of meeting and talking to Dr. Tushaar Shah of the International Water Management Institute, Anand, India Regional Office while he visited Kansas on issues of groundwater management.  He was invited to Kansas by KU Law Professor John Peck after having made the statement that institutional groundwater management had not been successful anywhere in the world.  Professor Peck invited him, and asked several of the Kansas groundwater management districts to present a response to his sweeping statement.  Of course, Professor Peck believed that local GMDs in Kansas were far more successful than Dr. Shah's statment would lead everyone to believe.  We presented, and basically concluded that we were mostly successful, but had more work to do - blah, blah, blah. 

But it was during our lunch discussion that I was blown away.  Dr. Shah had told me that India has at least 20 million groundwater wells in the country, but no one really knew how many more there might be, and that with their governmental and water management structures, there was no control over existing wells and little end in sight to new wells coming on line.  Twenty million plus wells and growing. 

Our GMD is fairly well developed (a bit over-developed, in fact) with 3,552 wells, but we're considerably smaller.  Our 4,845 square mile area, by the numbers then, contains about .75 wells per square mile.  India's area is 1,269,219 square miles - meaning they have some 17 wells per square mile - for every square mile in the country.  How'd you like to manage that? Dr. Shah quietly asked me.