NMR Tried out on Kansas Index Wells

A $200,000.00 piece of logging equipment was tried out here in NW Kansas on the Thomas County index well several weeks ago before being shipped back to the manufacturer and on to Australia.  According to Jim Butler of the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) the group was able to look at several of the Western Kansas Index wells.  In a prepared statement, KGS wrote:

“This tool is a miniaturized version of the NMR [Nuclear Magnetic Resonance] tools used in the petroleum industry. It is designed to provide data on water-filled porosity and the percent of that water that will readily drain from the pores (specific yield). We are going to use the tool to get a better feel for water storage both in the saturated and unsaturated intervals at the Thomas County site. We can also use the information to get estimates of permeability within the saturated zone. The tool was developed as part of a DoE research project we are participating in with a small NMR company from Seattle, Stanford, and [a Salina-based company]. Although this will be our first application of the tool to the High Plains aquifer, we have been testing it here in the Kansas River alluvium and we are excited about its potential to provide estimates of water in storage and what portion of that is readily available - also, I think information about water storage in the vadose zone could help improve insights into how much water is moving through that zone.”

Early results seem to confirm the original resistivity log on the well, and indicate that the vadose zone (above the water table) is fairly dry, but surprisingly, quite variable as to its capacity to hold water as recharge events eventually translate downward.  This seemed to be stark confirmation of our dry conditions of late.  I had to leave before seeing the results of the logging on the saturated zone, but will see these data soon.  I'm just hoping these zones are really porous AND fully saturated!  

Water as an Economic Good

There are many out there that claim the solution to our water scarcity is an economic one - simply price water appropriately and society will collectively begin using it sustainably.  In pricing the water, suggestions have been to price it in terms of its replacement and delivery costs - not only its delivery costs.  Seems to make sense at some levels, but...

It's never clear whether these proponents are suggesting one price for all water, or, variable pricing for different water uses, or who would set the prices, by what convention.  I can't see how a single price can possibly work for all the various usages, so I hope this is not their goal.  And if every use type has it's own pricing, how is that any different than what we have today - other than the fact that everyone's water will get more expensive under such a plan - a lot more expensive. 

In our part of the world (a groundwater management district where 97% of the total regional water use is for irrigation) pricing irrigation water to cover replacement costs would be so prohibitive that all irrigation would cease immediately.  Moreover, all the costs of delivery have been and will be individually paid for by the appropriators.  There is no single unit responsible for water delivery.  And just pricing water appropriately for domestic and municipal use would be so fruitless here that it's actually a bit scary.   Could it be that the proponents of "appropriate water pricing" are actually aware of this and the whole idea is actually a euphemism for "let's eliminate irrigation"? 

I can see some cases where more appropriate water pricing could be effective in reducing water use, but even in these cases, the reduced water use would still exceed sustainable supplies, so the economic solution would be no long term solution at all - just a bandaid.  I have to ask what the appropriate pricing of water needs to be to reach sustainable water use?

Some have suggested an all-in auction as a way of deriving the appropriate pricing and setting the appropriate goal.  Great idea if you have the money to play and the water value is not excessively high and everyone has to play.  I submit that agriculture will rarely have the money to play and will thus lose water-standing significantly - if it decides to play at all.  In Kansas water rights are personal property rights to the use of the water.  As such, I don't see how they can be forced to participate in the auction.  If this is the case, how can an auction be run when and if 97% of the universe is not enrolled?  

If anyone can show me how appropriate pricing will work on a large scale, over all the water uses, to achieve a sustainable water use level in a fair manner (everyone participating from an equal vantage point) I'll be happy to champion their cause.  And maybe they're all right and I just don't get it!

Abandoned Wells - A Few of Our Experiences

Most activities by locals and state governments regarding the handling of abandoned water wells is to offer a cost-share incentive program.  Some are fairly well funded, most are not.  While this makes most people feel good, it is probably the most inefficient and wasteful way to address the problem yet devised by well-meaning activists (pun intended).

We start with the likely premise that abandoned wells are probably illegal by state and/or local law. So why should we be using taxpayers money to help correct an illegal situation?  Even if they're not illegal, which they are in Kansas, we have found the following to be true:

1)  What a land-owner deems an abandoned well and what any responsible cost-share program would deem one to be are very, very different;

2)  Most landowners aren't even aware of the fact that an abandoned well exists on their property even if they did agree on the definition;

3)  Too many landowners don't feel obliged to put any money into a useless object - regardless of the potential liability.

These findings all point to the need for a comprehensive survey by qualified persons if serious about remediating the problem.  Otherwise it's like fixing a few holes in your roof while leaving many more unaddressed.  You also need a process to keep new wells from getting abandoned.  We work with the well drillers and for every redrill, we account for the former well.  A process to follow through is important also. Can't tell you how many reminders were necessary in our program - even to those who initially agreed to plug the well.

I've not seen a single, voluntary cost-share plugging program in Kansas or surrounding states that has lasted long enough to come even remotely close to mitigating their abandoned well problem. And even if they do last, they get wells plugged at such a slow rate that it's likely abandoned wells are being added faster than they are being remediated.  If this is true, then whatever money they spent (or are spending) doing a partial job was (is) totally wasted.  Our board felt that the taxpayers were more likey to give them grief for not efficiently spending their dollars on an important water program than they would for implementing a tough, efficient, regulatory program that was going to work. 

We created a regulatory program that inventoried virtually every tract of land in the district and remediated just over 2200 abandoned wells in 3.5 years.  We did so such that our definition of abandoned well was used, the well drillers became part of the program for maintenance, and at a total administrative cost (taxpayers money) of about $32.00 per well - considerably less expensive than the cost-share efforts on-going at the same time in Kansas. No program or approach is perfect, but I'll hold our effort up against any in the country for efficiency and results. 

More From the Everyday Cookbook

OK, so no one has asked for more cookbook lore, but I'm going to give you more anyway.  Recall that the following tidbits come from the 1892 "The Snow White Cook Book".  This time around will be Cures:

1)  TO RESTORE FROM STROKE OF LIGHTENING.  Shower with cold water for two hours; if the patient does not show signs of life, put salt in the water, and continue to shower an hour longer.

2)  WARM WATER.  Warm water is preferable to cold water as a drink to persons who are subject to dyspeptic and bilious complaints, and it may be taken more freely than cold water, and consequently answers better as a diluent for carrying off bile, and removing obstructions in the urinary secretion, in cases of stone and gravel.

3)  BITES OF DOGS.  The only safe remedy in case of a bite from a dog suspected of madness, is to burn out the wound thoroughly with red-hot iron, or with lunar caustic, for fully eight seconds, so as to destroy the entire surface of the wound. Do this as soon as possible, for no time is to be lost. Of course it is expected that the parts touched with the caustic will turn black.

4)  LEANNESS.  Is caused generally by the lack of power in the digestive organs to digest and assimilate the fat-producing elements of food. First restore digestion, take plenty of sleep, drink all the water the stomach will bear in the morning on rising, take moderate exercise in the open air, eat oatmeal, cracked wheat, Graham mush, baked sweet apples, roasted and boiled beef, cultivate jolly people, and bathe daily.

There you have it.  What'd we learn?  Water is an important element in curing whatever ails you!  First, if someone is struck by lightening, shower in it - cold, mind you.  I don't know, but you may even want to place the victim in the shower with you.  In any event, I'd post instructions next to the shower in case you're the victim and are showing no signs of life. 

Secondly, drink warm water for good health. I'd do this even if you're not sure of your bile-count or if you have stones or gravel anywhere inside you. 

Third, if you're too thin, drink plenty of water first thing in the morning. I'm disappointed the book does not clarify if it should be warm or cold water in this case. But I am thankful for the advice to be around jolly folks and bathe daily.  Hopefully the jolly fellows will do the same. 

And finally, my best advice from this blog entry?  Stay the hell away from dogs!!

Kansas State Water Plan Fund

The Kansas state water plan fund is an annual pot of money used exclusively for water projects in the state endorsed by the state water plan.  It is roughly $20 million per year derived from 10 sources: 1) a state general fund transfer; 2) an economic development fund transfer; 3) municipal water fees; 4) industrial water fees; 5) stockwater fees; 6) pesticide registration fees; 7) fertilizer registration fees; 8) pollution fines and penaties; 9) clean drinking water fee fund transfer; and 10) sand royaly receipts. It has been this way virtually since its inception in 1989 with only a few, minor tweaks.

The optimist says that $20 million a year for water projects is pretty good.  The pessimist says that $20 million of 1989 dollars is only $10 million of 2010 dollars, so water resource funding in Kansas is losing ground. I guess I'm neither an optimist nor pessimist (or perhaps more accurately - both) because $20 million 1989 dollars was not enough and it's getting less and less each year.  Kansas has this year a $13.7 billion budget.  ALL natural resources spending combined is but .5% of that budget. I'm sorry, but it's almost embarassing in light of the almost bombastic rhetoric water gets each and every year in this drier than average state. When the funding starts to flow from the verbiage, I'll become an optimist.

OK, let's put up the soapbox and start thinking about other interesting, but more positive, topics.

Beware of Groundwater Depletion Predictions

Topic: Pet peeve (if not number 1, pretty high up there) - Predictions of when we'll run out of groundwater.

Let's start in my own back yard - the Kansas High Plains - Ogallala country. The following was printed on February 4, 1979 in one of the state's leading newspapers:

State water experts predict that irrigation will be nothing but a memory in many large areas of west central Kansas in eight to 10 years. They give northwest Kansas about 15 years..

Well, northwest Kansas is my area, and I'm glad to report that irrigation is still here. And most of it is still in west central Kansas, too.  In other words, the 1979 predictions were not at all accurate.  The question is why?   The short answer is that most predictions take an average trend - like annual decline rate - and project it forward.  In 1979 the average decline rate in western Kansas was approaching 2 feet per year.  With only 40 to 80 feet of saturated thickness remaining in west central and northwest Kansas respectively, and irrigation needing about 30 feet of water to continue, the math at that time seemed close to correct.

But, in real situations, the declines reduce well yields, which in turn reduce water diversions, which in turn reduce the decline rates.  The assumption of a straight-line trend is faulty.  Click on the water level chart above to enlarge it.  This chart involves 50 obsevation wells in one County in NW Kansas - Sheridan.  Graphed are the 4 wells of these 50 which show:  the most saturated thickness in 1965; the least saturated thickness in 1965; the most decline - 1965-2008; and the least decline - 1965-2008.  The heavy black plotting is the average saturated thickness of all 50 wells in each year.

Several things are obvious. First, where there was good water in 1965, the wells were pumped hard and declines resulted. Where there was not good water, there was limited use and a relatively stable saturated thickness. Second, the average decline rate is slowing and in fact all the graph lines are converging toward that average.  Again, the straight line trend assumption if used in this case in 1975 would have been very wrong.

And furthermore, this is just one section of our district. Looking at the same chart for the 19 observation wells in western Grahan County (the next county east of Sheridan) the decline problem is a non-issue.

Water table declines will always be problematic, but they will rarely be as bad as the press and headline grabbers want them to appear.  So, ask the right questions and get the good data before assuming the end of the groundwater world as we know it today.  Groundwater is very temporal and site specific, so generalizations do no one any good.

Global Water Management?

Today is October 15, 2010 and it is ActionBlogDay. The topic this year is “Water”. It’s a super easy subject for me because I’m a groundwater blogger, yet when I think about it, it shouldn’t be a difficult task for anyone since water touches just about every aspect of life on this planet today. Come to think of it, it’s touched every aspect of life on this planet from the very beginning of time. Period.

So what should we be saying about water in this venue? Many very important folks will be weighing in today, so what of merit can I possibly add to the discussion? What answers do I have for us all? I’m sorry, but all I have handy today is the following dose of reality - and hope?

To me, it seems that most people feel managing water is quite easy – figure out how much you have available, then don’t use any more. Instant sustainability, no future problems, bingo. Yet this is rarely the norm. Why is that? First, it’s not that easy to figure out precisely how much water is available in the long run – in either surface water or groundwater systems. Second, it’s been too easy to stretch out and add to your supplies from elsewhere. Third, never anticipated water quality degradation affects what you think your supplies might be in surprising ways – always negative. Fourth, the climate variability that used to just make it difficult to calculate what your supply is, is now changing those supplies directly. Fifth, sustainability is not an individual concept but a collective commitment. Add to these conditions the legal, social and economic influences plied upon the most necessary resource on earth, not-with-standing perhaps air itself, and we wonder why it gets so dicey.

Bottom line is that water has never been easy to manage and never will be. When someone steps up and declares the best times, places, quantities and uses of our global water supply, and everyone else agrees, and we have the political will and economic means to make it happen, then we’ll have our solutions. This seems to me to be the real challenge.