[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 4/19/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

April 19, 2007

 

2. Supply

 

Water on the brain

Big Bear Grizzly – 4/18/07

By Brian Charles, staff writer

 

Larry Ernst is looking for 50 feet of sand and gravel. Ernst isn’t building a sandbox, he is a hyrdogeologist for Wood-Rogers looking for water.

The Big Bear Lake Department of Water and Power hired Ernst along with Bradley and Sons Drilling and Pumping Systems to drill test holes to look for more water sources in the Valley, says DWP assistant manager Scott Heule.

Two test holes along Fox Farm Road were drilled last week to collect data. That data will help the DWP find the water, Heule says. The first hole broke ground April 10 behind the Grizzly Center. The DWP is planning a new well in the location.

The wells near the test site are old, says Jason Hall of the DWP. Hall says the wells date back to 1930s and don’t produce much water. The DWP hopes to yield 80 gallons per minute or more out of the well behind the Grizzly Center, Hall says. The new well will be placed 25 feet northwest of the test hole and plans to drill the new well are set for 2008, Heule says. The second test hole was drilled behind Union Bank of California on April 11.

Ernst pulls dirt samples from the trunk of his car. The sand and dirt inside the plastic bags have different compositions. Ernst’s soil came from samples pulled from the test hole behind the Grizzly Center. Ernst says that the best type of well would contain 50 vertical feet of loose gravel and sand. Sand and gravel are the most permeable materials underground and that’s where the aquifer is, he says. An aquifer that large would produce several hundred gallons of water per minute, Ernst says.

 

While sand and gravel are exactly what Ernst is looking for, clay is what he wants to avoid. Clay is the least permeable substance underground. The drill bites through layers of clay before it strikes the sand and gravel where the aquifer is located, Ernst says. In some cases it takes hundreds of feet before reaching pay dirt.

Ernst doesn’t spend all his time playing in the mud. An instrument lowered into the well shaft emits electric pulses. The pulses create a subterranean map that resembles a layer cake. Using the map, engineers can pinpoint where to drill.

Ernst looks for where the drill hits bedrock at different well locations. Near the Grizzly Center the bedrock is approximately 130 feet below the surface. Going southeast the bedrock is deeper in the Earth, Ernst says. Behind Union Bank of California, crews don’t hit bedrock until more than 300 feet below the surface, he says.

Ernst points to exposed bedrock on the south side of Big Bear Boulevard and says the point where the test hole is located is where two slopes, one running from Fox Farm Road southeast to the bank and one running north from Big Bear Boulevard meet. The aquifer is right below the test well at Union Bank of California.

Unfortunately soil samples don’t show the 50 feet of permeable material Ernst wants. However, Heule says the well behind the bank shows more promise than the one behind the Grizzly Center because the bedrock is deeper beneath the surface. The well near Union Bank of California should produce more than 100 gallons per minute, Ernst says.

The well behind the bank will be built first, Heule says. The DWP has $350,000 set aside in the 2006-07 budget to drill the well, with bids going out in June. An additional $300,000 to equip the well is in the 2007-08 proposed budget. The well is scheduled to be online by August.

 

Ernst says he will return with designs for the well in June. The well behind the Grizzly Center will wait until 2008 when funding for the project is approved. #

http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/articles/2007/04/18/news/dwpwell.txt

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