Water mapping
project improves access to water
By Melissa Rolfe
Farmers who want to drill new water wells on their properties will soon be able to do it more quickly, cheaply and easily, thanks to a new product developed by a Calgary environmental land survey company.
Enviro-Tech Surveys Ltd. has created a database of detailed information about all 300,000 water wells in Alberta. The information can eliminate the guesswork long associated with finding a below-ground water source. Every water well in the province has been mapped, and details about the site and water quality analyzed, including pH level, alkaline content and hardness.
'We can poll absolutely any well record, find out when it was drilled, who drilled it, what the lithology was when they drilled the hole, and where they encountered water," says cartographer Terry Steinkey. "From that we can start to do modelling scenarios as to where the nearest aquifer may lie."
For about $200, a farmer can find out the best - and worst - sources of water in an area. Enviro-Tech Surveys will provide a map of nearby existing wells and their depths, along with a straightforward analysis including average depths and flowrates in gallons per minute. Detailed studies would cost more.
"Let's say a farmer wants to know approximately how much it would cost to drill a well to service a quarter section," says George Nelson, Enviro-Tech's president. "We could go in (to the computer) and poll all the wells within a reasonable radius of where he wanted to drill ... and give him a pretty good estimation of what depth he would need to go down to for water."
While the information itself isn't new, its accessibility and format are. Enviro-Tech has carefully analysed and compiled complex information previously held by the provincial government in paper format only, and painstakingly entered it into a computer database. Information that might have taken months to obtain and understand will soon be available with little more than a click of the mouse.
After three years in development, the product will be marketed in 1999. Enviro-Tech's customers may include ranchers and land developers as well as farmers. Oil companies are also expected to be interested in the product. If they know the location of underground water, oil and gas drillers can avoid it and ensure they don't contaminate the aquifer or dry up nearby wells dependent on the source. That will help mitigate conflicts between land owners and oil companies that sometimes arise when the companies are drilling near farmland, potentially jeopardizing much-needed aquifers.
And as water becomes a scarcer and more valuable resource, Enviro-Tech foresees the day all water users, including municipalities, will rely on the information to find water for use today and to protect sources needed for tomorrow.
This article was featured in the Fall 1998 edition of Right Now! magazine which is published twice a year by the Canada-Alberta Farm Business Management Program and distributed to 70,000 rural homes throughout Alberta.
They can be contacted at:
Canada - Alberta Farm Business Management Program
201, 5030 - 50 Street
Olds, Alberta T4H 1S1