Drought and Water Wells

 

Weather: Snowflakes that fell early Wednesday morning were thick enough that they accumulated along tree branches.  When the sun came out around 10:26 (summer time), it began to fall off the trees.  I wondered if, as the air temperatures warmed, the metabolism in the crab apple and cherry quickened so internal heat melted the snow.  It was only later that the snow disappeared from the ground.

Last snow: 3/23.  Week’s low: 20 degrees F.  Week’s high: 72 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 36 mph in Santa Fé on Wednesday.

What’s blooming in my yard: Apricots responded to warm afternoons, oblivious to the cold that is sure to come.  When I brushed against a male one-seeded juniper, I released a cloud of pollen.

What’s come up in my yard: Tulips, bearded iris, daylilies, black-eyed Susans, white yarrow, dandelions.  Some plants come up first in protected areas; this week the garlic chives, hollyhocks, golden spur columbine, sweet peas,  and tansy began sprouting in other areas; also there’s more green in the June and needle grasses.  Green appeared in leaf buds on the forsythia.

Animal sightings: When I was at the post office this week, a yellow pick-up truck parked next to me.  Black paw prints were painted in a line around the sides and back.  Usually when you see this design, it is associated with a coyote.  This man had pictures of squirrels sitting with nuts on his doors.  I haven’t quite figured out what message the pictures of a destructive pest was sending.  Sinclair Lewis didn’t set Main Street in Gopher Prairie because he loved the rodents.

First ant hill.  The rabbit broke off a stem on last year’s raspberries.

Tasks: Last Sunday was one of those rare days that was warm, cloudy, and windless.  I spent several hours outside the fence cleaning up broken bits of Russian thistles and pigweeds in the area where my neighbor had parked his truck this past winter.  The vehicle trapped them when the winds were high, and they got driven over.  While I was working I noticed some winterfat was sprouting.  I dug out some pigweed seedlings.

When I ordered some bare-root raspberries this year, I didn’t specify a ship date.  I had gotten tired of arguing with company offices about the problems that come when they ship thinking we’re in zone 6, when our winters still are closer to zone 4.  Sure enough, they arrived this week, the day before the snow.  I opened the carton to given them air and stuck them in what I hoped was an unheated closet.  My plan was to use them to replace ones that died over the winter.  It’s way to soon to know those locations.  I finally dug a small hole near a tree, separated the roots, them placed them all in the ground.  I had problems digging farther than about 6" deep.  That’s not deep enough for a permanent planting, but all I could do until the ground softens some more.

Weekly update: My neighbor’s well failed this week.  His repairman said it was because of silt in the pump.

I had problems with fine sand in my well from the time it was drilled, and had some filters installed in the pump house.  Last year, when a man was out replacing them for me, he told me many people in the Española area were having problems that they hadn’t had before.  Some were even in town.

Hearsay is just that, but it is impossible to get any verification.  The last article posted online by the Española newspaper about the local water table was more than two-years old.  The website of the State Engineer is always bland: it said “a well is said to have gone dry when water levels drop below a pump intake.”  The reason it is non-committal is the “water level in the aquifer that supplies a well does not always remain the same.” [1]

I found a just-released report from the National Drought Mitigation Center that indicated this part of Rio Arriba County is in an Extreme Drought (the red on the map above).  The county is the one on the left on the southern border of Colorado.  Española is on the southern border at the blue river to the left, the Río Grande.  The gold area in the northern part of the county, which is more mountainous, is in a Severe Drought.  The darkest red is worse, an Exceptional Drought. [2]

The authors said that, based on past experience, native trees die in Extreme Drought.  As I have been noting for some time, the taller evergreens have been suffering for several years.

One characteristic of the lesser Severe Drought is well water decreases.  Which brings me to my neighbor.  He said his well was 125' and asked about mine.  It is also 125', but that number is deceptive.  I think the number is taken from the number of sections of pipe the driller uses to lower the pump, which is supposed to be at the bottom of the water area so it is not affected by fluctuations in the table.  While the pump is supposed to be near the base, I suspect it actually is at the end of the last pipe needed to reach water.

That brings me to basic arithmetic.  What I call the well, as distinct from what a driller may call a well, is composed of two parts.  A corrugated culvert about 3' in diameter goes down about 8'.  That measurement comes from the size of the ladder I bought to access the filters.  The well pipes begin at the base of the pump house.  So a 125' deep well is at least 133' below the surface of the ground.  The actual water level depends on how much extra work the driller took.

The pump house is so deep so the top of the pressure tank is below the freeze level.  I never measured mine, but most are about 5' high.

The terrane in this area is not level.  I don’t know how much higher my neighbor is, but I think at least 2'.  So comparatively, his pump is no more than 123' down.  I have no idea the depth of his pump house, but suspect the 8' is standardized by the mass produced parts used by drillers.

Drought is hard to detect, unless the local forests are closed or the local fishing lake has low levels.  After all, we had snow this winter, and snow three times this month.  That replenishes the surface, while snow melt in the mountains sinks into the aquifer.  The effects of lower levels are not obvious until the trees start dying, and then it’s too late to save them.

Notes on photographs:
1.  Apricot (Prunus armeniaca), 26 March 2022.

2.  Golden spur columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha) leaves open in green clusters, then turn purple; 26 March 2022.

3.  Map is an extract from Hartman.

4.  Sand from the well saved in a small bottle; photographed through the glass.

End notes:
1.  “Drought and Your Water Well.”  Santa Fé, New Mexico: Office of the State Engineer website.

2.  Adam Hartman.  “U. S. Drought Monitor: New Mexico.”  Lincoln, Nebraska: National Drought Mitigation Center, 24 March 2022.