The Well Driller and the Waterworks Field

Abstract

In considering the facts that about half of the people of the United States use water supplied by wells and that about three-fourths of the cities and villages which have waterworks draw upon underground supplies, it becomes apparent that the water-well driller is engaged in a business that is intimately associated with the health and wellbeing of the public. It is estimated that there are about 8,000 cities and villages in the United States which have public waterworks. About 6,000 of these are supplied by wells. The largest well system in the country is the one which formerly supplied most of the water for Brooklyn, before that city became a part of the greater New York. It has a capacity of about 100,000,000 gallons a day. Many of the smaller systems, which supply innumerable villages scattered throughout the country, have a daily capacity of only 100,000 gallons or even less. Altogether about 17,000,000 people are supplied by public waterworks which derive their supply from wells. It is, therefore, likewise apparent that the work of the well driller is closely related to that of the men of the waterworks field, for without the skill and the effort of the well driller, many of these municipalities would probably be without a public water-supply system or would have to use other, more costly sources of supply. Unlike many other kinds of work, the drilling of water wells is not covered specifically in any courses of study available in our schools, although in recent years several of the technical schools are giving some attention to the subject of well drilling in conjunction with their courses in petroleum engineering. Those of you who are interested in this subject have doubtless learned that the literature dealing with waterwell drilling is extremely meager and inadequate. This condition is particularly noticeable in the journals issued by the technical