We live in a rural area outside the edge of College Station city limits and are wanting to drill a well just for irrigation (we own the rights, but are also on Wellborn Water for the house).

My father and I used to drill shallow wells (about 80 feet) when we lived on the coast to make water access for the cattle. It wasn't hard and was a simple technique but with this method, we were limited to under 100 feet.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I am far from being an expert. My neighbor told me a few years back that his well (we, too, are on Wellborn Water) is no longer used, but was about 400ft deep. He said the water had a smell to it, and that the really good water was closer to 800ft deep.

Take that for what you paid for it. But that was the info he provided.

Used to be, you could count on hitting "some" water about 75-100 down most places in the County.

You generally wanted to use that for drip irrigation, as the flow rate would not be great, and the smell could be impolite in various areas.

Any water you haul up probably needs to be tested for content, especially salts before irrigation use. Almost simpler to simply sequester rainwater using bladder tanks under a porch, though.

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Standing guard, even sitting behind a desk

Occupational hazard of my occupation just not being around

It appears that hardly anyone in south College Station/Welborn uses wells? Is the water really that bad (for watering grass, flower beds, etc.), unavailable, or limited?

I'll tell you what I found out that may explain the lack of wells.

We have a place between Caldwell and Milano. I realize that may not have the same water table as where you are, but a previous post suggests it may. We were told that we could go down about 400 feet to get water, but that was very ferrous (lots of iron) and could turn things rusty. We were looking at having a well to keep a pond filled. Anyway, in order to get really potable water that would be free of any significant impurities, we'd have to go down about 1000 feet. Cost of said well - $30K +, depending upon who we asked. I don't remember the quote for the more shallow well, but it was probably about 12K I think.

You can water your yard an awful lot for 12 - 30 thousand dollars. Not a quick payback. Now, if you needed water to drink, that's obviously a different story.

You can hit alluvial water in the 80 to 150 foot range. Many of the farmers in the bottom have these wells along with deep wells to irrigate their crops. However, I believe these shallow wells have higher salt levels than the deeper ones so they try to mix the water to offset that effect.

Now I don't know if it's all that bad to use for your yard/garden.

But in general, you can drill a well in Brazos Co for the most part from 300 to 400 ft.

http://134.125.70.235/drillers-new/index.asp

Go to the above site and click on well search by map. You can zoom in on the area you want to drill a well, then if there have been wells dug close by you can look at the report and see how deep they where dug.

Also might want to think about rainwater collection system. Texas AgriLife has some pretty good publications on that subject.

B-6153
TITLE: Rainwater Harvesting

https://agrilifebookstore.org




[This message has been edited by BQ_90 (edited 7/19/2010 9:10a).]

Might want to try Brien Water Wells. They've been around for decades and should be able to let you know what to expect in terms of water table depth, etc. in your area. 279-2427

WOW! BQ_90 that website/mapping info is absolutely fantastic. I was able to find a few wells nearby. Excellent! Thanks again