Many people make the following mistake: Never use a piece of metal, like a wrench, to measure the levels in a water well. If you must, use a bottle — for example, from a Coke — on the end of a sturdy string. Drop it in the well and when it touches the water it will float. That gives you a reading for the static water level.

Once you have the static water level, you can jostle the bottle several times and it will fill with water. Then you can lower the bottle onto the well bottom. That will give you a measure of the total depth of the well. Subtract the distance to the water from the total depth of the well, and the difference will be the amount of water in the well.

For example, say you have a 6-inch hole. If you subtract the depth to water from the total depth of the well, then multiply that number by 1.5, the result will be the amount of water stored in the well hole.

Note, however, that the amount of water in the well has nothing to do with the gallons per minute that the well produces.

Providing Clean Water 

My company, Drilling Consultants International, works in Haiti and other parts of the world, because we know up to 2.4 billion people live in these water-stressed areas. UNICEF estimates that women — and even children — in developing nations spend up to 200 million hours each day collecting water.

They often collect water from far from home, and then carry it home in discarded cans and buckets. Sometimes, the cans they use were originally used to contain lubricants, agrichemicals or fuel oils. Whether those discarded cans held fuels or something else, when they’re reused for water they often have something else — harmful bacteria.

Numerous organizations around the world have generously invested in the much-needed activities of drilling wells, purifying water and filtering it. Yet no one has addressed easing the burden of carrying heavy water, or the “Achilles’ heel” of putting clean water in dirty containers.

Our company, Drilling Consultants International, wants to form a well drilling business on La Gonave Island, Haiti. What we need is a usable 22-W cable tool drill, mounted on a four-wheel-drive truck, in addition to tools, delivered to La Gonave, Haiti.

If you have such equipment please contact me through this publication.