Quote:
Originally Posted by CA_WhaleTail
If you have a water well that needs to be abandoned, you will typically need a drilling company to help do the job correctly. Many regulations require the well to be pressure injected with a bentonite-cement grout so that the borehole is sealed, then remove the upper pipe. Sometimes the well needs to be overdrilled. Often done under the same permitting process/regulation used to install a well.
If you simply crush in the job or dig and pour concrete in the hole, the deeper portion of the well can remain open. Leaves a direct pathway for crap to get into your drinking water supply.
No, its not cheap or easy. Neither is cleaning up a contaminated water supply.
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Yes, but where water is scarce, the aquifers are as valuable as all of the wells combined. You don't want to pollute the aquifer, but you don't exactly want to fill it in with a few hundred tons of cement either. Our municipal water district has us cap them fairly far down, then fill the casing with cement. The top casing is dug out and the hole is compacted and then compaction tested.