Adventures in Geology – The Soda Well
Not everyone gets to go to Wheatland, Indiana to work for weeksthe one little town in Indiana that is located smack dab in the middle of a strip mine, and 17 miles from a public rest room. Wheatland is not known for either the high volatility of its gasoline, or its reliable phone service, and certainly not for its easy access to the basic necessities of life.
All of my geology buddies worked in oil and gas, or the hard rock minerals, it seemed, and traveled to fabulous far-off places, like Venezuela, Norway, or China. Me? I got to travel to Wheatland, Indiana, and jump in my car to race the 17 miles to a restroom at least twice a day. Why didnt I just go into the bushes, you may ask? Because my job was usually smack dab in the middle of a strip mine, and there werent any suitable shrubs nearby.
See that ridge? Put a house on top of that shear cliff, and that is what this poor woman's view looked like.
It has recently occurred to me that, on occasion, the denizens of NT may enjoy a little sojourn into the life of a female geologist, as I was struggling to survive. Most of these stories are to me, funny, at least now that Ive reached the great age where field work is not an option, (and boy, do I miss it!). It also occurred to me that you may enjoy learning, in very tiny amounts, what the water industry is all about, here and theresort of a birds eye view of what it was like, there in the trenches.
A Coal Mine, who shall remain nameless, had retained my services on a contractual basis to handle little problems as they arose when the problem could easily be foisted off on anothers shoulders, (and liability insurance). Glad for the work, I happily drove off to said coal mine area, to handle a problem with a house well. Hey, billable hours are billable hours.
First, it required several security badges, a change of hard hats to the company logo, and putting on my very own steel-toed boots to get near the mine, boys size 5. But, you see, I was not allowed IN the mine, per se, only in the mining office, and ONLY if I put my hair up under my hard hat, and wore pants. In case you didnt know, it is bad luck for a woman to be in the mine. People get killed when there is bad luck. So I carefully dressed, stuffing my hair up under my hard hat, which I had to change from one labeled with my own consulting company, to a Coal Company hard hat. This is the same company that requested my attendance at a meeting, tie only. I showed up with my lovely black suit, and a boys tie.
There was a restroom in the mining office, but it was strictly off limits to women. When I asked, they looked at me as if I had suddenly sprouted two additional legs. This was not surprising, as I had dressed for the cold weather in my snow-mobile suit, and since the day had surprisingly turned warm, had unzipped the legs, which flapped behind me. I really didnt care what I looked like. Obviously.
They gave me a map, and directed me to a small house on a small peninsula of normal land, the house having been mined out, all around it, so it looked like an island with a bridge. Since most of the county roads had been mined out, to get there, one had to travel five miles this way, then 5 miles that-a-way, turn southwest, carefully keeping to the bridge of a road, and follow the ridge to the house.
This part of Indiana is also called the township and range section of Indiana, but whoever surveyed it back in the early 1800s had decided to be creative and put the townships and ranges in diamonds, not squares. So, one went NE, NW, SE, or SW. I started off confused, got lost at least twice, but finally found the house on its peninsula of land.
The house had a good well, the woman who lived there told me, but the coal mine had let it pump sand for a couple of days, and then it was dried up, completely. Since Indiana had a law that anyone who dried up a domestic supply, was required by law to replace it, the coal company had drilled them a new deep well, but the water was awful.
How deep was the first well? I asked. She didnt know. Pretty Dinged Darn Deep. So, that ruled out the thought of an outhouse that had sweetened the old well. Good, I thought. So many people had sweet water wells, it was worrisome.
What is bad about the water now? I asked.
Taste it, she said. She poured me a glass. I looked at it, and saw nothing floating in it, which was a good sign. I asked, Would you pour me another glass? Got any bleach?
She did, and gave me a giant gallon jug of Chlorox. I asked if she had red water, or if her clothes were ever stained, and she said that sometimes, her clothes had a black dust on them
I poured about a tablespoon of bleach in the glass and stirred it vigorously. She asked, What are you doing?
Im seeing if there is any iron and manganese in the water, maam. If there is a lot of iron and manganese in the water, the bleach will react with the air and precipitate out, I said.
We sat and waited. I really didnt want to taste that water. Despite my profession, I dont like to taste well waterit needs oxygen to really taste good.
She told me that her family couldnt drink it, and the Coal Company had bought her a reverse osmosis system, that worked for a while, but had quit, a few months ago, and she was having to buy and cook with bottled water. I asked to see the unit, and it was a nice one, but smallonly 4 quarts of water per day. No one can cook for a family of four with 4 quarts of water a day!
I asked when she had last changed the filters, and she said, Were supposed to change the filters?
I sighed. Then, after checking for precipitation in the bleachy glass, and finding a little gunk on the bottom, I tasted the regular glass. Oh. My. Gosh. Can anyone say Soda? I threw up in the sink, and she said, Yup, it makes you want to puke, doesnt it?
By this time, we were friends, so she actually allowed me to use her bathroom, for which I am eternally grateful.
They had drilled the well too deeply, into the underlying Borden Formation, which usually has water high in sulfate, but this batch had natural sodium in it, to the point where one could NOT drink it. The water also had high sulfate in it, but one could not taste that, due to the high sodium. Just that one sip cleaned my pipes, for days.
Solution: Either run a water line from the town of Wheatland, (5 miles), or buy the family a cistern and pay to have water delivered. I begged the woman not to drink it, and I went back to Vincennes to buy them about 20 gallons of bottled water, which I charged to the client. Who was not at all pleased. As in, So What?
At any rate, this is but one instance of many with this Coal Company. They kept hiring me, so I guess they appreciated my honesty, and the fact that I could dress enough like a man to get by for one, even if a short one.
I kept up with the woman, for several years, until it was well-established that the Coal Company was going to supply them with decent waterafter all, she had two kids. Finally, the Coal Company offered them enough money for their house, so they sold it, and the land was mined.
Few remember what it was like, back in the 80s, when we were all trail-blazers, and little things, like hiding the fact that you were female was just par for the course.
Thanks for coming by!
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On occasion, I remember a situation of long ago, that makes me chuckle...
Hope you enjoy!
I grew up in the Adirondack Park in New York. I don't know about the water that you are used to, but I know that the water from the well at my house was superb tasting. It took me quite a bit of doing to acclimate my taste buds to municipal water supplies.
I had to laugh as I read this story. It isn't funny though as that is exactly how the coal companies worked back in the day. Those habits of theirs are still damned hard to break even today. Thanks for sharing Dowser.
A lot of it is good, once you aerate it... I used just stir it, or add a little bit of bourbon...
I bet your water was great! Municipal supplies are required to add chlorine, so often the taste isn't as good...
This water was AWFUL.
Our water, here in Louisville, has won the national Best Tasting Water in America Award for the past few years... I like our water!
They still work this way, I believe... Luckily they had a state law up in IN and now, down here in KY, that won't let them get away with ruining the supply. I made sure they were aware of it.
LOL Dowser, this was a good of an adventure as the time that you had to inspect the drilling in the middle of the night...
LOL!!! There are so many little vignettes of past field work... Most of them are truly funny!
Thanks, dear friend!
The hardest thing to get used to was my well water in Arkansas. It was extremely soft, it felt like you had soap on you even when you had rinsed well in the shower, and it stank of sulfur. We never did drink it, though it was deemed safe when we had it tested.
Had one friend who ws raised on sulfur water, we would go to give him a glass of spring water and he would decline and ask for the tap water. Blech!
I guess that qualifies as a happy ending for a tale such as this ...
French Lick, IN, gets its water from a member of the Borden Formation, and it is very high in sulfate. They call it Pluto Water, and they used to bottle it and sell it as a cure for kidney disease. I guess it was sort of an early form of sulfa drugs. It is still a resort, but the spa water, which is blue-green in color, smells awful, and drinking one glass gave me intestinal disorders for a good two weeks.
UGH!!!
I agree, sulfa water is just too!!! ICKY! Note, I don't like the water to be too soft, either. And, it rots the pipes out, due to the corrosivity of the water. Oh, such fun.
I went through two water heaters in less than seven years, the second one failed catastrophically, dumping water into the house which was on the market at the time. On the good side, our real estate agent was right on the spot and took care of everything. I often say she planned it because I refused to burn scented candles when they were showing the house.
UGH!!! High TDS, (total dissolved solids)...
Yep. The family got to move, and one step off the back yard and it would have been EEEEeeeeee!
Pounding on rocks is very satisfying, I've found. If the rock is annoying, you can take a hammer to it. Much better than you can with people!
I really enjoyed your little story Dowser. I filter all my water here in Charlotte. I can't stand it unless I do that. There's a big thing going on now with coal ash in the bottom of the lake from using coal to provide electricity from Duke Power.
When I was growing up one of my uncles I use to stay and work with grew watermelons, soy beans and corn. When I'd get on that tractor I could hardly see the other end of the field.
When the watermelons were ready to take out of the field his house was about 300 yards from his mother's house where he grew up. He inherited the small farm and grew it into one of the biggest farms in the county, maybe the state. The thing is his water at his house was very good, but the water at his mother's house was terrible. It would evaporate in your mouth and tasted like rotten eggs. He drank it like there was no problem and I'd run 300 yards to get me a jug from his house to avoid that stinking water. There's a lot of sulfa water in eastern NC. I think that is what it is.
I'm sure it is! Buying bottled water sounds like a plan.
Question: How far was the well from the outhouse, even if it was an old one and has since been filled in? Some geologic materials are natural producers of sulfa water, but in many other cases, the sulfa smell is due to the effects of an outhouse, or a long-term feed lot situation. Is the well upslope from the outhouse or feedlot? Upslope water wise.
Upslope for a water table aquifer generally means the upslope on a hill. Upslope of an artesian aquifer is upslope of the "hills" and "valleys" of the piezometric surface-- as evidenced by the level of the water in the wells. 900 yards is a long way, but in geologic terms, not that far. If these are wells drilled to the top of the bedrock, then the bedrock may be contributing to the sulfa problem. If they are drilled into sand and gravel, look for an outhouse, or a spill of some kind of sulfate. I.e. copper sulfate, used to treat algae in ponds. Or even the pond itself can contaminate an aquifer with sulfate.
I'm sure this is no help at all, but NC has both coastal deposits, and normal mountain deposits. I'm not sure where the farm may be located.
Some fertilizers also contain sulfa, or the use of sulfuric acid in places can contaminate an aquifer... To be honest, the mom should spend the couple of hundred dollars and have her water tested. The sign that the water evaporates in one's mouth is NOT a good sign...
Dowser,
My situation is much like Brolly's. We're in a town of about 200 people. Although we're tied into a sewer system and natural gas lines, our water comes from individual wells. It's very good, perhaps a bit hard but easily handled by our softener. My son has drank it all his life. Recently, he moved to another town (about 2500 people) about 15 miles away. They have a municipal water system and he absolutely hates the taste. He had the same reaction when he visited my parents, as a child, up in Bay City. He thought that the city water was horrible (it actually isn't that bad to me but, then again, I grew up drinking it).
Probably the chlorine... I've been so used to good water, all my life, I can't really relate!
It's all been well water, but a municipal supply, all the same.
Thanks so much for coming by, dear friend!
Another true nugget. Thank you.