Share the Well

Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 | Hurricane Katrina

Everyone in Lakeshore had their own well, providing their property with water. The storm severely damaged or destroyed all the pumps, motors, and tanks for these shallow wells. The tidal surge broke most of them off leaving nothing but a pipe sticking out of the ground. Some of the wells may need to be redug. FEMA will not place temporary housing trailers on property without electricity, water, and sewage. We desperately need to get these pumps repaired or, in most cases, replaced. We have a couple of churches offering to fund this project, but I need someone with the expertise to head it up. If you know something about wells and would be willing to coordinate this please contact me at elbourne@lakeshorebaptist.net.

2 Comments to Share the Well

Bill
9/20/2005

My suggestion is to first test the well water for drinking parameters via a local lab. There could be a problem with using the well water at this point, due to contamination from the surface water that “may have leaked into the well via the well casing”. If these wells were covered by flooding this is a “VERY REAL POSSIBILITY”.

I would start with the local health department. They should be willing/able to assist you, but then again having worked with them extensively, they may unfortunately NOT be able to assist you.

Praying for all of you guys,

Bill

TNBaptist
9/20/2005

Bill is quite right. Those wells are probably all contaminated with coliform bacteria (including e coli) Ground water run-off contaminates good wells sometimes under the best of circumstances…….and certainly your circumstances are less than the best. It is possible to decontaminate a well after it is repaired to the point where you can seal off ground water, i.e. have it properly capped again. The State should be able to provide instructions for “shock” treating the well with regular chlorine bleach. If you can’t find that info, let me know and I’ll copy a set of instructions and email them to you.

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