Digging out a spring to develop it for drinking water

R. Steele wrote:Hi James ,

The physics indicate they are interconnected, but where is the question.

—In my haste I probably didn’t format a question as I should’ve. My question would be how to further explore the characteristics of this spring/ how to develop given the multiple source situation (5 in total).

You could dig up alot of ground to find that answer.

— that would be my fear as well. All work is being done carefully and by hand tools.

My suggestion would have been develop the central source, but now that you've dug back and have two sources, it complicates things.

—I haven’t altered the original flow. Just uncovered it. My thought process was that I could cover the 5 mouths as one unit and let it flow naturally into a spring box. Imagine a culvert cut in half and placed with open end above the tunnel of springs. Potentially a reinforced concrete form could protect them from rain, erosion, biological contaminants etc?

Maybe use a probe to see the alignment or positioning of the lower spring, in relation to the top, to see if you can bore down to rejoin them in a centralized point; then drop in your spring box there, or implement whatever plan of action you have to capture and redirect the water while keep the source clean.


— is there a specific probe for this application? Just a regular soil probe perhaps? I can give that a shot.


Im assuming you understand how to disinfect everything you've worked on to keep your captured source clean.

— I’m assuming you’re talking about treating with chlorine here?

Without being there to study the situation more closely, those are my thoughts on the situation, since those two sources are totally unpredictable regarding how far back they go, or even if they fracture further.

— care to come and study it? Haha. Your input has been very valuable. Thanks!

Hope that helps!

Marco Banks wrote:Dang -- that's a very heavy spring.  Outstanding.

My hunch is that it will gradually erode back into the hillside until the multiple "mouths" merge into one larger one.

—probably. Maybe not in my lifetime given the pure clay content around the mouths.

If the flow jumps up that quickly (by 10%) after a rainfall, I would be very careful about drinking from that spring.

—I was afraid of this. Water has been tested. Everything came back good except for the bacteria test. I expected that this might be pollution occurring once the water surfaced? Many amphibians surrounded the spring in its original form. With newts breeding in the tunnel which I’ve now unearthed.   I’m actually currently drinking the water after purifying it. It’s my only reliable source of clean water for my offgrid homestead currently. Perhaps collection could just be avoided when output is high?

 There will most likely be biological contaminants in it.  But as a source for agriculture, fish/aquaculture, toilets, etc., it wouldn't need to be treated.  

Ducks!  And rice!  And duck-filled rice fields!  If Ben Falk can grow rice in Vermont, you should have no problem.