August 19, 2026
This week’s photo is courtesy of Stewart Brothers Drilling Co.- Milan, NM, USA
Safety Focus
Part 3 of 4: Site Safety Foundations
A pre-task hazard assessment, sometimes called a job hazard analysis or JHA, is the two-minute habit that turns recognition into prevention. OSHA lays out the method in its Job Hazard Analysis guide (Publication 3071), and it is simple enough to run in your head, better on paper.
Walk it in task order, the way you would actually do the job.
1. Break the task into steps. Not the whole day. The task in front of you: rigging up, tripping pipe, setting the pump, moving the rig. Each is its own short list of moves.
2. For each step, ask what can go wrong. Where is the pinch point, the overhead load, the line under pressure, the footing, the electrical? Name the hazard out loud. Saying it makes it real to the crew.
3. For each hazard, decide the control before you start. The order of preference is worth knowing: eliminate the hazard first, then engineer it out, then change the work practice, and use PPE as the last line, not the first.
A few field notes that separate the checklist from the habit. Do it at the task, not in the truck at 6 a.m. Conditions change: the line that was dead is now hot, the ground that was dry is now mud. Involve the newest person on the crew, because they may see what you have stopped seeing. And write the recurring ones down. The same three hazards may show up on most of your jobs, and a short written analysis for a repeated task is beneficial.
This is not paperwork for the sake of paperwork. It is the difference between knowing the rig is dangerous and doing something about it.
Tomorrow we solidify the crew standards.
Key Takeaways:
• A job hazard analysis breaks a task into steps, names the hazard in each, and sets the control before work starts.
• Use the hierarchy of controls: eliminate, engineer, administrative, then PPE last.
• Discuss prior to the task, not in the truck, because conditions change through the day.
• Write down the recurring hazards for repeated tasks.
Sources:
• NIOSH: Hierarchy of Controls
Knowledge Share
Part 3 of 4: Aquifer Types and Key Terms
An aquifer is simply a body of rock or sediment that holds and transmits usable amounts of water. But not all aquifers are built the same, and the type determines how a well behaves, how it recharges, and how it responds to pumping. Three types cover most of what you will drill.
An unconfined aquifer, also called a water table aquifer, has the water table as its upper boundary. Above it is the unsaturated zone, open to the surface, so it recharges more or less directly from precipitation soaking down. When you drill into an unconfined aquifer, the water level in the borehole sits at the water table.
A confined aquifer is sandwiched between two low-permeability layers, called confining beds or aquitards, that hold the water under pressure. Because it is pressurized, when you tap it the water rises in the well above the top of the aquifer, sometimes above the ground itself. That is an artesian condition. The level to which the water rises defines the potentiometric surface, the confined-aquifer counterpart to the water table. A well that flows at the surface without pumping is a flowing artesian well.
A perched aquifer is the exception that fools people. It is a small, local saturated zone held up above the regional water table by a lens of low-permeability material, clay or hardpan, that traps infiltrating water on its way down. A perched zone can give a shallow well a little water that then runs dry, because it is not connected to the main aquifer below. Recognizing one saves a bad completion decision.
Learn these terms, because the rest of the series leans on them. Water table, saturated and unsaturated zones, confining bed, potentiometric surface, artesian. They are the vocabulary of every log, report, and standard you will read.
Tomorrow we close orientation with how to study this material, and a few misconceptions worth dropping now.
What this means for your next job: Identify the aquifer type before you set your completion. An unconfined, confined, and perched zone each call for different decisions on depth, screen, and seal.
Sources:
• USGS: Glossary of Water Cycle Terms
Industry Update
Ohio City Secures $14 Million to Build PFAS Treatment for a Groundwater System
The City of Loveland, Ohio has secured about $14 million in Ohio EPA funding, $4 million in principal forgiveness plus a $10 million zero-interest loan, to build treatment for PFAS in its drinking water. The city draws its supply from a groundwater aquifer through several wells, the total project is estimated near $17 million, and AECOM is handling design.
Worth being precise here: Loveland's water currently meets all state and federal standards. This is a city getting ahead of the federal PFAS limits finalized in 2024, which set enforceable maximum contaminant levels for PFOA and PFOS at 4 parts per trillion. The funding moves a project from planning into construction.
Why it matters to well professionals: this is the funding path to watch, detection to study to design to construction financing to procurement. Groundwater systems with known PFAS are becoming active capital projects, not distant compliance worries. The scope around them can include wellhead work, pump and hydraulic evaluation, source sampling, and rehabilitation before a treatment plant comes online. Where public systems get funded, private-well testing and monitoring work tends to follow in the same area.
Industry Events
NGWA: Hydrogeology of States Webinar, Maine
August 26, 2026; Virtual Attendance
Information and Registration: NGWA Hydrogeology of States: Maine
NGWA: Advancing Women in Groundwater
August 27, 2026; Virtual Attendance
Information and Registration: NGWA Advancing Women in Groundwater
AWWA: Water Infrastructure Conference and Exposition
August 30 to September 2, 2026; Indianapolis, IN
Information and Registration: AWWA Water Infrastructure Conference
National Drilling Association: Drill Expo
September 17 to 18, 2026; Nashville, TN
Information and Registration: NDA Drill Expo
NGWA: Groundwater Week 2026
December 8 to 10, 2026; Las Vegas, NV
Information and Registration: NGWA Groundwater Week
If you have a conference, symposium, workshop, or water well related event that you would like mentioned, contact us at [email protected]
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