October 5, 2026
This week’s photo is courtesy of- GeoLog, LLC, Cottonwood, AZ, USA.
Safety Focus
Part 1 of 4: Overhead Power Lines and Mast Raising: Why It Matters
Overhead power line contact is the leading cause of workplace electrical deaths. The Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI) reviewed fatalities reported to OSHA from 2011 to 2024 and found power line contact behind 49% of them, and 57% among workers outside the electrical trades. That second group includes drillers and pump installers.
Two cases show how it has happened in the water well industry.
On April 8, 1996, two well drillers in California were pulling a pump from a 400-foot well. The foreman raised the truck-mounted boom, and it touched one phase of a 12,000-volt distribution line about 27 feet overhead, directly above the well shack. Both men were electrocuted.
In 1999, a driller's helper in Alaska with a year and a half on the job was unloading equipment beside the truck. The operator raised the mast under a set of 7,200-volt lines. The mast pushed one line aside, touched another, and killed the helper. He was not running the controls. He was just standing next to the rig.
ESFI adds a point that may not surprise any of you: in many of those deaths, the power line was clearly visible.
That is why electrocution is one of OSHA's construction "Focus Four" hazards, alongside falls, struck-by, and caught-in or between.
This week: Tuesday, how to spot the lines and the danger zone. Wednesday, the distances and controls that keep you out of it. Thursday, a setup routine that makes it automatic, and what to do if contact happens anyway.
Key Takeaways:
• Overhead line contact was behind 49% of electrical deaths reported to OSHA from 2011 to 2024.
• In many cases the line was in plain sight. Seeing a line is not the same as clearing it.
• Both crews were killed while the mast or boom was going up.
• The person killed is not always the operator. Everyone near the rig is in the zone.
Sources:
• NIOSH (California FACE Program): Two Well Drillers Electrocuted When Their Truck-Mounted Boom Contacts Overhead Power Lines
• NIOSH (Alaska FACE Program): Driller's Helper Electrocuted When Mast of Drill Rig Contacted Overhead Power Lines
• OSHA: Construction Focus Four Training
Knowledge Share
Part 1 of 4: Subsurface Geology Analysis: Why It Matters
At Jamesport, New York, the USGS logged a deep test well. Its gamma and electric logs marked the depth and thickness of the major clay and sand units and showed how much fine material each one held. An electromagnetic conductivity log traced the water going from fresh, to brackish, to saltwater toward the bottom of the hole. That is the difference between a good supply well and a salt well, read before a single joint of screen is ordered.
Every decision on a well (where the screen goes, how deep the casing runs, where the seal starts, where the pump is set) rests on an understanding of what is underground. In a borehole, you rarely get to see that picture directly. We build it from two kinds of evidence.
The first is what comes out of the hole: cuttings, and the driller's notes on how the formation drilled. The second is what instruments read in the hole: borehole geophysical logs, which are measurements taken by a probe lowered down the borehole on a wireline.
Why not trust the cuttings alone? A USGS manual on drilling and sampling notes that the washing action of drilling mud "is going to contaminate the samples to varying degrees," and that coarse particles do not rise as fast as fine ones. The problem is worse in unconsolidated material, which is where many screened wells are built.
This week: Tuesday, the logs and what each one sees. Wednesday, building a cross-section and picking screen zones. Thursday, the traps that could misguide us.
What this means for your operation:
• A good driller's log is a design document, not paperwork. Write it like someone will build from it.
• Cuttings and geophysical logs answer different questions. The best picture uses both.
Sources:
• USGS (Shuter and Teasdale, TWRI 2-F1): Application of Drilling, Coring, and Sampling Techniques to Test Holes and Wells
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