July 15, 2026
This week’s photo is courtesy of Russell Drilling Company- Nacogdoches, TX, USA.
Safety Focus
Part 3 of 4: The Road
Between the yard and the site is the part of the job where a fatality is most likely to happen. Federal hours of service rules exist because tired drivers are a hazard not only to themselves, but to everyone on the road. The rules apply to commercial motor vehicles of 10,001 pounds or more in interstate commerce. For most rigs and support vehicles, that is you.
The core numbers, straight from the regulation. A driver must have 10 consecutive hours off duty before driving. Once on duty, there is an 11-hour driving limit, and driving is prohibited beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty. That 14-hour window does not pause: taking a two-hour break in the middle does not push your window two hours later. There is a required 30-minute break once eight cumulative hours of driving have passed without at least a 30-minute interruption, and that break can be satisfied by off-duty time, sleeper berth, or on-duty time that is not driving. On the back end, drivers are capped at 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8, depending on whether the carrier operates every day, with a 34-hour restart available.
Now the exception that matters most to well crews. If a driver operates within a 150 air-mile radius of the normal work reporting location and returns and is released within 14 consecutive hours, the short-haul exception applies: no records of duty status, no electronic logging device, and no mandatory 30-minute break. The carrier still has to keep accurate time records for six months. Be sure to take the time to know your limits, and follow the guidance.
There is also an exception written specifically for this industry. Under 49 CFR 395.1(l), a driver used primarily to transport and operate a water well drilling rig can reset the weekly on-duty clock with 24 consecutive hours off duty, rather than the 34 hours a typical restart requires. It is a narrow benefit, and an easy one to over-read: it shortens the weekly restart only. It does not change the 11-hour driving limit, the 14-hour window, or the 10 hours off before driving. But for a crew getting back to a full week after a break, those ten hours are worth knowing about.
There is also an adverse driving conditions exception that adds up to two hours when conditions were not known before departure. Conditions you could have checked before leaving does not count. That is the theme of the whole week: the planning happens before you turn the key.
Be sure to check how Intrastate vs Interstate rules apply in your state.
Key Takeaways
• 11 hours driving, inside a 14-hour window that does not pause, after 10 consecutive hours off duty.
• Short-haul exception: inside 150 air miles and released within 14 hours means no ELD and no mandatory 30-minute break. Know whether your operation qualifies.
• Water well drilling rigs get a shortened weekly restart: 24 hours off resets the clock, not 34. It changes the weekly reset only, not the daily driving limits.
• The adverse conditions exception covers what you could not have known. It does not cover weather you did not bother to check.
Sources:
Industry Update
California Just Rewrote How It Decides Which Chemicals Threaten Groundwater
On July 1, California's Department of Pesticide Regulation put into effect the most significant overhaul of its Groundwater Protection List since the list was created in 1989. If you drill or service wells in agricultural country, in California or in a state that tends to follow it, this is worth understanding.
Two things changed. First, the list itself: it now carries 100-plus active ingredients, up from 105, with 51 newly added and several removed or reclassified. Second, and more consequential, the method changed. Since 1991 the state had screened chemicals using a specific numerical value procedure, comparing individual physical properties against fixed thresholds. That is gone, replaced by a multivariate leaching value method that combines environmental fate data with molecular modeling to predict which compounds, and which of their breakdown products, are likely to reach groundwater.
The purpose of the program is stated plainly by DPR: it protects groundwater used for drinking water, and specifically shallow domestic wells in agricultural areas. That is a direct description of a large share of the wells our readers drill, service, and rehabilitate. The state monitors hundreds of wells annually and tests for a broad panel of pesticides and degradates.
The practical implication is not a new rule you must follow. It is a signal about where scrutiny is heading. More compounds are now formally flagged as groundwater threats, which raises the value of the things that keep contaminants out of a well in the first place: correct casing, competent grouting, and a sanitary seal that actually seals. When a domestic well near a treated field shows a detection, the construction of that well becomes the question. Build them so the answer is easy, and document everything accurately.
Sources:
• California DPR: Two New Regulations Take Effect Today to Protect Groundwater
• California DPR: New Regulations Effective July 1, 2026
Knowledge Share
Part 3 of 4: Matching the Pump to the Well
Here is the mistake that leads to more failed pumps than any other: sizing to the customer's demand instead of the well's yield. The well is the hard limit. If a well sustains 10 gallons per minute and the customer wants 25, a bigger pump does not create water. It draws the well down faster, breaks suction, and runs the motor dry. And a submersible motor cooled by the water it pumps does not survive dry running for long. The answer to a low-yield well is storage, not horsepower.
Start with the pump test, which gives you the sustainable yield and the drawdown. Then find the number that actually sets your lift: the pumping water level. Not the well depth. Not the static water level. The pumping water level is where the water sits while the pump is running, static level plus drawdown, and that is the height the pump lifts from.
With the pumping level in hand, build the TDH from yesterday: lift from the pumping water level, plus the pressure you need at the tank (convert with 2.31 feet of head per psi- for cold freshwater, and use the pressure switch cut-out, not the cut-in), plus friction loss through the drop pipe and fittings. That last one is not a rounding error. Friction loss climbs steeply as pipe diameter drops, which is why the tables in the Goulds technical manual run per hundred feet of pipe by size and by flow. A drop pipe one size too small can add more head than the pressure tank demands.
Then set the pump. In most cases, that is above the screen, deep enough to stay submerged through the full drawdown at design flow, with enough water passing the motor to keep it cool. Setting depth is a cooling decision as much as a hydraulic one, and we come back to that tomorrow.
What this means for your operation
• The well's sustainable yield is the ceiling. If demand exceeds it, add storage. Never answer a low-yield well with a bigger pump.
• Size from the pumping water level, static plus drawdown, not the static level and not the well depth.
• Run the friction loss numbers for the actual drop pipe size. One size smaller can quietly add more head than you budgeted for pressure.
Sources:
• Goulds Water Technology (Xylem): Water Products Technical Manual: Friction Loss Tables and Pump Fundamentals
• Grundfos: ECADEMY: Pump Hydraulics
Industry Events
Event Spotlight: South Atlantic Jubilee
July 25-27, 2026; Myrtle Beach, SC
Information and Registration: South Atlantic Jubilee
Looking Forward-
National Water Resources Association: Western Water Seminar
August 3-6, 2026; Boise, ID
Information and Registration: NWRA: Western Water Seminar
NGWA: Darcy Lecture, Groundwater Recharge Regimes Are in Flux
August 4, 2026; Virtual Attendance, 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. ET
Information and Registration: NGWA Event Calendar
American Ground Water Trust: Mid-Atlantic and the Carolinas Groundwater Conference
August 18-19, 2026; Richmond, VA
Information and Registration: AGWT: Mid-Atlantic Conference
NGWA: Advancing Women in Groundwater, Conversations That Connect
August 27, 2026; Virtual Attendance, 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET
Information and Registration: NGWA: Advancing Women in Groundwater
NGWA: Groundwater Week 2026
December 8-10, 2026; Las Vegas, NV
Information and Registration: NGWA Groundwater Week 2026
If you have a conference, symposium, workshop, or water well related event that you would like mentioned, contact us at [email protected]
Work Hard. Work Smart. Stay Safe!
