September 19, 2026
This week’s photo is courtesy of- P.W. Gillibrand- Simi Valley, CA, USA. P.W. Gillibrand is a Premium Vendor on the Water Well Resource website. Click on their name for more product information.
Health Focus
Part 2 of 2: Your Hands
Yesterday was what vibration does to a pair of hands and how it announces itself. Today is what to do, and the order matters, because one of these actions has a deadline on it.
Report it early, and get evaluated. NIOSH is clear that the early stages of hand-arm vibration syndrome are usually reversible if vibration exposure is reduced or eliminated, while treatment for advanced stages is usually ineffective. There is no drug that undoes it. Reducing exposure while the damage is still early is the treatment. That makes the first numb finger a time-sensitive event, however small it feels.
When you do see a clinician, bring the job with you. Say which tools you run, how many hours a day, how many years, and describe the symptoms including what happens in the cold. A hand that goes numb reads very differently to a doctor who knows the patient has been running a breaker for fifteen years. Vibration exposure can also occur alongside carpal tunnel syndrome, so the history is what sorts it out.
Keep your hands warm and dry on the job. OSHA says it plainly and it is the cheapest intervention on the list. Gloves for warmth, dry gloves rather than wet ones, and hands out of the wind between tasks. Cold tissue with reduced blood flow is the condition attacks happen in.
Loosen your grip. OSHA's instruction is to not grip a vibrating tool too tightly and to let the tool or machine do the work. More force on the handle means more vibration energy into the hand, and a numb hand tends to squeeze harder without meaning to. This is a habit worth correcting on purpose.
Then cut the dose. Alternate vibrating tools with nonvibrating tasks, limit the hours on the worst tools, and take that 10 to 15 minute break off the vibration source every hour. Keep tooling sharp and rotating parts balanced, because dull and unbalanced means more vibration for the same work.
Your hands are not a consumable. Treat the first white fingertip like the first drop in mud pressure: not an emergency, but absolutely a signal, and worth stopping to understand while you still have options.
Key Takeaways
• Early HAVS is usually reversible if exposure drops; advanced HAVS generally is not treatable. Report early symptoms right away.
• Bring your work history to the clinician: tools, hours per day, years, and what happens in cold.
• Warm dry hands, a loose grip, and letting the tool do the work are free and they matter.
• Cut the dose with tool rotation, hour limits, hourly breaks, and sharp, balanced tooling.
Sources:
Industry Updates
EPA and Army reopen comment on the Waters of the United States definition
EPA and the Department of the Army published a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking on September 9, revisiting the definition of waters of the United States under the Clean Water Act. This is not a final rule. It supplements the proposal the agencies published in November 2025, which drew roughly 220,000 comments, and it asks for input on narrower definitions of two terms that decide federal jurisdiction: relatively permanent and continuous surface connection. The agencies are also proposing to define perennial, with a temporary interruption of no more than a single period of up to 30 consecutive days in a year.
Why it matters on a well site: jurisdiction over intermittent channels, ditches, and wetlands drives permitting for access roads, pads, and earthwork. Note carefully that the November 2025 proposal included an exclusion for groundwater, and this supplemental notice does not revisit it. That exclusion is still proposed, not law. Comments close October 9, 2026.
North Carolina settles with Chemours and DuPont for $590 million, with private wells at the center
North Carolina's Attorney General and Department of Environmental Quality announced a $590 million agreement on September 10 with DuPont and Chemours over PFAS contamination, joined by 11 local governments. The structure is $455 million to the state and those local governments paid over 10 to 15 years, plus a $135 million reserve fund from DuPont and Corteva that the state can draw on if Chemours cannot fund its obligations.
The well numbers are the part worth knowing. Under the 2019 consent order that this settlement reinforces, roughly 27,500 private drinking water wells have been sampled for PFAS, and about 10,500 households have been offered replacement drinking water systems such as filtration. That is a large, ongoing body of private-well sampling, treatment installation, and groundwater remediation work in southeastern North Carolina, and the reserve fund exists specifically to keep it funded for decades. For anyone working private wells in a PFAS-affected area, this is the template for how that work gets paid for.
Reclamation awards $81 million for the last major Navajo-Gallup pipeline segment
The Bureau of Reclamation announced an $81 million contract on September 8 to Carstensen Contracting for the Block 2-3 pipeline on the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project in northwest New Mexico, the last large-scale award toward completing the project. The segment runs from the Frank Chee Willetto Reservoir east of Shiprock south to the San Juan Lateral Water Treatment Plant, and includes 42 inch and 48 inch buried transmission pipe, regulating tanks, valves, cathodic protection, and SCADA with fiber optic cabling.
The San Juan Lateral is now more than 75 percent complete, with initial deliveries expected in late 2028 and completion by the end of 2029. Finished, the project will run about 300 miles of pipeline with two treatment plants and 19 pumping plants, serving nearly 250,000 people on the Navajo Nation, where more than one in three residents haul their drinking water. The work is pumps, controls, tanks, and transmission, and it is the kind of project that sets regional labor demand for years.
Industry Events
Event Highlight: California Groundwater Association Annual Conference and Trade Show
CGA brings California's drillers, pump installers, and suppliers together at the Atlantis in Reno for three days of education and a full trade show floor. For contractors working under California's groundwater rules, the value is concentrated: continuing education that counts toward licensing, the regulatory sessions that explain what the state is actually enforcing this year, and a floor where you can put hands on tooling and talk to the people who build it. Registration is open through the association's event page.
California Groundwater Association: CGA 2026 Annual Conference and Trade Show
October 6 to 8, 2026; Reno, Nevada (Atlantis Casino Resort Spa)
Information and Registration: CGA 2026 Annual Conference and Trade Show
National Ground Water Association: Meeting the Challenges of Groundwater in Fractured Rock Conference
September 21 to 22, 2026; Burlington, Vermont (optional field trip September 23)
Information and Registration: NGWA Fractured Rock Conference
Nevada Water Resources Association: Fall Week of Water
September 21 to 24, 2026; Reno, Nevada
Information and Registration: NWRA 2026 Fall Week of Water
Washington State Ground Water Association: Fall Convention
October 2 to 3, 2026; Kennewick, Washington
Information and Registration: WSGWA 2026 Fall Convention registration
Southwest Section American Water Works Association: 2026 Annual Conference
October 25 to 27, 2026; Bossier City, Louisiana
Information and Registration: SWAWWA Annual Conference
If you have a conference, symposium, workshop, or water well related event that you would like mentioned, contact us at [email protected]
Vendor Directory
Premium Vendors-
Become a Premium or Plus vendor and increase your exposure. Claim your company and upgrade or list your company at https://waterwellresource.com/become-a-listed-vendor/
Basic Vendors-
Work Hard. Work Smart. Stay Safe!
