Terry Stokka has lived in Black Forest for 29 years. He is president of the Friends of Black Forest, chairman of the Black Forest Land Use Committee and chairman of the Black Forest Water & Wells Committee.
Well monitoring project
By Terry Stokka
If you are reading this article, most likely you have a private well or are part of a metropolitan district that gets water from wells. Like me, you wonder what the future holds for the water that lies under the ground.
That concern birthed the Water & Wells Committee (https://www.bfwater.org) under the umbrella of the Friends of Black Forest (https://www.friendsofblackforest.org). The committee advocates for groundwater quality and quantity and promotes sustainability for the aquifers of the Denver Basin.
The committee chose a project to monitor wells in Black Forest to see if the static levels are changing over time. The static level is the number of feet from ground level to the surface of the water in the well. If the static levels are going down, it means we are using up the water, and then it is a question of how long the water will last. None of us want to think of that possibility.
We went to the Friends of Black Forest and asked for volunteers and more than 100 responded. We chose a representation of 64 wells located within County Line Road, Highway 83, Old Ranch Road and Eastonville Road. We invested in a sophisticated well tester that uses sonic waves to measure the static level. After removing the well cap, the tester is placed over the opening and it sends a sound wave down into the well. That sound wave bounces off the water and back to the tester to be converted to the number of feet to the static level. The whole process is non-invasive and takes only a few minutes. For more shallow wells, the tester is accurate to the hundredth of a foot.
Tests are conducted each fall in September or October and we just finished our fifth annual test. We have yet to analyze the results of this last test, but we know that the project is a multi-year effort to make any meaningful conclusions. So far, the average static level of the 64 wells is about 157 feet with levels varying from 37 to 353 feet. Wells vary from 220-650-feet deep. All wells are in the Dawson Aquifer, which ranges from 600-1,000-feet deep in Black Forest.
We give a couple of days notice before testing and only test in the morning. We ask the volunteers to not water animals or landscaping for 12 hours before testing. We want the tests to stand up to scrutiny if we ever present our conclusions to county or state officials. Test results normally vary up to 3 to 4 feet from year to year, which is not significant. Because of the depth of the aquifer, water from rain and snow is not considered to percolate down to the aquifer, which makes it essentially a closed system.
One conclusion we have reached is that the aquifer consists of pockets of water separated by different types of clay, sand and gravel. It is not a big bowl of sand where water would seek the same level. A subset of our project is to test a cluster of wells that are near each other. In my neighborhood, I asked 12 neighbors if we could monitor their well. All 12 lots touch each other. One well with a static level of 99 feet is only 650 feet from a well with a static of 353 feet. About 600 feet in another direction is a well with a static of 320 feet. The 12 lots have static levels between 99 and 353 feet. Our conclusion is that the aquifer has pockets of water between these interlocking layers of clay, gravel and sandstone. Your well drilled into one or more pocket and that is your water supply. Two wells on the same lot that are about 50 feet apart measure within 2 feet of each other so we conclude they drilled into the same pocket of water. The good news is that your well may not be affected by your neighbor’s well.
One side benefit of the project is that we get to meet and know a lot of wonderful neighbors in Black Forest. That can only help us in our efforts to foster community, and community is one thing the Black Forest is known for. We are neighbors helping neighbors, and I have seen neighbors volunteer to help others they don’t even know. It doesn’t get much better in this day and age.
