3 pp. / Arizona Well Owner's Guide to Water Supply / To develop a ground water resource, it is necessary to design and construct a well capable of yielding a pumping rate compatible with the needs of the water well owner. Sufficient and sustained well yields are highly dependent on the characteristics of the aquifer, the construction of the well, and the maintenance of the well. Causes of low-yielding wells are explained and practices to restore well performance are recommended.

No description available.

7 pp. / First in a planned series for each county in the state. / Limited information is available to the County Extension offices to address common concerns of water supply in rural Arizona. In addition, in the more metropolitan areas of the state, little is understood about water resources. This project is proposed to provide a ten to twelve page primer on water resources on a county-by-county basis, beginning with Yavapai County.

3 pp. / This is a section of the "Arizona Well Owner's Guide to Water Supply" already peer reviewed and published by CALs - - we are pulling out short topics from the booklet for 'fact sheet' publication and distribution. This is NOT applicable to eXtension as it is Arizona specific and not applicable to anything outside the state. / Arizona has stringent permit requirements for the construction of water wells, but domestic well owners are responsible for repair and maintenance of their own wells to assure a reliable water supply of consistent quality. For the proper maintenance of domestic wells, it is important to have a basic understanding about the different materials that comprise a home water supply system. This fact sheet presents information about Arizona domestic well components, including well casings, well caps, well screens, and pitless adapters; basic materials that combine with a pump to provide water for a household.

The Safe Drinking Water Act ensures that public systems provide water that meets health standards. However, no such protection exists for millions of Americans who obtain water from private wells. Concern for safety is warranted as most wells draw from underground aquifers, and studies demonstrate that groundwater is affected by a range of contaminants, most often nitrate. Oregon's Domestic Well Testing Act (DWTA) links well testing to property sales, enabling continuous data collection by the State. This research addresses a need for identifying datasets for characterizing exposure to private well contaminants by evaluating DWTA data for use in a sentinel surveillance system. Validation of DWTA data was accomplished by developing a land use regression (LUR) model based on agricultural nitrogen inputs and soil leachability to predict nitrate concentrations in well water. Geographic information systems (GIS) were used to advance methods for high resolution spatial modeling of fertilizer and manure nitrogen with statewide coverage. Hazard mapping with these datasets suggests that nearly half of recently drilled wells are susceptible to nitrate contamination. Spearman's rank correlation demonstrated a significant correlation between LUR-predicted nitrate levels and levels reported in the DWTA dataset. These results suggest that DWTA data is valid for use in a sentinel surveillance system, such that evidence of nitrate contamination in a single well may indicate an area-wide health hazard. However, a low fraction of variance explained by the LUR model highlighted the need for specific improvements to datasets crucial for understanding nitrate contamination in well water, including the DWTA. / Graduation date: 2012