Wellfields

The development of a wellfield requires a sound understanding of an area's hydrogeology and water withdrawal history.  OAI is the leader in research, planning, testing, designing, development and permitting wellfields in the Gulf Coast area.  The benefit of developing a wellfield over stand alone wells includes: reduced land purchase costs, reduced piping costs, reduced exploration costs and reduced treatment costs.  OAI's first municipal wellfield resulted in an estimated savings of $750,000 for our client over completing wells "the way they used to do it".  Depending on the hydrogeology, wellfields can be multi-aquifer or single aquifer wellfields, see below.  To date, OAI has completed:
  • Three municipal multi-aquifer wellfields, see below
  • Three municipal single aquifer, multi-well wellfields, see below
  • Four industrial multi-well, multi-aquifer wellfields
  • One multi-well, single aquifer irrigation wellfield 

If you have a need to expand your water production capabilties, a wellfield may be to your benefit.  Contact OAI today and learn more about the wellfield concept and how, if conditions are right, a wellfield may be the economical solution to your water supply needs.   Below are some examples of the wellfields OAI has developed.

Industrial Wellfield

A new 2010 industrial wellfield has been added to OAI's growing resume of wellfields, photo below.  This new wellfield has a design capacity of 4.32 million gallons of water per day from two wells on 71 foot horizontal spacing.  The producing aquifers, 150 feet apart vertically, have the potential to be further developed with additional wells.  Project planning, drilling, tsting and completion time for this wellfield was approximately 10 months.  OAI is the leader in the research, planning, testing, designing, development and permitting wellfields of in the Gulf Coast area.  

PW-1, foreground, and PW-2 of this new 4.32 mgd industrial wellfield.  Woods seen in the background are what the property looked like at the project's inception.


Multi-aquifer wellfield
This multi-aquifer wellfield developed for a Mobile County public water system, see photo below, taps hydraulically independant aquifers vertically separated by 150 feet of clay.  The shallow well, left, is permitted for 600 gpm (0.86 million gallons per day) and the deeper well, right, is permitted for 850 gpm (1.22 million gallons per day).  This multi-aquifer wellfield takes advantage of the "stacked" aquifers commonly found in the coastal plain.  The two wells are located 36 feet apart on a single residential lot in a southwest Mobile County subdivision.  The facility's treatment plant has the appearance of just another house in the subdivision.  OAI's research, planning and testing ultimately led to the development of this wellfield with the potential to produce 2+ million gallons of water per day.


Single aquifer, multi-well wellfield
Wellfield #2 for this Baldwin County public water system, photo below, was completed in 2003.  Site production increased from 750 gpm (1.08 million gallons per day) from Well #2, foreground, to 1,700 gpm (2.48 million gallons per day) with the addition of Well #9, background.  The two wells, located 375 feet apart, are completed in the same aquifer.  Groundwater level monitoring from 2004 to December 2008 show no indication the aquifer is being over produced. 


If you have a need to expand your water production, a wellfield may be to your benefit.  Contact OAI today and learn more about the wellfield concept and how, if conditions are right, a wellfield may be the economical solution to your water needs.  

"Putting geology to work for you"