Groundwater for Dummies

Anatomy of an artesian well

We'd like to think that most people who write little articles and posts on the internet, especially if they're getting paid for the work, could provide a simple answer to a simple question. If that were the case, however, this blog wouldn't exist. It is not, sadly, and one of the main reasons is the minimum word count restriction at Demand Media (now Leaf Group). If contributors weren't forced to expand twenty-word answers to 300-word articles, far fewer of them would be caught being stupid. We're reminded of Christine Lebednik, who demonstrated her scientific illiteracy in "Where Does the Water in a Well Come From?"¹ at Hunker.com. That's what Demand Media gets for letting English majors write about science, we guess.

There's a one-word answer to the original question: "groundwater." Lebednik actually gets that word right; it's her "explanation" of groundwater, explanation demanded by the DMS minimum  word count, that proves sadly lacking. According to Christine,

"Well water comes from sources beneath the Earth's surface known as groundwater, which includes porous water-bearing formations as well as underground springs... Some springs run entirely underground and do not break through the surface..."

We're still trying to figure out what these "underground springs" are, since – according to people who know what springs are – springs are "the result of an aquifer being filled to the point that the water overflows onto the land surface [bolding ours]." Yeah: a surface feature, which by definition can't be "underground." Maybe an "underground spring" is in a cave? Whatever the case, Lebednik has plenty of other problems with her topic, one of which is that she thinks only private residences use wells: "Unlike municipal water supplied to homes through municipal water pipes that comes from surface water sources like reservoirs, lakes or rivers, well water draws from the sources of water beneath the Earth's surface." Ummm, no: most municipalities use well water for at least part of their water supply! Besides this misconception (and the sloppy writing), Lebednik can't quite get a handle on the concept of an aquifer:

"Groundwater also includes water that is contained in a variety of porous materials that lie beneath the Earth's surface, such as silt, gravel, clay and sand. Water collects below ground in these porous materials into structures called aquifers. Generally speaking, well water collects into the well from these water-bearing structures. Wells are situated in the Earth to access the aquifer at a depth well below the surface."

In our staff hydrologist's opinion, that's a piss-poor description of an aquifer; which, by the way, is not a "structure": it's a layer. And Chris? Aquifers with significant clay aren't particularly good aquifers... As for "well below the surface," that depends on your definition of "well." Some hand-dug water wells are less than ten feet deep; some drilled wells reach several hundred.

Christine also has some difficulty with the concept of artesian wells...

"With an artesian well, the water naturally rises up into the well because of the action of pressurizing forces below the Earth. With all other types of water well, collecting the water into the well requires some sort of pumping action. The pumping device used to drive water to the well can be either mechanical or electrical."

The hydrologist thinks the phrase "pressurizing forces below the Earth" sucks big time -- first, because it's lousy grammar; second, because where the heck is "below the Earth"; and third, because if you're going to mention these "pressurizing forces" you need to explain them! Then there's that "pumping device" that "drive[s] water to the well": can't she just call it a pump? Sure she can! and pumps don't drive water to a well, they draw water to a well...

That, apparently, is what you get when an English major attacks technology. Damned shame, we thought: the one-word answer would have been a lot more useful; but meeting that minimum word count meant Lebednik had to wing it... and winging it on a topic about which she knew jack is the reason she's getting a Dumbass of the Day award from the Antisocial Network. Oh, yeah, and shouldn't English majors (especially one who's been doing it for 30-plus years) have better grammar?

¹ Leaf Group sent Lebednik's post to their cleanup team, but you can still read her original text using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/about_5569109_water-well-come.html

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