Continuous Water Quality Data Brings New Perspective to Pumping Tests

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Continuous Water Quality Data Brings New Perspective to Pumping Tests

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Continuous Water Quality Data Brings New Perspective to Pumping Tests

Overview

Looking for a more efficient and reliable method of collecting, transmitting and analyzing data, A&H Well Services designed a custom system using several technologies to expand their capabilities and give customers real-time access to step test and pumping test data.

Challenge

When Andrew Peters left the oil industry for groundwater testing in 2019, he noticed well testing–especially time-consuming tests like flow tests–often involved a lot of effort for very little data.

“I showed up at a job and I was watching a technician pull all these hand numbers,” Peters recalls, “He had about seven different sheets of paper, one for turbidity, one for pH, one for temperature… And that’s fine. But why would you do that to yourself?”

The process of writing numbers by hand in the field and typing them into a spreadsheet afterwards frustrated Peters. He saw an opportunity to work with more data through continuous monitoring. Not only would this save time, but it would increase the reliability of the data by eliminating human error and would replace spot-checking data with more frequent measurements to provide a more accurate look into well activity during each test.

Solution

Using In-Situ’s Aqua TROLL 600 multiparameter sonde alongside a Level TROLL 700 and his own flow instrumentation allows Peters to observe how pumping rates during a step test impact temperature, conductivity, pH/ORP, dissolved oxygen and turbidity.

Peters credits inspiration for his customized solution to his time in the oil industry. “The oil field is used to playing with big data,” Peters says, “I wanted to bring reliable big data into the water industry.”

Since this type of data collection isn’t typically used for this application, setting up his system required a few different tools. “We’re using analog and digital communications and radio and telemetry and we tie it all together in a pretty plug-and-play system,” Peters says.

Peters’ system, Total Blue™, is a patent-pending mobile test system available for license that automatically implements a draw-down test on a well. Using flow, depth, pressure, pump and water quality sensors, the system displays sensor data in real time on a computer or handheld device so users can view, start or pause their test, without having to be on site. A valve controlled remotely allows users to terminate the test based on their view of the data.

In-Situ’s equipment has integrated well with Peters’ data collections system. The usability of the Aqua TROLL and Level TROLL helped Peters and his team customize their process, since they functioned well alongside other types of instruments and software.

“We have two streams of data come in simultaneously. Through a conversion process we’re able to get data from the Aqua TROLL in less than five-second intervals and the depth and rate data in at less than five seconds as well,” Peters says.

Results

Remote monitoring has saved time and effort, while continuous monitoring has made...

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