sod’s law

The HHA team have long had a dream to get a good fresh water supply into the hospital.  Our current well is fairly shallow and so suffers from surface contamination, pollution , effluent and
such like.  Before Christmas we got the nod from the great folks at Living Water that they would come and sink a new well for us, as deep as we needed to get below the clay which apparently acts as a barrier to the contamination. 

After they arrived we got brief instructions and then they promptly left again.  They needed two pits dug side by side, 4’ wide, 4’ long and 4’ deep.   Just there he pointed.  Right next to a tree; I
suggested we shuffle along in case any roots made digging harder, but no he wanted it ‘there’.  So we set too.  And I mean ‘we’ as disappointingly the hospital could only allocate 2 guys, so I got stuck in.  I don’t know how a grave digger feels, but I can now certainly empathise.  

Digging started well despite the poor quality of the tools we had, as we got the first few inches dug out.  With rickety shovels though the technique applied was to loosen up the ground with a pick axe and then shovel out the spoil.  As I say all went well, until we hit water – and I don’t mean an underground spring!

Now, the previous week I had asked the hospital plumber where the water main was; he had no idea.  Well we found it.  How annoying to have suggested a different dig site but been refused and then to break a pipe.  So we now had to dig 2 and half holes, the pits they asked for and then enough digging to expose the water main and repair it.

On day two, with the pipe repaired, the team really got into he job, just as well really as the drill team turned up with all their equipment in the afternoon.  They didn’t take long to get set up and by the end of the day they had started drilling.  They were a well drilled team and each knew
their role.  The hospital ground workers got stuck into the work too, great to see such teamwork.  

I find the analysis to be particularly un-scientific, a guy loaded his spade with spoil from the well head, gave it a cursory glance then discarded it.  I was clearly ill-informed (or was again let down by my creole) as they kept a meticulous drill log, describing the different material layers every 10’.   By day 4 they were at 160’ and were satisfied – apparently the sand and grit in the photo was exactly what they were looking for.

Work is not quite finished, we are just waiting for the team to confirm the quality from the samples taken and then fit the pump; it shouldn’t be long now though after a 14 year wait a couple more weeks is no great shakes.  

But what a great thing, to have fresh clean drinking water in a hospital, who’d a thought?