A New Well and A New Dilemma

The Geocene Well Drilling Inc. truck was here this week. We needed a new 2 inch irrigation well for the front. We have an existing 4 inch well in the back yard that serves the house and everything else, but we felt it was time for a new well dedicated to "nonhouse" needs.

I picked a general area and the well guy picked the specific spot. It was all very interesting, the derrick truck, the drilling mud, the piping, etc. I did not get well truck pics, or at least no decent ones. It was a black truck and the shade of the oaks ruined the exposure.

The drilling went well. Pure Florida HQ is a bit of sand covered limerock, not much of a challenge for a rotating tungsten drill bit. Very soon the well piping (metal below, PVC at the top) reached far beneath the PF surface. We were drilling a little down slope from the house, so I hoped for some pressure, but I was totally unprepared for what came up the pipe.

There was a fizzy carbonated rush of water that stunk of hydrogen sulfide and then the water stopped and this oozed up through the pipe ...

OIL. The well guy checked his rig, he was sure a hydraulic line had busted. Nope. I said, " Could it be some old oil tank from way back?" There had been some cattle on the property when we bought it. Maybe the farmer had a tractor fuel depot here ... yuck.

The well guy looked at me as if I were wearing lizards on my ears ( I have done that, but was not doing so at the moment).

"AT 80 FEET DOWN?!?" He shook his head, " I don't think so. What I think is, we've hit the Geoplasmic Reticulum Formation."

If you're not a Floridaphile, you may not know that we are an oil producing state. Big Cypress down south, Century in the panhandle ... oil wells galore. The GRF is an oil bearing strata of shaley limerock that runs the length of the state, but is rarely closer than 3000 feet from the surface. A recent test well near Crestview, FL went 15,000 feet down and came up dry, so it's hard to find.

Except here. This was pretty easy to find. Even if we weren't really looking ... for oil that is.

The well guy went home. The state geologist came out and verified it was oil and that we had capped the well correctly to avoid groundwater contamination.

So now I'm researching Florida law regarding mineral rights and trying to figure out if I need to go to work.

I'll keep you posted.