Abandoned water wells are dangerous for people, small animals

Nikki Walters believed that the concrete cap at her rental property in northern Thomasville covered a cistern, an underground water storage tank. But in December, one of her tenants lifted the cap and discovered that it covered an abandoned drinking-water well, 31 feet deep.

"The tenants there have a 3-year-old boy who jumps on that concrete cap all of the time," Walters said Friday. "The adults jumped on it, too, while playing with their son."

The seal was in good repair, but Walters said she wasn't taking any chances with it cracking, collapsing and causing someone to fall into the 4-foot-wide well, containing 10 feet of water.

"It was a horrible disaster waiting to happen," Walters said. "It was a terrifying thing."

She made arrangements for Aqua Drilling Co. of Sandy Ridge, a water-well drilling company, to fill her abandoned well with red dirt and concrete last Thursday.

"It is not a well anymore," Walters said. "It's safe now."

The company also filled the abandoned well Jan. 5 at the Walkertown home of Mason Kenerly, 6, who was rescued unhurt after he fell into the well three days earlier. The well on Walters' property was similar to the one at Mason's home.

Walters said she didn't know about Mason falling into the well at his home.

Both were abandoned private drinking-water wells that are dangerous to people and small animals and can pollute groundwater if they are filled with trash and debris, state and county officials say.

"You could be walking in high grass on someone's property and come across a hole in the ground," said Wilson Mize, a regional environmental health specialist for the N.C. Division of Public Health.

Mason's ordeal is rare in Forsyth County and North Carolina, Mize said. Fewer than five people have fallen into abandoned wells in the state, and there have been no injuries or deaths.

"It doesn't happen often, but the risk is obviously there," Mize said.

The well that Mason fell into was 20 inches wide and 30 feet deep, said Brock Turner, an environmental health supervisor with the Forsyth County Public Health Department. It was filled with 9 feet of water.

Mason, a first-grader at Walkertown Elementary School, kept himself afloat by holding onto two pipes before paramedics rescued him, a relative said.

Aqua Drill filled the well at Mason's home with concrete, and it's no longer a hazard, Turner said.

"Unless you know that a well was protruding up from the ground, you would never know it was there," Turner said.

Abandoned wells often are hidden, covered by grass, brush or collapsed buildings.

Owners of these wells sometimes put yard waste, tree limbs, sidewalk fragments, bricks, roof shingles, cinderblocks and household trash into them, local and state officials say. That trash can contaminate groundwater.

Small animals have fallen in abandoned wells, as the skeletal remains of dogs, cats and squirrels have been found in wells throughout the state, Mize said.

Under state law, county health departments must establish a program for permitting and inspecting private drinking-water wells.

There is no routine county inspection of abandoned wells in Forsyth, but residents can ask for a county inspector to check those wells as needed, Turner said.

In 2011, 60 abandoned wells were reported in Forsyth County, Turner said. That number was up from 53 in 2010, but down from 63 in 2009.

In 2010, 844 water wells were abandoned in North Carolina, a nearly 8 percent decrease from 2009 and a 22 percent drop from 2008, according to the latest state statistics.

The number of abandoned private drinking water wells in the United States likely is unknown because no records are kept, said Cliff Treyens, the public awareness director of the National Ground Water Association of Westerville, Ohio. There might be several thousand abandoned wells across the country, he said.

The association is a nonprofit group of contractors, scientists, engineers, equipment manufacturers and suppliers. It advocates for the responsible development, management and use of groundwater.

Many people had drinking wells drilled or dug by hand into their property through the late 19th and 20th centuries, Treyens and Mize said.

That practice continued through the 1960s and 1970s with spring-filled wells being dug at homes and farms, said Mitch James, the owner of Action Well and Pump of Winston-Salem, a water-well drilling company.

Widespread use of water wells ebbed when people connected their homes to public water systems in the 1990s and the past decade. Most of the 350,000 Forsyth County residents rely on the city-county water system, said Ron Hargrove, deputy director of the city-county Utilities Division.

About 4.75 million North Carolinians, roughly half of the state's population, still rely on private wells, Mize said. About 14 million U.S. households also use these types of wells, according the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Residents often still use private wells to irrigate lawns, gardens and crops, Treyens and Mize said.

When people move, wells are typically abandoned. Most states, including North Carolina, require seals on abandoned wells, Mize said.

Over time, seals deteriorate, such as the one at Mason's home. He was jumping on that well's concrete seal when it broke and he fell into the well.

When property owners abandon drinking-water wells, they are required to ask for a state permit to do so, Mize said. But often, people fail to notify state officials.

The cost of filling in abandoned wells can cost Forsyth County property owners $2,000 to $15,000, James said.

"Abandoned wells are hazards," he said. "They are holes in the ground."