Well Pump Replacement in Johnson County, IN

• The Census Bureau's 2020 places-by-county file lists the cities of Franklin and Greenwood and the towns of Bargersville, Edinburgh, New Whiteland, Prince's Lakes, Trafalgar and Whiteland in Johnson County. The same file also gives Edinburgh rows in Bartholomew and Shelby counties.
• Requests are also accepted from the rural parts of each township the Census Bureau lists as a county subdivision of Johnson County; the townships appear under areas served.
• Your DNR water well record shows how the well was built. Drillers turn that record in within 30 days after completing the well, on a DNR or division-approved form carrying an accuracy statement signed by the driller or an authorized representative, and it lists items such as total depth, static water level and, where one applies, the pump type and setting depth (312 IAC 13-2-6). DNR's online database cannot be searched by owner name; DNR points to its water well web viewer for a street address and ZIP code search.

• Submersible pump replacement in White River and Tributaries Outwash wells
• Pump and pressure system service on large-diameter bucket wells in the western Till Veneer / Dissected Till and Residuum area
• Pressure tank pre-charge checks and replacing a tank that holds water after the pressure is drained
• Pitless unit repairs that leave the finished casing at least 1 ft above ground level
• Chlorinating the well after pump work and collecting a coliform sample
• Iron and manganese treatment chosen from a certified lab test
• Plugging a well that is no longer used

• How deep the well is. DNR's 2005 Johnson County reports give typical depths by aquifer system instead of one county number: 45 to 85 feet in the White River and Tributaries Outwash Aquifer System, 75 to 150 feet in the New Castle Till Aquifer System, 60 to 125 feet in the New Castle Complex Aquifer System, commonly 45 to 50 feet in the Till Veneer / Dissected Till and Residuum system, and 55 to 125 feet for wells in the Borden Group bedrock.
• Pump setting depth. A water well finished in an unconsolidated aquifer needs pumping equipment giving 20 feet or more of available drawdown, and a bedrock well 50 feet or more, unless the department approves otherwise (312 IAC 13-4-3.5, which skips monitoring and dewatering wells). Available drawdown is measured from the static water level down to the pump setting (312 IAC 13-1-3.2).
• Low-yield wells. DNR puts typical domestic yields in the Borden Group at less than 10 gpm, with some dry holes reported. Under IDOH's Recommended Standards for Private Water Wells, a well serving a residence should reach a stabilized yield of 5 gpm or more; if it doesn't, the driller should let the owner know so extra storage and the proper kind of pumping equipment can cover peak demand.
• Water treatment. A November 1982 USGS report on the White River glacial outwash in Johnson and Morgan counties (WRI 82-4016) found the National Secondary Drinking Water Regulations for iron and manganese exceeded in 15 and 49 percent of 97 analyses, respectively. Because that study is decades old, test your own water at a certified lab before choosing treatment.

• Pump installer license. Under IC 25-39-3-1(a), nobody may act as a water well driller or water well pump installer unless licensed, and IC 25-39-2-15.5 counts anyone who installs or repairs water well pumps as a pump installer. Whoever is installing the pump carries the license and shows it to a DNR representative who asks (IC 25-39-3-1(c)), and licenses run out on December 31 of the year they were issued for (IC 25-39-3-1(d)). 312 IAC 13-2-2(a) sets a $100 fee per calendar year to accompany a license application.
• Who is outside the licensing chapters. IC 25-39-1.5-3 lists four cases where IC 25-39-3 and IC 25-39-4 do not apply: (1) installing a personal-use well no greater than 1 1/4 inches inside diameter and no deeper than 24 feet; (2) an IC 25-28.5 licensed plumber, registered with DNR under IC 25-39-1.5-4, installing wells within the same size and depth caps; (3) installing or repairing water well pumps or pumping equipment for personal use; (4) working under the direction and personal supervision of a licensee. Under 312 IAC 13-1-19.3 the test is location or possession: the well or pumping equipment supplies water on property the person owns or holds, or, for a public water supply utility, a permanent employee of the utility possesses it.
• County. Before work starts, confirm with the Johnson County Health Department whether any county permit, notice or inspection applies to your well or pump job. Its Onsite Septic page links a "Septic Well Drillers" file that is DNR's licensed well driller and pump installer listing marked "Updated September 2011," so check a contractor's current license with DNR rather than relying on that list.
• Finished height. Under 312 IAC 13-3-2(a)(3), the top of the finished casing or the pitless unit has to sit 1 foot or more above ground level. Inside a designated flood hazard area, one of two further choices applies: a top at least 2 feet over the regulatory flood elevation, or a watertight well seal or pitless unit cap with a vent carried to at least 2 feet over that elevation. Subsection (b) leaves out monitoring and dewatering wells; pitless unit attachment and cap standards are in 312 IAC 13-4-3.
• Chlorination. For a drilled well, 312 IAC 13-9-1 sets a chlorine concentration of at least 100 parts per million (it does not cover monitoring or dewatering wells); bucket wells follow the separate method in 312 IAC 13-9-2. The IDOH recommended standards put chlorinating the well on the pump installer once a pump has been installed or repaired.
• Distance from septic parts. In 410 IAC 6-8.3-57 Table I, a private water supply well must be 50 feet or more from a septic tank or other treatment unit, dosing tank or lift station, and 50 feet or more from a soil absorption system. Footnote 1 doubles those distances for a soil absorption system where some horizon in the top 34 inches has a soil loading rate greater than 0.75 gallons per day per square foot, unless on-site system design can overcome the hazard; footnote 2 lets the distance shrink to 10 feet when the well was abandoned under 312 IAC 13-10-2(e). The table also gives suction water lines 50 feet and water lines continually under pressure 10 feet.
• Idle and abandoned wells. 312 IAC 13-10-1 covers a well that has gone unused for over three months without permanent abandonment: it needs a watertight cap, welded, threaded or mechanically attached, at or above ground, and must be kept from becoming a source or channel of ground water contamination. For a well abandoned after December 31, 1987, the landowner must have it plugged by a water well driller within one year after abandonment (IC 25-39-4-6(b); 312 IAC 13-10-2(c) names a driller or pump installer), and an uncased well drilled after that date has to be plugged by a driller within 72 hours after it is completed (312 IAC 13-10-2(d)). Plugging materials and methods, the terms for older wells, and a written notice to the division due within 30 days after plugging is completed are set out elsewhere in 312 IAC 13-10-2.

• DNR's September 2005 report on the county's unconsolidated aquifers maps the White River and Tributaries Outwash Aquifer System in the northwest corner along the White River and along most of the eastern third of the county along Hurricane Creek, Sugar Creek and the Big Blue River, and DNR calls it the most prolific aquifer system in the county. Domestic yields commonly range from 10 to 25 gpm, and static water levels run 10 to 25 feet below surface with some reports of flowing wells. DNR rates the system highly susceptible to contamination from surface sources where no clay lies over it.
• The Till Veneer / Dissected Till and Residuum system, mapped along portions of the western half of the county, along part of Sugar Creek northwest of Edinburgh and in a small area of Edinburgh, is in DNR's words the most limited ground water resource of the county's unconsolidated aquifer systems. Most drillers there prefer to complete wells in the underlying bedrock, though many large diameter bucket or cable tool type wells meet domestic needs; well depths are commonly 45 to 50 feet and capacities are less than 5 gpm.
• DNR's 2005 bedrock report lists three bedrock systems from west to east: the Borden Group, present in most of the western half and composed mostly of siltstone and shale; the New Albany Shale, an extremely limited resource along a northwest-to-southeast band; and the Silurian and Devonian Carbonates in portions of the eastern third, where few water wells are completed and the prolific unconsolidated materials above it are used as the primary source of water.
• DNR's September 2012 bedrock potentiometric surface text says depth to bedrock ranges from less than 5 feet in the southwest up to 250 feet to the northeast, and that 487 located wells completed in bedrock were used for the map.
• For Johnson County, IDOH's recommended standards give 54 inches from the top of the pipe to finished grade as the minimum water-line burial depth to keep lines from freezing.

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