Well Pump Replacement in Monroe County, IN

• Requests are taken from across Monroe County, including the city of Bloomington, the towns of Ellettsville and Stinesville, and the Harrodsburg and Smithville-Sanders census-designated places, as the Census Bureau lists them.
• Monroe County Code Chapter 366 prohibits installing or using a private water well on any property inside its Restricted Area, which the chapter defines by a parcel map and a list of tax parcel numbers attached as exhibits. If a replacement well rather than a new pump is on the table, ask the county whether your parcel is on that list.
• The county's 2012 comprehensive plan, still linked from the planning department's page as the most recent plan, counted 10 water suppliers in the county and said most areas had potable water service, with City of Bloomington Utilities the primary provider in and around Bloomington. Service may have changed since 2012, so ask your water utility before planning a new well.

• Pulling and replacing submersible pumps in bedrock wells
• Jet and offset pump replacement
• Pressure tank, pressure switch and check valve diagnosis
• Added storage and matched pumping equipment for low-yield wells
• Disinfection and a coliform sample after pump work
• Watertight caps on idle wells and plugging of abandoned wells

• Which bedrock you draw from. DNR says the Borden Group Aquifer System outcrops over most of the eastern half of the county; most wells in it are completed at depths of 90 to 200 ft, some exceed 400 ft, and static water levels are commonly 5 to 60 ft below land surface.
• In the Blue River and Sanders Groups Aquifer System, the uppermost bedrock over most of the west-central county, DNR reports most wells completed at about 90 to 160 ft, depth to bedrock generally 10 to 30 ft, and static water levels generally 15 to 75 ft below the surface.
• Setting depth. 312 IAC 13-7-1(c) requires pumping equipment to be installed at a depth that allows for drawdown caused by the pumping equipment itself and by seasonal water level fluctuations; the section does not apply to monitoring or dewatering wells.
• Low yields. DNR says most domestic Borden wells reported testing rates of 1 to 7 gpm, and many still supply a household by relying on extra well-bore storage from relatively large-diameter, relatively deep wells. Most domestic wells in the Blue River and Sanders system range from 0 to 3 gpm, though fractures and solution features may enhance production in some areas.
• Under state health department guidance, a residential well should deliver 5 gpm or more of stabilized yield; below that, the driller should inform the owner so that extra storage and the right kind of pumping equipment can cover anticipated peak demand.
• Method: the pump-cost figures quoted here are NGWA's national survey estimates. No local price survey, county fee or depth adjustment has been added to them.

• Who may do the work. IC 25-39-3-1 bars an individual from acting as a well driller or a pump installer without a license, and under IC 25-39-2-15.5 the second term covers anyone who installs or repairs water well pumps. Licenses lapse on December 31 of their year of issue; while installing a pump, the licensee has to carry the license and present it if a DNR representative asks. 312 IAC 13-2-2(a) sets the license application fee at $100 for a calendar year.
• IC 25-39-1.5-3 lists four exemptions: installing a personal-use well of at most 1 1/4 inches inside diameter and at most 24 feet deep; a plumber who holds a license under IC 25-28.5 and is registered with DNR, for wells inside those same diameter and depth limits; pump or pumping-equipment installation and repair for personal use; and anyone working at the direction of, and with personal supervision from, a person who holds a license. Personal use, as 312 IAC 13-1-19.3 frames it, is water supply use of the well or pumping equipment on land the person owns or possesses, or, where a public water supply utility is involved, possession by one of its permanent employees.
• Casing height. 312 IAC 13-3-2(a)(3) requires the finished casing or pitless unit to reach at least 1 ft above ground level, with earthen material placed to drain surface water away. Inside a designated flood hazard area, the casing or unit has to rise at least 2 ft above the regulatory flood elevation, or else be fitted with a pitless unit cap or well seal that is watertight and vented 2 ft or more above that elevation. Monitoring and dewatering wells are excluded.
• Idle wells. Under 312 IAC 13-10-1, a well left unused for more than three months without being permanently abandoned must be sealed at or above the ground surface by a welded, threaded, or mechanically attached watertight cap and maintained so that it does not turn into a contamination source or channel for ground water. Monroe County Code 363-3 (chapter marked amended 12/11/15) covers anyone temporarily or permanently abandoning a well where entry is possible by members of the public: they must follow DNR's Landowner Responsibility for Abandonment and Plugging of Wells or its replacement, with requirements that include, but are not limited to, those same cap and maintenance duties. Violating the chapter is a Class C ordinance violation.
• Plugging. IC 25-39-2-2 counts a well as abandoned when more than five years have passed since its original purpose and use stopped, or when it is in such disrepair that drawing ground water from it is impractical or a health hazard. When the abandonment is later than December 31, 1987, the landowner has to arrange plugging by a water well driller within a year of abandonment (IC 25-39-4-6(b)); 312 IAC 13-10-2 has either a water well driller or a pump installer do the plugging with impervious grouting material, using the materials and methods in subsection (e), and requires written notice to DNR's Division of Water within 30 days after plugging is completed. A well drilled after 1987 without casing runs on a far shorter clock: IC 25-39-4-4 has the driller plug it within 72 hours after drilling is completed. Subsections (a) and (b) give older cases (abandonment before 1988, or drilling before 1988 with abandonment before 1994) their own terms, including plugging where the well poses a hazard to human health.
• Septic distances. The state onsite sewage rule, 410 IAC 6-8.3-57, uses its Table I to require at least 50 ft between suction water lines and any septic tank, dosing tank, lift station, soil absorption system or other treatment unit, and 25 ft between those components and a sinkhole. The same table sets the distances to private and commercial water supply wells, subject to its footnoted conditions, so read Table I itself before siting a septic system near a well.
• Ask the Monroe County Health Department whether any local permit or inspection applies to your well work; its water testing page is linked in the sources.

• The comprehensive plan puts a central belt about six miles wide, running from the county's northwest corner southeast through Bloomington and Harrodsburg, in the Mitchell Plateau, which it describes as characterized by sinkholes and moderate slopes. DNR says much of the Blue River and Sanders bedrock is within the Mitchell Plateau, an area typified by significant karst development, and regards that aquifer system as a whole as susceptible to contaminants introduced at and near land surface.
• The plan says ground water in karst terrain is contaminated easily because surface water is channeled rapidly underground at sinkholes and swallow holes and flows on without the benefit of filtration, and that 60% of the county has potential for karst-related constraints.
• DNR also warns that poorly constructed wells, unplugged or improperly abandoned wells and open excavations can give contaminants a path that bypasses naturally protective clays.
• Depth has a water-quality limit as well: DNR says the potential for mineralized or saline ground water increases with well depth, including wells drilled into strata below the Borden Group such as the New Albany Shale.
• For the line from the well to the house, the state health department's recommended standards list 48 inches as the minimum bury depth in Monroe County to prevent freezing, measured from the top of the pipe to finished grade.

Bloomington · Ellettsville · Stinesville · Harrodsburg · Smithville-Sanders