Water well technology has a long and proud history. The first thousand years gave us hand dug wells and simple spring-pole drilling technology in China. These humble beginnings gave man his first limited access to his ground water resources. The second thousand years gave us an explosion of new drilling and well construction technologies that have allowed man to rapidly expand his use of ground water. But today, as we stand on the verge of the new millennium, the emphasis is shifting away from unchecked development toward efficient use of existing resources. In the future the most pressing need will be to find better ways to manage our ground water resources and maintain our water supply infrastructure.

As more aquifers are pushed to their limits and production wells age, maintaining well productivity will become a critical need. Many well rehabilitation methods have been developed over the last few decades, ranging from large doses of harsh chemicals to violent and potentially destructive physical agitation of the wells. Many methods have been useful, but all methods suffer from inherent limitations that make it difficult and expensive to control the intrinsically destructive nature of the methods and prevent damage to the well or environment and still achieve satisfactory results.

AirBurst® represents a major improvement over existing well rehabilitation technologies. AirBurst® is a patented new technology that provides more control and flexibility over the rehabilitation process. The process is cost competitive with most other methods and can be tailored to fit the specific condition for each well. Stimulation efforts are concentrated on the critical zones of the well while avoiding unstable or non-productive intervals. AirBurst® represents the type of controlled use of sophisticated technology that will help mankind meet the resource management needs for the third millennium.

HOW AIRBURST® WORKS

AirBurst® uses the patented Bolt Air Gun, developed by Bolt Technology Corporation for off-shore petroleum exploration. AirBurst® Technology is a patented process whereby the Bolt Air Gun is used to stimulate selected zones in a water well. A small volume of high pressure inert gases is used to generate a high intensity "pressure pulse" in the well. The pressure pulse creates high frequency acoustic waves that break up and remove mineral scales from the borehole wall.

The released gases also create an "air bubble" which expands and collapses. The bubble surges water gases into and out of the formation adjacent to the tool and lifts the column of water in the well several feet. The expansion and collapse of the bubble produces an intense surging action immediately adjacent to the tool that displaces fine sediment, mineral scale and bio-mass within the formation and pulls debris into the well bore. The displacement of the column of water in the borehole creates a lower frequency surging action that lasts for several seconds after the effects of the air bubble have dissipated and helps to pull the loosened debris out of the formation.

Mineral scales and sediments are allowed to fall to the bottom of the well while bio-mass tends be floated to the top of the water column by waves of small rising bubbles. This disperses the debris away from the point of treatment and prevents "recycling" the material into formation.

WHY AIRBURST® IS BETTER

Most well rehabilitation methods treat the entire borehole at once. It is usually difficult or impossible to limit the area of treatment to specific portions of the borehole. As a result, larger volumes of chemicals or more violent agitation are needed to achieve acceptable results. Sensitive or non-productive portions of the well cannot be shielded from this type of development process. Chemical methods use large volumes of hazardous chemicals that must be handled safely, purged from the well, and properly disposed. Some methods use explosives which can damage the borehole and can create serious liability problems in developed areas. All of these problems arise from using crude technologies with poor process control.

Because of the unique design of the Bolt Air Gun, the AirBurst® process can be controlled to a greater extent than is possible for other methods. The AirBurst® tool can be discharged every few seconds at any given depth, repeating the treatment as many times as needed in a given interval. Unstable or non-productive portions of the borehole can be ignored.

The intensity of the AirBurst® process can be regulated by changing the gas pressure and gun size, or by chancing the number of AirBursts® and AirBurst® spacing as needed to tailor the cleaning energy to meet the construction, condition, and depth of the well. The AirBurst® process can be used on screened or open hole well constructions. The intensity can be lowered to a gentle surge to knock the scale off of an older well screen or raised to an intense scouring to remove rock from the borehole wall to expose a fresh surface. The method produces minimal disturbance at the surface and can be used in residential areas without disturbing adjacent homes.

No hazardous chemicals are required for effective well rehabilitation. However, when AirBurst® is used in conjunction with traditional well treatment chemicals, the agitation action of the AirBurst® process results in more uniform dispersal of the chemistry. This forces the chemicals into fine grained or plugged portions of the formation which allows the chemical treatment to affect the entire formation instead of taking the path of least resistance, thereby bypassing the most restricted zones. The result is more effective chemical treatments using smaller amounts of chemicals.

Summary

AirBurst® represents a significant breakthrough in well rehabilitation technology. The method is versatile and effective over a broad range of geologic environments and well constructions. It is cost competitive with traditional methods and is proving itself to produce superior results for a variety of applications. The strongest support for this technology comes from its proven performance. We are rapidly building a data base of the results produced by this method and would be glad to share it with you.