How low is you water level?

[four_by_ken]

Our water table has dropped and dropped the past 2 or so years. Down about 3-4 feet.

Anyone else like that?

I just want my pond to come back... its too little now.

Thanks
Ken H.

[MountainBoy]

In my part of PA our water levels are higher than they were the previous eight years I have lived here...could use a few days without rain to get some projects started...

[EJB]

I am curious...besides looking at your pond(which I don't have), how would one determine the water level?

[four_by_ken]

Not sure. I can tell because you can see on the shore where the water was before. Looks like the tide went out and never came back in.

Ken H.

[chrisjbell]

Don't know where my water table is. No standing water around here.

But I do have a natural spring at the bottom of the place that seems to be doing just fine [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]. My well is 475 feet deep - scary - although one neighbor is 100 feet with more than 10 GPM. But my next door neighbor ran his first one dry and the one he's using now is nearly 1000 feet deep [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]!

But I don't really know how to measure my current water level. I can tell you that I worry about it all the time, but as a friend says, "is there anything you can do about it? then don't fret too much".

[Hayseed]

Is your pond spring fed? That is the only way that I see that the water table could affect your pond.

Back home in south Ark. the water table dropped a couple of years ago to the point that all the small creeks and branches dried up. I was quite dismayed to see this phenomenon because all my years of growing up I never saw the creeks dry up and I was not even aware that creeks which have been around for hundreds of years could even dry up. The creeks had all dried up due to lack of rain and the water table fell to the point that all the springs that fed the creeks no longer provided water.

Lack of rain or excessive pumping of ground water or a combination of both are ways the water table can fall. Which applies to your area? If it is a lack of rain then you won't see your water table rise until you get enough rain to make it do so. If it is due to excessive pumping of ground water I don't know what the answer is.

[four_by_ken]

Well, I know that it is from lack of rain. We have had very dry seasons the past couple years. In my area, all you have to do is dig a hole deep enough and you get a pond. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
I am just hoping with the amount of snow we had and already wet spring, that it will continue and and bring the water levels up.

Ken H.

[Alan_L_Texas]

Our water table has apparently always been pretty low, because you can dig all you want and won't get water, with some exceptions of course. My creek is probably 25 deep to the bottom from the level where my house is, and it will dry up completely in a hot dry summer, because it is fed only by runoff upstream.

[Boondox]

Given that our land is probably nothing like yours, probably 1 summer out of three our spring goes dry and we have to tap into stream or -- when that goes dry -- into our spring-fed pond. Don't like using the pond because the water heater doesn't like algae, but you do what you have to do. We have a 400' deep well in our cottage at the top of the hill, and our second home neighbors across the road have a total of FIVE wells feeding a central cistern at a constant trickle. Even so, they can only stay here a week or so before the cistern is empty. Imagine spending all that $$$ for five wells and still not having enough water to meet your needs!

And then there's the 1/2" copper line I dug up last year with the backhoe. Not sure where it's coming from or where it was going, but it has defeated all my efforts to plug it up. Suppose I ought to put a compression fitting on it and install a faucet!

Pete

[hockeyhead]

Ground water I have no idea, our well is at 65ft and we have had no problems since it was dug, On the other hand we are about 1/2 mile from the western shore of lake Erie and she is down 5 ft since 1999. all of the great lakes are way down. Most of the marinas including the boat club I belong to are seeking permits for dredging, in fact if you operated a dredging barge anywhere on the great lakes the last three year would have been very good to you. The experts say that the mild winters we have been having, are the major problem,
The lack of heavy snow is one thing, but the fact that the lakes have not been freezing over is a big reason, allowing 365 days of evaporation.
This past winter was colder than the past few. The lakes did freeze over unlike the last few years ,and we did have a wet spring. So hopefully things are changing back, but the army corp of engineers was saying this August the lake level will be 10" lower than last August's lowest point in 50 years.