ANSI Accepts NGWA Water Well Construction Standards

Board member calls it "a good day" for water well drilling industry

NGWA’s eight-year effort to establish the standard expectations for water well system professionals to meet culminated in ANSI’s approval of ANSI/NGWA-01-14, a water well construction standard.

“This is a very good day for our industry. I trust this standard will help us all design and build better products and services for our customers,” said Todd E. Hunter, CWD/PI, a member of NGWA’s Standards Development Oversight Committee and an NGWA Board officer. “I thank everyone involved for the countless hours spent putting this together.”

Thom M. Hanna, RPG, also a member of NGWA’s Standards Development Oversight Committee said, “There is more guidance in some places than others, but there are a lot of areas where there is no guidance.” These areas are where NGWA’s standard offers guidance on properly designed and constructed wells by providing minimum criteria in areas including the following:

Well site selection
Casing and casing installation
Well screens, filter pack and formation stabilizer
Grouting
Plumbness and alignment
Well development
Testing for performance
Data recording
Disinfection with chlorine
Water sampling and analysis
Permanent well and test-hole decommissioning

The NGWA had to meet ANSI’s standard development process and wait through a 15-day appeal period to receive the approval. Upon final approval, ANSI/NGWA-01-14 will be NGWA’s first-ever third-party-sanctioned standard and will set a baseline of expectations for residential, agricultural, monitoring, industrial and public supply water wells.

Stated goals of the standard are to contribute to public health and safety and to the protection of resources, as well as to serve as an outcomes focus for NGWA’s voluntary water-well system professional certification program. While developing the standard, NGWA followed ANSI’s required core principles of openness, balance, lack of dominance and consensus.

ANSI/NGWA-01-14 will be available in the NGWA bookstore soon.

NGWA is a nonprofit that supports responsible development, management and use of water resources. It’s comprised of groundwater professionals ranging from contractors to equipment manufacturers to scientists and engineers. For more information, visit www.ngwa.org.