Stuart Smith found water well business in an unexpected place. The Ohio-based hydrologist and groundwater consultant, a partner in a company called Ground Water Science, formed a connection with Tanzania through his church. Over time, that connection evolved into Smith applying his groundwater knowhow to planning and managing water infrastructure projects in the east-African country.

Smith, MS, CGWP, RG, serves as the U.S.-based partner of Ground+Water Tanzania Ltd., with Naftal Mandi, MPH, MBA, as the partner on the Tanzania side. The company does water system planning, construction and inspection, geophysical surveys, and pumping tests.

Smith says some of the work takes crews to very remote parts of the country, similar to some parts of the western United States.

“You don’t want to forget anything when you go out to the jobsite,” he says. “Maybe this is the only time of year you can ford that river to get over there, so you had better get it done before the floods come up back up again. It’s that kind of situation.”

While Ground+Water Tanzania Ltd. is a company, not a non-profit, their website features a commitment to providing services at a reasonable cost using a “Tanzanian first” approach to expertise on all projects.

This episode covers topics like:

• Similarities between drilling projects in the U.S. and Tanzania.
• Challenges unique to drilling in remote parts of a developing country.
• Assembling a team of drillers at a distance.
• How to find good local log data in a foreign country.
• How a hydrologist thinks about siting wells.
• Respect for local languages, cultures, laws and well regulations.

Check out today’s episode to hear more. Watch the video here or listen to the audio version of our conversation at www.thedriller.com/insite-podcast. You can also find our show on Apple Podcasts. Search for Drilling In-Site, then hit Subscribe.

Working on an interesting project or have industry wisdom to share? Email verduscoj@bnpmedia.com to be considered for a guest spot on Drilling In-Site.

Resources

Ground+Water Tanzania Ltd. on the web: https://groundwatertanzania.com/