Treat Groundwater Monitoring Networks as an Asset

August 26, 2020

Have you had a regulatory compliance issue due to the condition of your groundwater monitoring wells or adequacy of your monitoring network? Or, are samplers wasting time with wells that are damaged, poorly labeled, or hard to access?

Groundwater monitoring networks, including wells and dedicated sampling equipment, are often:

• Ignored until a problem arises
• A source of unplanned, unbudgeted expenses
• Viewed as a necessary evil

What if you managed your groundwater monitoring network like your other equipment assets? By taking a systematic asset management approach to maintaining your groundwater monitoring network you can:

• Limit or avoid unplanned expenses
• Avoid regulatory compliance issues
• Maintain asset value
• Reduce monitoring costs

As with many assets, you save time and money in the long run by addressing problems before they arise. So what does monitoring well asset management look like? It doesn’t have to be complicated, costly, or time-consuming. We recommend starting with a simple inventory following these basic steps:

1. Identify needed repairs and replacements of existing wells
2. Develop a plan to repair, replace, or abandon wells as needed
3. Proceed with the work based on the schedule and budget developed in Step 2, and document the work completed

Schedule inventory Steps 1 to 3 yearly. Download SCS Engineers’ well inspection checklist or use your own format to record monitoring well conditions, identify well maintenance needs, and identify the regulatory status of each well. Your trained staff or your consultant can perform the yearly well inventory.

Major repairs or replacements may require regulatory agency approval or concurrence, but minor repairs and improvement, like labeling, can be done anytime.