WELLINGTON — Anyone interested in private water well management in the Buck Creek watershed area is invited to attend the Texas Well Owner Network training March 28 in Wellington.
The no-cost training will be from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. in the Club Room of the Wellington Auditorium, 802 10th Street, according to Drew Gholson, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service program specialist and program coordinator, College Station.
“The TWON program is for Texas residents who depend on household wells for their water needs, so they can learn about improving and protecting their community water resources,” Gholson said. “The program was established to help well owners become familiar with Texas groundwater resources, septic system maintenance, well maintenance and construction, water quality and water treatment.”
This is one of 14 trainings to be conducted through the “Preventing Water Quality Contamination through the Texas Well Owner Network” project.
As part of the training in Wellington, private well owners may bring well-water samples to the training to be screened for fecal coliform bacteria, total dissolved solids, nitrates and arsenic.
“The core content of these trainings will be the same, but the information will be tailored to the local water quality issues and aquifers,” Gholson said.
Other scheduled trainings include Amarillo, Lubbock, Haskell, Fort Stockton, Lampasas and Uvalde.
Well owners who would like to have their well water screened can pick up a sample bag and sampling instructions from AgriLife Extension offices in Childress, Collingsworth, Donley, Hall or Wheeler counties. Contact information for each office can be found at http://counties.agrilife.org/.
Cost is $10 per sample and include results for fecal coliform, nitrate, total dissolved solids and arsenic. Payment is due when samples are turned in at the training.
Bringing water samples to the training is not required, Gholson said, but those wanting to have water samples analyzed must attend the training.
“Over 1 million private water wells in Texas provide water to citizens in rural areas and increasingly to those living on small acreages at the growing rural/urban interface,” he said. “Private well owners are independently responsible for monitoring the quality of their wells. They are responsible for ensuring their drinking water is safe. They are responsible for all aspects of the water system – testing, inspecting, maintaining – and this training will help private well owners to understand and care for their wells.”
Space is limited, so coordinators have asked that attendees register at http://twon.tamu.edu/training as soon as possible.
Funding for the Texas Well Owner Network is through a Clean Water Act nonpoint source grant provided by the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project is managed by the Texas Water Resources Institute, part of Texas A&M AgriLife Research, the AgriLife Extension and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University.
– 30 –