Horizontal directional drilling (HDD) and well installation methods have been utilized for environmental and engineering applications dating back to the late 1980’s.

However, one industry that has not extensively applied HDD drilling and well installation methodology is the water supply industry. Over the last twenty years only a handful of high capacity water wells have been installed using HDD, compared with hundreds of environmental and geotechnical wells.

It has long been recognized that horizontal wells allow significantly more screen to be placed into the production zone of a thin aquifer than vertical wells. But so few horizontal wells have been installed for water supply, that municipalities and industry have been hesitant to apply the technology.

Two recent projects underscore how advances in locating technology, installation methods and well materials have made HDD viable for the installation of water supply wells.

Six wells were installed for a town on the Front Range of Colorado and a single-well project was recently completed in West Texas. The Colorado project was based on the idea of horizontal/vertical well couplets, and the Texas project was a stand-alone continuous well. This presentation provides details of the installation methods and pumping results from both projects.

Primary Author / Conference Presenter
Jacob Gallagher
Business Development Manager, Western US
Directed Technologies Drilling
Denver, Colorado, USA

Co-Author:
David Bardsley, Directed Technologies Drillings, Phoenix, AZ