water well maintenance Nov 10, 2025 12:08:42 PM AirBurst Experts 7 min read
The Challenge
A major thermal power plant near Joliet, Illinois, relies on a deep sandstone well for its essential cooling operations. The well primarily tapped the Ironton-Galesville sandstone formation, the well’s performance had severely degraded over time due to its location in a desaturation zone and buildup of hard mineral scale throughout the entire sandstone zone. The specific capacity struggling at just 1.1 gallons per minute per foot of drawdown, with a pumping rate that had to be throttled back The situation was so severe that a pre-rehabilitation pump test had to be halted after less than one hour due to insufficient net positive suction head. This is where the pumping water level falls too close to the pump setting, and the pump loses suction. The pump could only function by throttling back to a fraction of its original designed capacity. To avoid the operational risk of shutting down a generating unit, plants often need to switch to alternate water sources. This can be expensive not only due to the direct cost of purchasing the water but also because rapid changes in water quality can shock the cooling tower system, leading to a dramatic spike in chemical treatment costs or harming the cooling equipment. A robust and immediate solution was needed.
The AirBurst Solution
The client selected Todd Kerry’s team at Water Well Solutions over several other contractors due to their reputation and unique access to AirBurst capabilities. Todd’s team were confident that AirBurst would be effective because a sister well on the site was still performing at a high level, indicating that this was a problem with the well and not the aquifer broadly. The team designed an AirBurst prescription to break up the mineral encrustation and blockages deep within the sandstone formation that were preventing water from flowing freely into the well.
The team utilized a 1500C model AirBurst gun with a 120-cubic inch chamber, deploying it throughout the well's water-producing zones over two passes. Firing at a rate of four shots per foot, each with 3,000 PSI of compressed air, the resulting energy waves traveled deep into the rock formation and cleared the pathways for water to enter the wellbore. Collectively, the energy released is the equivalent of approximately 198 pounds of TNT, but delivered with safety and precision rather than uncontrolled force.
The Results: +191% Gain in Specific Capacity
After the AirBurst rehabilitation, the hydraulic connection between the well and the aquifer was successfully re-established, restoring the well to a specific capacity even better than the well’s original reading after commissioning 52 years prior. Other key performance metrics were equally impressive.
critical metric:
Understanding “Wire-to-Water” Efficiency
This is a critical performance metric, indicating how effectively electrical energy is converted into the useful work of pumping water.
A low efficiency percentage indicates that a significant amount of electricity is being wasted due to factors like a worn-out pump, friction from mineral buildup, or blockages in the aquifer that force the pump to work harder. In this case, the improvement from a meager 17.0% to 41.6% represents a 145.5% efficiency gain.
Given that the same Byron Jackson pump was reinstalled after redevelopment, we can attribute the lion’s share of this improvement to the AirBurst technique and associated mechanical rehab steps. This efficiency gain would lead to a shocking 60.8% reduction in the power cost per CCF of water pumped.
Conclusion
This project demonstrates the exceptional capability of the AirBurst process to restore performance in high-capacity, deep wells by addressing the root cause of performance declines.
This success was not an isolated event. Water Well Solutions and AirBurst have a long history of rehabilitating and maintaining critical groundwater assets for heavy industrial clients throughout the greater Chicago area. Earlier, the team faced a near-identical situation where a key well supplying a 1,845-megawatt nuclear power site was near failure. The 22” diameter, deep sandstone well was in such poor condition that the pump would break suction from excessive drawdown immediately upon startup, rendering it useless. After AirBurst, the well was restored to a stable pumping rate of 369 GPM with a specific capacity of 3.03. Todd Kerry added:
Although AirBurst never recommends allowing a well to degrade to this extent prior to performing a rehab, these projects underscore the reliability and effectiveness of the AirBurst method for the region's most critical water supply wells.
For more information on how AirBurst can develop and restore wells across various geologies and well constructions, contact us at www.airbursttechnology.com. To reach the top municipal and industrial well and pump experts in Wisconsin and Illinois, visit Water Well Solutions at https://wwssg.com.