You have addressed concerns about there being ample water for each share holder, but I have several concerns about the decision to have each property drill its own well.
- The need to have a Water Witch locate a potential well location on each property supposes that you can’t expect every hole you drill will provide adequate water. Is there a possibility that water will not be found on an individual property?
- Wells are required to be placed at least 150 ft from a septic leach field. All houses are required to have a septic system. Lot sizes are generally 200 x 400 feet. What prevents septic system placement by neighbors from interfering with potential well locations?
- You characterize the Riverbend development as “green”. I assume that every well drilled into an aquafer increases the potential risk to the aquafer. So why isn’t minimizing the number of wells drilled a priority?
Here’s my perspective:
1. Other than paying for an extremely expensive ground-penetrating radar study (which would then force us to raise the share price substantially), we have no way of knowing if every well sunk will find water. So far, our 2nd generation well-witch claims that every lot he’s tested has plenty of water.
Also, since the underground water off two mountains and from under thousands of acres all flow under our little narrow valley (because there’s no where else for it to go), I would be VERY surprised if everyone doesn’t have water somewhere beneath their property. In fact, did you read where the 3rd generation well-drillers came by the property and said there’s so much water we could drill a well every 50 feet? They are the experts!
2. My understanding is that the limit is 100′ between a well and leach field. But, to answer your question, where one puts one’s septic system and well does definitely affect the neighbors’ options. Good to keep that in mind when selecting a lot and when placing your own system and well.
3. Our “greenness” is centered in the fact that we’re all committed to not using chemical pesticides or herbicides; we want our produce to qualify as organic.
Also, “Life is risk”, you can’t build a community without affecting the environment (and we do hope to affect it positively by planting hundreds of thousands of trees). Our goal is to have every homestead be self-sufficient. In a big city, if a disaster knocks out the power grid or a major water line, everyone goes without. (You hear this happening all the time when storms take out power lines — “thousands without power”). In our community, it would have to be a very big city-wide disaster to interrupt our power and water. That’s the goal. If your well breaks, your four neighbors can give you water while you repair your well. That can’t happen with centralized utilities. Adjacent neighbors, if they choose, are welcome to drill a larger well and drop two pumps down it. There are trade-offs in doing that, as in every option.