Milking Water from the Hills - The Prehn Method
I thought I had seen it all when it came to trying to find water in the Hill Country of central Texas. As a teenager, I worked the towers on a windmill crew and had the pleasure of pulling many a rod and pipe. I know that when drilling for water, one is just as likely as not to hit bad water or no water at all. I had seen my uncles build earthen tanks, try to trap water from seeps during the wet times, and had even witnessed them dynamite old dried-up springs in futile and damaging attempts to squeeze the good earth for every drop of water they could. I thought that all the different ways to obtain more water had been exhausted, and I had become resolved that the only thing left was to transport it by pipelines.
As the population of the Hill Country grows and more and more people drill for water, the lower the water table becomes with many wells failing during what seems to be periods of more and prolonged droughts. And, then there’s the high cost and the public and political controversy of piping water from one area of the state to another. Texas has a better infrastructure for moving oil and gas than it does for moving water. So, when my friend Kelly Prehn called and told me that he was milking water from the caliche hills on the wildlife management area he supervises and from his own property, I though he had drunk too much muddy water caused by the early summer drought of 2002. …<a href="http://www.drippingspringsrealty.com/pdf/dsr_milkingwater_article.pdf">more...</a>
Joe Summy, Ed.D
Johnson City, Texas
W: 877 868 4390, C: 512 296 6842, H: 830 868 4390,
<a href="mailto:joesummy@moment.net">joesummy@moment.net</a>, <a href="http:www.papajoe.biz">www.papajoe.biz</a>
