headwaters at the comal

I visited (along with my compatriots) Headwaters at the Comal on Friday to (1) check it out and (2) harvest ideas for San Marcos Springs. Hosting the uppermost bubbler of the Comal Springs System, the property is owned by New Braunfels Utilities (NBU) and has historically been an industrial site for a well field (still there) and … Continue reading headwaters at the comal →

presentation at the milam and burleson counties groundwater summit

Here's a PDF of the presentation I'm giving on August 15, 2018, at the Caldwell Civic Center in Caldwell, Texas: 2018-0815_Mace_CW More info about the event here.

presentation to the southwestern travis county groundwater conservation district

Available for perusin' and abusin'! 2018-0808b Mace - SWTCGCD [another revised version posted August 9, 2018 5:52pm after I saw that the PDF truncated the slides. I promise: I'll get this figured out one of these days...] [revised version posted August 8, 2018 ~8:04am after {cough, cough} someone noted I had the wrong name for … Continue reading presentation to the southwestern travis county groundwater conservation district →

hydrogeomimicry: a visit to san antonio’s confluence park

In the architectural world, there's this thing called mimicry: structures that are inspired by nature. There's biomimicry, such as at Antoni Gaudi's ethereal (started in 1881 and still under construction!) cathedral in Barcelona: Tree-like columns inside Gaudi's Barcelona cathedral (via Wikimedia Commons) There's also geomimicry, such as Jean Nouvel's stunning National Museum of Qatar inspired by … Continue reading hydrogeomimicry: a visit to san antonio’s confluence park →

there’s still a gusher in Sulphur, Oklahoma

I loves me a well that squirts water from the ground! We'll let the Freudists debate precisely what that means psychologically, but for me, it's hydrogeology come alive in a magical display of hydraulic head higher--sometimes substantially higher--than the land surface. Water! Flowing "uphill"!!! Sadly, many of the early gushers have long dried up due to … Continue reading there’s still a gusher in Sulphur, Oklahoma →

a big ole well in a big ole aquifer

I was fortunate enough to attend an eight-state conference on the Ogallala Aquifer up in Garden City, Kansas, a couple of weeks ago. Whenever I head to Kansas, I check on how close one of my hydrologic bucket-list items—The Big Well in Greensburg—will be. With Greensburg an hour forty from Garden City; I had just … Continue reading a big ole well in a big ole aquifer →

a trip to the (flowing!) comanche springs

Hunting for crawfish in the canal just downstream of the pool. The salt rim on the sides suggests a waning flow. Comanche Springs (originally named Awache, Comanche for "wide water") was a Comanche stop into and out of Mexico (and surely a pre-historic stop for water in a land where water is scarce). Later, the … Continue reading a trip to the (flowing!) comanche springs →

du ponts’ artesian well in louisville, kentucky (1858)

After Mulot imported Chinese cable-tool drilling to the western world and successfully sank a flowing artesian well in Paris, water wildcatters worldwide slowly began chipping into the depths in search of artesian water. The du Ponts drilled one such well in Louisville, Kentucky; a well nicely described by Professor J. Lawrence Smith of the University … Continue reading du ponts’ artesian well in louisville, kentucky (1858) →

happy V-day from the wellhead!

Water! Plenty of It: Enough for one thousand homes

Neat advertisement for a development in East Dallas spouting off (so to speak...) about its flowing artesian well. Vickery Place as a development began in 1911; this enticement was published in the Dallas Morning News on June 11, 1911. According to "The Geology of Dallas County" by Ellis Shuler, the Vickery Place well intercepted sands at … Continue reading Water! Plenty of It: Enough for one thousand homes →