I Want Money to Build a Water Well in the Desert 

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I'm a second year masters Hydrology, I didn't focus much on groundwater extraction and don't know much about it. However I never heard of these electric machines and I would google his machines to check for accuracy and how it works. I would take it easy on this one Shaun. If you are struggling making content, we enjoy the ride (and are not so much focused on the results) so small things are also great to wactch getting manure, or more research based videos are also great. As long as you struggle and learn a bit, we are enjoying :D Great content and channel and love what you doing its wild !!

That guy sets off my Bullshit Detector. I don't know anything about geology, well drilling, or finding water, but that constant patter is a characteristic of someone doing their best to prevent you thinking about what they are saying. I'm not saying a chatterbox is always overselling or scamming, but, as they say, the wind doesn't blow for no reason.

I would say if this guy is legit, he should cover the cost of the drilling. If he's right, he gets paid - if he's wrong, he eats the cost

Hey Shawn, the comments here seem concerning. I hope you read through them carefully. You're a smart guy and I'm sure you'll get multiple data sources before making a large investment. The community has your back. I've been scammed before and it hurt bad. What I learned is that scammers seem to operate where people are desperate or have few / no options. And they aggressively try convert the sales. Most of the legit businesses I've dealt with aren't that fussed about getting paid. Maybe because they have plenty of capital from actually providing a useful service.

Hi Shaun, forgive me, but this is the first episode i can't bring myself to watch. I appreciate you being cautious with an investment that could be for nothing if not properly researched beforehand. However, i would strongly recommend you to get a second opinion. Much of what this guy is talking about is dubious at best. He uses technical terminology that does not make sense in a sentence together. Also he's religiously trying to defend his techniques in the comments here. If these were methods that were actually used in the real world (on a scale like yours), there would be no need to defend them so desperately. Please do not ignore the comments trying to warn you of snake oil salesmen, divination and dowsing. According to a little research from me: Typical gamma rays emitted from minerals have a half-value layer of tops 20cm in soil. That means they are diminished by 50% after that distance through soil. You can AT BEST get penetration of some tens of centimeters, if you're lucky a few meters. This technology is not used for this purpose in the real world because it does NOT get you results. The only case it is used, is for IN BOREHOLE measurements, which is a totally different situation from yours. Also i would like to ask you to explore the possibility of laying a pipe from your neighbours well. Trenching would only be necessary if the frost poses a real danger to the piping (not sure how bad it gets where you're at). A quick search shows that there apparently are types of piping that are flexible enough to withstand freezing expanding water. Those would only need to be protected from UV by covering them up or funneling them through another larger pipe (or segments of larger pipes for maintenance ease) Wether those are feasible or cheap enough to be chucked into a valley over 3 miles is another question... Mind you, i have no idea what i'm talking about since i work in electronics, but there are probably experts that would be more than happy to give you some info about this. I want to sincerely thank you for your work. Being able to watch someone face against all odds with a project like this, inspires me very much and improves my outlook on a lot of things. I am looking forward to the next video Greetings from Germany

Haha, I see from the comments section, I'm not the only one that had my spidey senses tingling about this guy.

don’t pressure yourself with needing to make leaps and bounds of progress. these videos are great updates no matter how little you’ve “achieved.” maybe pick a budding cactus and give us small updates on its growth. and we can see just how much has happened since the last time you’ve released a video. it might not be breathtaking at first, but a comparison after 7 or 8 videos and we can see just how much closer you are to reaching your goal. i’m just happy seeing a new video at all.

Sorry, but I believe you got scammed. Sonar and radar measurement of groundwater are absolutely a thing, but this guy is not doing that, he's staging an elaborate performance of some kind of sonar/radar-adjacent nonsense. The words he is using have meaning in isolation but not in combination. "Passive acoustics" of a geologically stable region with no major energetic pulses to track are not a thing; You can use controlled explosions to measure echoes (active sonar) or you could listen for years with hundreds of seismometers spread out on a grid on the property to track big energy being dumped into the Earth far away (earthquakes, eruptions) as it bounces around your bedrock; Not in an afternoon with a handheld piezoelectric device prompted by a BOOT. "Gamma rays" are something you would never operate actively using a handheld instrument (it's radioactive!), and which nonetheless are useless for penetrating rock more than a few tens of meters deep; Ten meters of rock is sufficient shielding to protect you entirely against Chernobyl corium, and a hundred meters to make it unable to be detected directionally. Passive gamma ray scintillation detectors are a thing to measure highly radiaoctive gamma sources, but as you don't have Area 51 under your property, there's nothing to measure; If there was, that would be a problem. The sampling methodology they're describing is a very short transect through a few tens of meters immediately adjacent to your parking space, and this would be useless for finding the best place to drill on 320 acres, but also useless for drawing some of the pretty pictures they're showing. The entire presentation is fraudulent. One of the other things that set me off was that you're describing drilling many hundreds of feet deep, and he's pretending that there's likely to be a big difference moving horizontally ten feet. I would call that nonsense even if the video showed valid measurement methods. Just calling your dowsing "data-driven" and faking a heat map doesn't make it science.

Definitely a “second opinion before surgery” type situation. As always I love your content Shaun, your work ethic shows every episode!

I don't think I realized how green the terrace is until that drone shot. It looks great!!

What am i watching? Gamma rays, acoustic resonance, whatever... Have fun with your water pump desert forest :)

I was only paying 50% attention to this episode whilst making lunch, but thought maaan that guy's not stopped talking. A surefire way to spot a bullsh*tter. Not giving a chance for you to ask any 'awkward' questions. Happy to see the comments section agrees with me!

I have a PhD in engineering and can guarantee you, that the stuff he says about his "gamma scanning device" is absolute BS. He's a snake oil salesman and this nonsense makes me angry af

Have you tried getting a bunch of hippies to make a drum circle?

My gods..I couldn't make it to the end of this. Someone please tell me Shaun fessed up he was pranking us, and didn't believe this guy!

Did he have any magic beans to sell you ?

Before I dropped any money I'd go talk to T-Bar (Hutto) drilling in Van Horn or some other place and get some feedback on wells in the area.

I actually paused this and said to my brother: ‘I can’t wait to read the comments after this. This guy is saying so much to justify his decision, dousing rods, gamma detector etc.’ Now he’s in the comments arguing with people. What a shitshow. I also stopped and declared that this is my favourite RU-vid channel now! Love your project we’ve dreamed of doing the same thing. Love the software approach to the project. DEFINITELY get a second opinion and see if it aligns with Mark’s. If he has the track record he says then he will be vindicated when you have heaps of water coming out of the ground! Until then…. It pays to be a bit of a skeptic. That’s your job as a buyer.

My daughter used a dowser twice to find water for drilling. $20,000 down dry holes. Science will trump intuition

It’s not difficult to grow a desert forest if you have irrigation water available. There are pecan orchards ( a very water intensive tree) all over southern Arizona. I’ve been watching the channel since episode 1. I thought the original idea was to turn the ranch back to the way it was before over grazing by cattle destroyed it. And to do it by regenerative methods, not just digging a well and watering a relatively small area like it was your backyard. If the idea is to kickstart the forest using irrigation and then eventually depend solely on rainfall then that’s acceptable. I understand the challenge of maintaining interest in such a project over decades, but turning it into an irrigated plot would be disappointing. I grew up in Tucson. Before whites brought in cattle, native Americans had been farming there for centuries. The Santa Cruz River ran year round and there were beavers in it. Yes, beavers. Then, as in West Texas, came the cattle and over grazing. Today the Santa Cruz is a dry arroyo except for a few days during monsoon rains. There are conservation projects in Southern Arizona, along the San Pedro River, that are slowly attempting to restore the area to what it looked like before whites and cattle arrived. I thought that was the general idea for Dustups at the start. You talked about Cottonwood Canyon and the fact there was a forest there before cattle killed it. Using irrigation to bring it back seems like (as someone else said) a cheat code and not sustainable long term. I hope you want the land back to what it was in 1724 and land can sustain itself naturally. Despite the recent irrigation, I love the channel and will continue to watch and wish you all the best.

15:47 "how much can i expect?" *Starts yapping a bunch of random shit*

I’m a Geologist and i can tell you if this “magic” device would work, everybody would use it. It’s better if you ask some local geologists or well driller.

Dude the reason why I watch this channel is to watch you rehydrate the land. Please don't drill a well, add to the water to it, don't take from it.

3 galons a minute are 15 liters per minute. In a day, you get enough water to water a sizable surface. Mind that you water plants that are used to dry conditions, not lettuces. A pair of drops goes a long distance with those.

Unless you're putting more water into the ground than you're taking out, your project becomes part of the problem. That should be possible given the amount of rainfall you've shown us and you use well water conservatively. Twenty years ago I had enough energy I would have loved to come out and camp for a few weeks and just build good boulder checkdams in all the ravines and washes; it's amazing how much water boulder checks can put into the ground!

this guy has strong snake oil salesman energy. Gamma whatsit? Can't find anything online that doesn't come up scam.

It's finally come. Whenever there's a video of a 'thriving desert forest' by the end we see they're pumping water.

Underground water is a finite item. If you take water out of the ground, it is not there for someone else. While it is cool that you are spending so much effort to create this desert forest, it means water may not be available for crops or livestock. I think you need to ask if what you are doing is more important that water for agriculture.

I know nothing about what that guy was talking. I felt like I was being word massaged out of money. Anyway. I know nothing about it.

You know your neighbor has water, how much is a three mile pipe? Worth costing up for comparison at least?

What kind of agreement do you have with this person/company? Does he get screen time for his service? Do you pay him or does he pay you? He seems really fishy to me.

They rely on the fact that almost anywhere you drill a hole, you will get water. The only way to know whether t here's any sense in his words is to drill the well he spotted and multiple control wells around it and measure the difference in yield. But ain't nobody got that money so of course you are only going to drill one hole and accept that he found the best spot regardless of the truth.

This is an interesting step in the Dustups journey, and from the comments, a bit polarizing for a few reasons. Some were skeptical of the water detection guy, which is understandable. But for me, this is an interesting philosophical change, and I was thinking about what made me feel that way. I feel as though when this project started, it was about using the materials on hand and principles of permaculture, regenerative and syntropic agricultural ideas, and the rehabilitation of the land through these concepts. But maybe that was just my interpretation based on listening to Shaun talk about those ideas. I don't know if he ever really stated any parameters for the project, just mentioned them as inspiration. Something feels different with the exploration of pumping water in. It feels like a bit of a shift, as if once the realization of the timeline of the project got going the need to be patient and just wait for the first steps to get going was disappointing. Maybe the feeling of pressure to continue to make content or push the project along faster contributed. But it seems like the outcomes and the timeline for them has become more important than the process, or at least, more obviously so. When this got started my impression was that this would take many years, with the first five or so years being the slowest. This is one of the most arid and barren places in the country, after all, and particularly this spot. But this whole endeavor was a little bit impulsive, after all. Let's be clear- a fantastic impulse powered by beautiful motivation! It's an important project! I watch a lot of these types of videos. But Shaun definitely started moving with only a rough concept and some ideas and a sketch of a plan in a profoundly, almost absurdly difficult location. So much learning has happened, and that has shaped his view of things for sure. And we as the viewers are a big part as a whole but individually not a huge part (obviously). I remain supportive but also can sense my feelings about what's happening starting to shift, as I adjust to what seem like new parameters for the project. Because it is a fundamentally different concept, to me at least. I am sure a lot of regenerative projects would be more efficient if we just brought in a water supply to water the plants.

Always stop whatever I'm doing to watch a Dustup video.

+1 BS Alert

that water guy sure likes to hear himself talk

I'm not an expert on any of this but it sounded like a whole lot of hocus pocus.

Please don't be fooled by the two gentlemen. I'm no better than most of the commenters, but I'd take the hint if more than 1% of your viewers actively chose to voice their scepticisms. We're all eagerly observing your amazing efforts, and we'll be just as happy even if it does take 30 years.

Uhm.. You got a guy looking for radioactive water with a geiger counter and witch doctor with sticks and and a hammer looking for the right acoustic resonance? Sorry, but youve been conned, man.

I would just like to warn you that the biggest threat against your project is a wild fire. If you haven’t already made a fire line around your property you might want to consider making one with your heavy equipment. I have been doing somewhat of what you are doing but in the Tecate Mexico area, the biggest problem is when you get plants to grow in the desert they become a fire hazard.

Although when I first watched this video I felt a bit uncomfortable by the way Mark was explaining things, after I read through some of the comments I began feeling disdain towards Mark and his company. After doing some research to support the claim that Mark was in fact NOT someone to trust, I came across some interesting information. Couple that with some of the lessons I remembered learning from HS and college psychology about the dangers and infectious nature of group-think, I decided to take a step back and try my best to consider all the facts. Here's what I came up with: 1. Water dowsing is very likely an unreliable method to detect water underground. It's hard to tell from this video if Mark and his associate Ryan actually rely on this method to detect water (or to add "data" to the whole process), but if they do rely on it, I'd be skeptical. 2. Here, at 5:04, Mark begins talking about the behavior of animals above a supposed water table -- the water somehow creating an electrical field that all animals but cats avoid. Obviously this isn't backed by science and shouldn't be taken seriously, however, I get the impression that Mark was at the ranch for most of the day. When Mark starts talking about animals behavior above water tables you can tell it's getting late. I know when I get comfortable with someone I feel tempted to share with them some of my deeper beliefs, beliefs which may or may not be scientific or backed by empirical evidence. As a professional providing what you, Shaun, consider professional advice, he should have exercised more restraint and kept his personal opinions like this one to himself. But he's human. I've done this before. However, as I continued watching the video, my opinion of this changed. 3. Radiometric gamma ray scintillation counting cannot be used to directly detect water underground. Water does not emit gamma radiation. However, radiometric gamma ray scintillators can detect radioactive isotopes that are present in the soil or groundwater and with multiple surveys over a stretch of time the changes of these isotopes COULD provide more or less evidence of water. The key word here being "time" -- you can't use a radiometric gamma ray scintillator once and expect it to provide any evidence for the presence of water. Also, the margin of error with this method increases when radiometric gamma ray scintillation is used to detect radiation in rocks and/or soil with variable water content. www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/te_1363_web.pdf 4. The data produced from a passive seismic resonance acoustic profiling is indeed a reliable data point when used in conjunction with other, scientifically based approaches. Mark's company, PWT, uses this technique and I believe we see them use it in the video. 5. 8:52 -- "...they'd walk barefoot. They could feel those zones". Is it possible to feel an electrified field, barefoot? Yes. Does that indicate, either directly or indirectly, in any way whatsoever, that water is nearby? Absolutely not. Mark and his company PWT may not directly condone the water dowsing method, but insinuating that people can feel electricity coming from a water source underground by walking barefoot is the same argument people make FOR water dowsing. The electrical field, generated by an underground water table, attracts the tool downwards (or spins the metal rods more slowly / quickly), indicating the likely presence of water -- obviously not a method backed by hard evidence. This also happens to be the only thing Mark said that made me VERY skeptical. 6. It looks as though PWT has been in business since 2016. Although 8 years may not be a particularly long time to be in business, it is decent. The years a company has been in business isn't, in isolation, a reliable data point to determine the quality or reliability of the company's products and/or services, it does provide some confidence. If a company whose main source of income is detecting underground water had a BAD track record, it's likely they'd either be sued out of oblivion or harassed into cessation. Since neither of those things have happened, I have to believe that they have some level of success, whatever methods they use. 7. Peeking around their website you can see they've had some pretty big clients, one of which being the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District in Utah. At first glance I thought this was a clear indicator that PWT is, in fact, a reliable company for detecting water underground. However, after listening to a few of the board meetings where the conservancy discusses whether or not to hire Mark and his company for their project, I found myself back on the fence. The members of the board, while discussing whether or not to hire PWT, also explained their understanding of how it works. If you listen to the meeting you can tell they know absolutely nothing about detecting water or the technology / approaches PWT uses. Furthermore they discussed whether saving the $2,000 and instead hiring a water witching "professional" for a fraction of the price would be better. Some of the board members remarks suggest they trust in the reliability of water dowsing. This wasn't 100 years ago, the meeting happened on May 21, 2020. Granted, government organizations can rarely be expected to understand something as simple as constructing a bus top, not to mention understanding something as complex as geochemical analysis. The fact that this proposal is used on their website as a basis for which to explain their methodology was probably a bad move. Although to their credit they probably didn't expect anyone to look deeply into it. Also worth mentioning: their website is skeptically BAD. On my worse days I could create a website that looked (and operated) better than theirs. In their "Contact Us" page they list the email to send to as plain text. Most of the world either has a form to fill out or the email formatted as a URL that when clicked opens up your Mail app, but ok, I can move beyond that. Except for the fact that the email is formatted like someone typing a URL on Reddit trying to avoid detection: ceo (at) primarywatertechnologies (dot) com. ?? 8. There is ample, albeit anecdotal, evidence that PWT is reliable. All-in-all Shaun I honestly believe if I were in your shoes I likely would've done the same exact thing. You're a smart guy. You don't spend money unless you know as much as you can about what you're buying. Is the data PWT provided reliable? Maybe. Did you, in fact, waste money hiring them for this service? Maybe. But from where I'm standing there isn't enough evidence to confidently conclude you were scammed. Worse case scenario you spent money on a service which uses questionable approaches, much like someone might spend money on a doctor whose practices are not completely reliable. It was a calculated gamble. The one thing I will say is that you've got a hell of a following now, 183k subscribers. This video alone has 113k views. Crowdsourcing is without a doubt the most underutilized resource on RU-vid. You've got all of us, many of which are begging to help you. Use us! Out of the 100k of us there's gotta be more than 5 people who know of a reliable company to meet whatever needs you have. And if we don't know, we definitely know people who DO know. Shit, I just spent 2 hours analyzing this video, PWTs website and their previous customers. All for free. Highly opinionated, of course. But free.

Not cool Shaun. If it wasn't going off full tilt with this loon, your BS detector is broken. Please do better.

Hate to be Debbie downer... 1) I know nothing about well location. This is purely anecdotal. 2). Good luck with Tecovas. If you really value good boots, you'll end up with White's, Nick's, or W.C. Russell. (I do know boots). 3) This guy may have a great record. I hope so. My red flag? He talks too much. Beware of people who talk too much.

feels like you should cross reference what this dude is saying with a geologist. surely a professor at a TX university would love the airtime to give his opinion on your dudes methodology. it sounded like hocus pocus to me

Is this proven Science? This guys not selling me!

Hi Shaun I love your project, don't listen to the haters that severely dislike the pump strategy, I know you know best and it's only to get a kickstart going, not to actually rely for even one minute on this pump. Also PLEASE get a second opinion I absolutely do not like these guys, they have a ton of red flags, speaking from experience I also got scammed by advisors like them, remember they don't do the drilling themselves they just charge you for whatever they did (you said it yourself the whole thing was very quick, maybe too quick) and then leave you documentation for you to pay for the drilling, they won't be there whenever the driller tells you that after digging 200m of rock there's nothing there.

15:03 Why didn't he answer your question? He just kept babbling around the answer you wanted...

To me, it feels like drilling an expensive well is cheating. If you're trying to grow a desert forest, then fine. But if you're trying to inspire others to do the same, don't drill a well. It's not sustainable.

They should publish their technique in a paper to get it peer reviewed, it seems pretty sketchy.

You need a well on site for your home, but the "greening" process should be done with rain water.

soundslike Voodoo hydrology to me.

just talk to the local water well driller

I thought you wanted to restore water into the ground instead of discharging the reserves? With the help of ground water you even might be able to install an golf court 🤷‍♂️

I urge you to reconsider this decision. I could be wrong, but I believe this goes against the spirit of your permaculture project. If your desert reforestation efforts start looking like a sinking ship, resorting to cheating (wells) or making desperate moves like this swindler you found... it's risky business. I like you, how you do your work, and your videos, and I would watch your channel regardless of the direction you choose to go in, but I can't stand to watch you get exploited.

Is your middle name lucky? This is one of the very few sites out of the way too many sites I watch on YT where the comments are helpful and reasonable and create the foundation for interesting discussion. That alone is worth the price of admission. In this instance, I think the general advice is to do your due diligence and then decide based on your passion molded by the data. When in doubt...have fun.

Shaun - You are only doing this because it's HARD - If you have access to all the water you want then anyone could do this. That's what the whole country have planned for in the past. The point is you nbeed to do this with as little water as possible. The aquifers wont last - is this not the point?

A rain dance would be as effective as these guys, probably cheaper as well.

I don’t think the dowser really answered the question about how much water he'll get.

Watched your progress. Bravo. Skip the water dowsing. You'll be disappointed. I can understand your frustration with the slow progression but that's the nature of this project. As for adding a well, that's almost cheating. It's not a desert forest if you change the ecosystem. Yes, water helps accelerate the new growth and that's what excites you, but I thought the project was to establish a self-sustaining desert ecosystem. It's not a green-friendly environment. That's what makes this special.

If you really dig a well to irrigate desert plants with groundwater, all your earthworks were unfortunately pointless. The transported water was only intended to accelerate the root shoot, if the short watering is still only the goal and you don't feel like the rides, then lay a pipe that you don't dig in, you won't get cheaper. A desert forest that depends on a well that will cause the groundwater to sink even further sounds sensible, doesn't it?

If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

WHAT THE HELL?!?!??? Drilling for water is the antithesis of this project. Good job Shaun. You got us all. Hit the Amazon pay button, drill a well, poof........Desert Forest, thanks for watching folks. What a joke.

if you're pumping water to keep the forest alive i think youve failed to make a desert forest

I'm not an expert but in my books taking water from not so deep well lowers the aquifer level, makes plants harder to get water for themselves. Although, all previous steps of this project intended to raise the aquifer level, and make substrate damp so that humus can form and exist. It seems to me that well might harm that project

I am experienced Oil well logger and there was a lot that didnt make sense. The gamma detector for instance. All that would tell you is what gamma rays are coming from the top 3 cm of the soil. This will be produced by mainly potassium40, but rarely thorium or uranium. So geologically speaking it will tell you if the soil has much clay in it unless there has been any uranium salts produced locally and i would think you would have known about that. The way he was using it also looked totally bogus. The detector needs to be close to the thing it is measuring and not in the air. (or in his pocket). Anyway I cannot see how that correlates with water in formation. In oil wells we need to get the detector close to the formation to get a result so it has to go in the hole. The diagrams you showed were pretty but i wasn't getting any idea of what they were measuring. Sonic/acoustic tools measure the time an acoustic event takes to get to the receiver after reflecting off a feature ( two way time). I noted the use of the word impulses in one of them. That seems meaningless. The impulses would be generated by the equipment not a property of the formation. The diagrams also included depths. How are these depths measured? is there a string of geophones working from a known feature? Sonic data will show you only the density contrasts in the formations which might include faults and fracturing. For fluid detection and analysis you need resistivity tools. From a geological point of view you need to know if you a. have a reservoir formation b. have water in that reservoir formation. Limestones and sandstones are generally what you need and the need to have porosity and permeability. You don't need fracturing if the permeability is high enough. I am not a hydrologist but i think I saw one comment on the video so i am sure you would get good feedback. Do you have any info on the other well to correlate? I would say put the info up for us to look at. If you have paid for it it is yours to do as you wish and from some of the other comments there are people here that willl keep you right. I would also add that I got a lot of the BS vibes from the man. he seemed to be happy to distract from the actual data with a bunch of stories but of course that could be your editing.

We had a similar experience were we had a 'water finder' come to evaluate and he gave us a position. When the well drillers came up, he said, we'll hit water X feet down wherever we drill. that spot was suggested because he could back his truck up to it and had a flat area to drill. Basically just told us what we want to hear. Check the water tables and make sure you get a second opinion like the comments are saying.

Maybe team up with My Tiny Homestead and do a cross over episode. However, that old drilling machine had a hard time getting to the water, but got the job done in the end

Please, before you actually do this, pay a university geology department to come out with a Seisgun or something and shoot the area and do like a project about that area this guy talked about. Use some active geological mapping, anything rather then spend the money on drilling straight up.

Listen Shaun, I've studied Groundwater engineering. If this stuff worked we wouldn't be using expensive test wells. But we do. Because there's no other way to get accurate readings. Sure things like ground radar exists but that's done by a plane or satelite, and sure you can do passive scanes like sesmic stuff but that takes time. And all this can only in best case reveal where the rocks that may prove good aquifers can be found, to find your Transportation and Storage values you need to perform a slugtest on a test well.

Shaun, and Mark, to build a desert forest, you need to work from the top. Set up mini-dams (stacks of rocks). Start by retaining the surface water that falls during the rainy season. You need to BUILD the water retention and fill the groundwater reservoir. Not just dig down and withdraw water. I don't see any regenerative techniques being discussed here. Even if the guy IS talking sense (others have said it triggers their spidey senses as well), it's going to cost significantly more. Dollarwise AND ecology-wise

I am a big fan of your channel and vision but please dont give fraudsters a platform. Keep focused on science. Science is the foundation of your project and the way it will succeed.

Keep in mind the size of encasement you want. Having enough room for a hand pump, a 24 volt and 110/220 pumps all in the same hole is the ultimate scenario. Having a 24 volt solar array pumping water for free when the sun is out is the next best thing to having a creek.

You see the other guy look at his boss. He knows that it's all just a game. Just watch his face. A lot of words, but now real result.

My b******* meter just broke! I've worked with scintillators on cleanup sites. Kno full well what they're capable of what they're for. Can't say we've ever used them to find water. Heavy water perhaps

I was struck by the same thing the other commenters say: the guy talks way too much and too fast and too glib. The flag is bright red. Tough decision making. "Thinking In Bets." Merica!

Step one buy a hoe 200 or bigger. Step 2 dig a reservoir . Step 3 plant trees around to increase shade . The rest will fall in place.

As a geologist I have found that if you drill deep enough, you usually find water. Note: I haven’t done hydrology in years

I do not remember the episode, but didn´t you say that you DON`T want a well? Didn´t you say that you want nature to be the source of water and life? The well will dry out at some point and you will be at the beginning of your journey unless you succeded to grow a self sustaining system of plants wich store water. Maybe someone finds the episode and minute.

I tried to find any publications on that device he has to find water. There is literally nothing on it

Just watch the body language of the assistant. warning siren goes off in your head.

I was initially skeptical of your project I commented there wasn’t historically more flora on that land. You corrected me and I researched found there was historically more. So I stand corrected and I admire what you’re doing and enjoy watching. Thanks

this guy is just a fancier version of dousing

I grew up on a 20,000 acre sheep station in Australia. Our ground water was over 500m deep. So good luck scratching the surface.

Am I the only one getting snake oil salesman vibe from that dude? None of the fancy terms he's using makes sense to me in a hydrology or geological way.

Where do your local well drillers get THEIR information?

that expert talked to fast for my liking never give you much time to think or ask questions. Buyer Beware!

I would love to see regular updates in each video on the terrace and what greenery is poking through and growing. Thanks Shaun!

Geologist here. Never heard of GR (gamma ray) being used to detect water 😂. We use it to tell radioactivity thinking shale I.e organic rock vs sandstone( little to no organic content). Now if he is inferring that he found a good thickness of sandstone on a low Lying area and that’s were water may pool then perhaps…but it’s not a guarantee. Resistivity (think how less conductive) on the other hand will help with water. But never seen a tool that tells resistivity without actually being adjacent to the rock (I.e drilling a well and logging it like we do in oil and gas). It’s been a while since I used grav/mag so cannot speak too much on that on it being used for water exploration. Best of luck bud

water dowser? cheaper to create a shrine to Fontus

The other comments already covered this. This seems like total B.S. Your money would be better spent on putting roofs, gutters, downspouts, tanks on your oil field doghouses, then catch water off of those using best practices. Build more one rock high check dams (ORDs) all throughout your washes too. Beaver dams too, I suppose (though I was less than impressed with how they were built in that last video). Build as many of these small structures as you can manage to build with the available rocks/materials in the washes. $20,000 would pay for a lot of labor (plus materials for rainwater catchment off of your structures). My outlook: If you can't grow a type of vegetation using what little rain you harvest and the water already in the ground, then don't grow it. It's disheartening that your choice to use the water from your neighbor's well to jump start the terraces is already morphing into wanting your own well (or piping water from your neighbor's well to your property) because it's too tempting to keep using that input. Water pumped from the ground is ultimately self-defeating. I know it's discouraging when it doesn't rain, but your time and effort is still better spent preparing for big rains, not depleting groundwater resources to grow BS exotics like elephant grass and Russian olive!!! Pumping ground water to grow exotics/invasives during a drought is like trying to fight off starvation by chopping off your own fingers and eating them. Sure, you might survive, but it lessens you in the process. Do not become addicted to outside water. Learn how to operate within the confines of native plants and annual rainfall totals and work within the slow gradualism of desert ecosystems, not against it (seems like you're always trying to jumpstart stuff and take shortcuts for everything, it's annoying AF tbh) -- Have you ever hear about "the marshmallow test" and the rewards and benefits of delayed gratification? If not, look it up and take some notes and do some self-reflecting..... PLEASE! Growing a "forest" on well-water during a drought to replace a so-called "wasteland" isn't an accomplishment, it's a vanity project and a crying shame. The "wasteland" you are replacing is so sparse with only a handful of native plants precisely because it takes very specialized plants and animals to survive in these kinds of extreme conditions. You shouldn't demean the value of these types of plants/animals just because your BIASED EYES only see a wasteland where some of us see a miracle and beauty! They are very cool plants because they can survive in a place where almost nothing can survive, but you want to replace them with what? Where is your respect for what these native species can accomplish? It took eons for them to evolve to survive these types of conditions and you cast them aside like they are unwanted garbage.... "wasteland wasteland wasteland".... That whole mentality is wrong-headed. You shouldn't be removing them to grow exotics with water you are pumping out of the ground, but instead, you should be working to cultivate and support what native species are already there and managing the land and the scant rainfall you get to help what will grow there natively to FLOURISH without external inputs. You should not be importing pumped ground water (or drilling for your own) to grow freaking elephant grass in the chiuahuan desert! THIS IS INSANE! Anybody can pump water out of the ground and grow stuff in a sunny and warm place. The trick is accomplishing something within the constraints of what is already there and what little rain sporadically falls on the land. You said before the water from your neighbor's well was more to jumpstart the terraces so you can harvest that stuff for mulch. Now we're talking about a much higher flow well.... why? Do you really need and intend to take that much water out of the ground to grow a bunch of stuff that otherwise wouldn't grow there without that ground-water input? Drilling your own well is like using a cheat code in a game or buying some aimbot program to make yourself invincible. Yes, you can "beat the game" and one shot people through walls, but are you really even playing it at that point? What is the fun in playing a game that way? The challenge and glory comes from beating the game WITHIN THE CONSTRAINTS of its design, more or less. I'm not saying some gamers don't come up with novel approaches to things, but drilling and pumping groundwater out of a well is not a novel approach. It's a cheat code and it is lame. I hope you don't lose sight of the real challenge of "greening the desert"... it's doing something with almost nothing and learning to lean heavily and learn from the native flaura and fauna that already can survive in the area despite the extremely arid conditions and depleted soil.

There a mixed bunch of comments here this episode. While I want to keep an open mind, finding the perfect spot, right next to you camp is a quite 'remarkable'. I would definitely be looking for some sort of validation. That said, they are on youtube in your video, if they fail, that fail is on youtube too, they have skin in the game.

We are on a similar piece of land east of you south of Sanderson. Our wells went dry years ago and one is over 1000 feet deep. The Ogallala aquifer is getting depleted. We are using Guzzlers to collect water. You could build a series of these water capture systems and take advantage of what rain you get to jump start the forest. You can find out all sorts of data and plans to build a Guzzler and they aren't expensive. I wouldn't see this as cheating as you are just using what rain you get.

Definitely take your time, you are the one on the ground, the one with the goals. I agree if you could get an onsite well, that would be fantastic, but your concerns about going down a rabbit hole that dead ends is a real thing. I enjoy watching you take the small steps, checking the results, adapting to the new data. No need to rush.

Sorry Shaun, but there is something "off" about the content and tone of this video. I mean even the video title "I Want Money to Build a Water Well in the Desert" has an odd, uncharacteristic, entitled ring to it. Please go back to the original channel's tone of environmental stewardship. Some of this is starting to feel like a commercial venture. Please take this comment in the spirit of friendship.

The ding ding ding ….😂😂😂😂 really made me take this very seriously

You should look into planting Texas Persimmons. They’re native to the Chihuahuan Desert and Edwards Plateau. They produce edible fruit that can help build soil as they decompose and attract animals to further spread seeds and manure. These trees can handle the summer heat and require little supplemental irrigation, being extremely drought tolerant. They favor riparian zones, prairie margins, rocky slopes, and alkaline soil. If you end up with larger trees on site they will thrive in the shade of them as well. You will need to make sure you get both male and female trees (determined by their flower shapes). You already have bees on site and they love this tree’s pollen! Maybe once you have a well you can plant a small grove with an assortment of trees/shrubs to serve as an anchor to work off of. Perhaps the Miyawaki Method of planting could benefit your project when it comes to building the actual forest. Particularly to conserve resources and increase the chances of each plant’s survival. If you have one designated area that you focus on establishing first (with mulches and water) it won’t be as daunting of a project.

"I'm wearing boots 99% of the time on the ranch." The very next shot - wears Crocs.

I work with minutes of the day, all the time. There are 1440 minutes in a day. You are part time on your land. 2880 to 4300 gallons a day far exceeds your known water needs. In that case, you need STORAGE of water for the moment you can produce 3000 gallons a day. Once that small program operates correctly, then you have established that you can scale success. Get to 3000 gallons of production, and storing less than 1 weeks water, say 15k gallons, and operate from there.

"What sold me was their track record..." Oh, he actually did some research, this time. "... on RU-vid" Yikes...