Lovelock Valley farmer Bingo Wesner brought a young relative to see the groundwater flowing during pump testing of a new supplemental irrigation well at his Running W Ranch west of Lovelock.
Lovelock Valley farmer Bingo Wesner brought a young relative to see the groundwater flowing during pump testing of a new supplemental irrigation well at his Running W Ranch west of Lovelock.
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As most irrigation canals remain bone dry for the second year in a row, the sound of water rushing into an Upper Valley ditch was a cause for celebration last week. Long-time grower Bingo Wesner, 80, drove a young relative out to see water flowing once again on his Running W Ranch west of Lovelock.

By tapping into his aquifer, Wesner found a way around the prolonged, four-year drought that has stunted crops and halted planting of new ones throughout the Lovelock Valley. It was a costly gamble, however, with no guarantee of the quantity and quality of the groundwater from his newly-drilled well.

The valley’s groundwater is generally classified as unsuitable for crops due to elevated salts and boron.

Wesner is crossing his fingers, however, after initial tests indicated his aquifer might be useable. Professional ground water test results by a lab in Twin Falls, Idaho, are expected back this week.

The analysis will indicate salinity, boron, pH and other water quality concerns, Wesner said.

If the water is safe for crops, Wesner could be planting then flood irrigating 70 acres of winter wheat.

“Preliminarily, we think the water is good,” he said. “We might have to treat it but we’re not sure yet. I’m sure it’s good enough for wheat and alfalfa just the way it is. Nowadays, there are ways to clean this water up with sulfur generators and other methods. It’s not like it was 60 years ago.”

Time is running out to get winter wheat planted in time this fall and there are other factors beyond his control, Wesner said. Power for the well must be installed by NV Energy but, in the past, the utility has been notoriously slow at completing industrial power upgrades when needed by other local businesses.

In addition to power, Wesner will need a well pump but the demand has skyrocketed for well drilling services and equipment for farm irrigation and mine de-watering around the state and beyond, he said.

“We don’t know if we’ll get done (with the well) in time to plant this year or not. The power company has got to put in power and they take time,” Wesner said. “California is drilling so many wells, you can’t buy pumps, you can’t hardly get well drillers. Because of the drought, everybody is drilling.”

Wesner was able to hire Fred Anderson Drilling but the Winnemucca company has been so busy that pump testing of Wesner’s 350-foot deep well was delayed until last week. On Friday, the drilling crew returned to complete the days-long process of measuring the well’s potential groundwater production.

“Our static level is 13 feet and yesterday, at 3,800 gallons per minute, we had a draw down to 51 feet from ground level,” Wesner said. “A lot of guys will be pumping 1,800 to 2,000 gallons per minute and draw the well down a hundred feet. Our draw down is really good so far but we’re not sure what this thing will produce yet because we don’t have a big enough pump to really test it at full capacity.”

Wesner said he needs as much ground water as the well can produce for successful flood irrigation.

In a good water year, his normal surface irrigation allotment is three acre-feet per acre. “The more we can get with flood irrigation, the better,” he said. “If we get 5,000 gallons per minute, I’d be even happier.”

Drill Operator Richard Ward measured gallons per minute flows during hours of pump testing on the well Friday. Along with an electronic device, he used an old-school measuring stick to estimate the groundwater’s speed as it arced through the air into a small pool and the irrigation ditch below.

“It measures how far the water is shooting from the pipe and gives us the gallons per minute,” he explained. “Right now we’re pumping 2,400 gallons per minute. In a couple of hours, we’ll run the pump a little faster to see how well it does. We’re testing to see how much water it’s going to produce.”

The well pump test will indicate what size pump is just right to maximize well production, Ward said.

“The pump test is so they can get the right size of pump,” he said. “If you get a pump that’s too big you could ruin the well. If you get one that’s too small, you’re not getting all the water that you can.”

Wesner said this will be the first time he’ll use groundwater for flood irrigation during his 45 years of farming in the Lovelock Valley. Well water can be used for supplementary irrigation only when there’s no surface irrigation water available from the Rye Patch Dam. In the fourth year of drought and the second year of zero surface irrigation water, Wesner and other local farmers are still paying a reduced per acre rate for irrigation water not available from the Pershing County Water Conservation District.

“I don’t think the price is reasonable but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Wesner said. “The district board makes that decision. If it was up to me, they’d cut a lot of costs but I’m not running the board.”

Wesner said his new well is permitted due to adjudicated water rights obtained years ago but other well permits he and other farmers have filed are being denied by the state. Wesner said he’s protesting those denials while other growers are not due to the cost of litigation. If he wins his case in court, Wesner plans to drill another groundwater well to supplement his non-existent surface irrigation allotments.

“The trouble is the state water engineer’s office is not giving permission to drill wells,” he said. “This is an old well permit that I had from 1954 that I transferred over here from the old Henry Brink Ranch. We filed in 2001 for more permits and they’ve just been sitting on those all this time. Recently, they denied my permits (to drill) and we’ve protested those denials but that’s got to in front of a judge.”

As a “temporary point of diversion” allowed by the state, the well is permitted to flood irrigate 70 acres. With a more efficient sprinkler irrigation system such as a circular pivot, Wesner believes the well could supply enough water for much more or even all the crop land at Running W Ranch.

“If you were in sprinklers, this well would probably irrigate almost the whole ranch,” he said. “Down the line, I think we’re going to have to go to sprinklers even in the water district to cut our water consumption. I think it’s something we’ve got to look at — whether they’ll ever do it, I don’t know.”

Growers in other areas who irrigate with pivots have not reported problems with salt building up in soil, a concern for local farmers who for years have flood irrigated to wash away salt, Wesner said.

“Some of these other guys are convinced that sprinkler irrigation doesn’t leach the soil as much,” he said. “I’ve talked to guys with sprinkler systems all over the state and they don’t seem to have a problem. These farmers here have flood irrigated for so long, they think that’s the only way to irrigate.”