It's not what you think! Our water well has been losing capacity--our response to this was to have our well "hydro-fractured."
After weeks of suffering low water pressure and reduced well capacity this summer, which may have been a delayed result of the Aug 2011 earthquake, we learned about and then contracted out a process that uses water at high pressure (potable water only) to try to restore lost capacity.
The process is related to petroleum fracking but is believed to have none of the drawbacks. It appears that the process was successful--our well's capacity is much improved. Over the coming weeks we'll do some flow tests to see just how much improvement we got from this process. This choice was FAR cheaper and easier than the alternative which would be drilling a new well.
Update on 14-Oct-2012: well flow tests show that water flow capacity has been apparently fully restored by the fracking process!
Here's a simple intro to low water yield well hydrofracturng: http://www.hydro-frac.com/process.php
Check our photo gallery news section for a few more photos.
Posted 27-Sep-2012.