When your client purchases groundwater monitoring wells, they make a substantial investment. Flushmounted wells are a good solution for locations with pedestrian or vehicular traffic. However, if the site is under construction or in an area that may get re-asphalted or overgrown, the wells may eventually be lost. This may also happen to wells covered by heavy snowfall or plowed snow banks. In those cases, the client risks losing the benefit of their investment in addition to breaching Ontario regulatory requirements to preserve the wells. 

Metal detectors are less than ideal for locating a flushmounted casing. The signal from a lost casing tends to be weak, spread out over a large area, and easily distorted by any metallic debris in the nearby subsurface. This means that the readings can be confusing and unusable.

OmniMarkerII balls from Tempo Communications are a more effective solution.

ABOUT THE DEVICE

What are OmniMarker II balls? 

The markers are sturdy 4” diameter plastic (HDPE) balls. 

How are they installed? 

Kodiak can provide the marker ball, or you can source them yourself from local distributors. 

We bury the marker ball in a second hole beside the well. The second hole is drilled to a depth of 12-18″, located about a foot away. 

The markers contain a metal coil that responds to a transmission from a standard electronic locating device when it is operated in the ranges of 66Hz to 170Hz. The signal from the marker is narrow and more specific than the signal from a metal casing. 

Life expectancy for the balls is 50 years, and they do not use batteries that can fail over time. 

For many of our clients installations, these may be unnecessary. You can see your flushmounts, and they’re easy to find. However, for year-round work, when installations are sometimes covered by several feet of snow, OmniMarkers may be a quick and easy way of finding your well installations. 

Spending a few hundred dollars on markers might prevent spending thousands to reconstruct your wells after an asphalting company has put a layer of asphalt overtop or a landscaper has covered them with earth. 

What about the detecting device? 

The marker manufacturer, Tempo Communications,  also sells an electronic marker locator called the EML-100. If you don’t want to buy the device, many private locators have the required equipment to find the markers for you.