I Want Money to Build a Water Well in the Desert

[@dustupstexas]

Thanks to Tecovas for sponsoring this video! Visit tecovas.yt.link/7bxRsYG to get your new favorite pair of boots today.

[@Haya12234]

those boots are pretty cringe

[@klee88029]

I love those boots.

[@hotbit7327]

What a pile of BS, that was entertaining! What a joke, so funny 🤣🤣🤣 Gamma rays can 😂😂😂 Data driven 😅 - is it April 1st - Fools Day?

[@trueaussieray9093]

Them cowboy boots have gone out of fashion for men they're more of a female boot now, Dolly Parton, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears music videos made them look very feminine. Dustin put them boots on and a pair of Daisy Dukes cutoffs and a cowboy hat and stand in front of the mirror.. youll see what I mean.. A front man for the YMCA song..

[@ShaneSaxson]

If your on a limestone shelf there. You probably have water.

[@hayovm]

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 !!

[@Lee-xu2wb]

Good comment. I'm an old geophysicist and I agree with you - take is slow, Shaun. Sounds like the guy is using gamma logging to look for buried fractured bed water-bearing zones. I usually associate gamma-ray investigations with borehole geophysics and the investigation of near-surface water or soil composition. More investigation makes sense.

[@artstoop8387]

I feel like this guy feels like he knows he would be right. But my scambone is tingling.

[@StandAndFightSir]

Hey there @hayovm, see my comment to @RichardEden1 above. these are sophisticated, expensive systems that involve proven geophysical methods: radiometrics and passive seismics. Shaun received a free map and well study and then a proposal describing the technologies and methodology. We do that for all inquiries. Cheers, mate!

[@StandAndFightSir]

@@Lee-xu2wb yes that is typical of oil/gas sector borelogging. The Germans have been way ahead of everyone else in gamma ray scintillation counting. See my comment to @RichardEdne1 above. Really basic principle: water blocks, dampens natural gamma ray emissions (as does oil, but on a longer lens). But building such an extraordinary system that can sense deep water is what makes our system so unique. 35+ years of IP behind it from my Bavarian tech partner and then going back to Stengle and Bickel (Operation Paperclip brought him to NASA Vandenberg). Cheers! mark

[@drinkwater3155]

markburr above is a grifter. A link to a simple peer-reviewed paper in any reputable scientific journal will speak more than a whole lot of nonsense words. Thunderf00t should make a video of this grifter!

[@matthewroberts785]

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.

[@johnnysmith863]

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!

[@GTM9164]

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

[@thunkr7641]

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.

[@laserflexr6321]

I like that idea, same plant at the beginning of each vid.

[@Herculesbiggercousin]

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

[@TrogdorBurnin8or]

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.

[@StandAndFightSir]

hey bro, check out my comment to @RichardEden1 above. Both are roven geophysical methods that we deploy globally. Look up Resonance Acoustic Profiling to find the US patent from 20 years ago. Enjoy, mark

[@unums]

What are you talking about? Gamma Rays are produced by regular average Atomic Decay. Not to the Levels of a Lightning Bolt, Star, or Supernova but it’s not something rare. You may want to look into *Gamma Ray Logging* and then rethink your whole Comment.

[@drinkwater3155]

A simple link to a peer-reviewed paper in any reputable scientific journal will speak more than a whole lot of nonsense words in this video. This is pseudoscience, a scam, like Theranos or OceanGate

[@rover1102]

Although you wouldn't get very good results with just one geophone, you can lay out a string of about 30 and pound the ground to determine how thick the weathering layer is.. it's useful when determining other velocities when processing seismic data.

[@TrogdorBurnin8or]

@@unums Gamma rays are reduced by half for every couple INCHES of rock. Gamma ray logging involves a signal that indicates rock strata composition within about 1 foot of the borehole you're lowering your instruments down; You've got them set up to maximum sensitivity just to get that much grasp from radioactive traces. It does not magically give you data about water tables perched hundreds or thousands of feet below.

[@5thGenNativeTexan]

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.

[@StandAndFightSir]

yeah, talk to the folks at Chalk Draw Ranch who own The Gage Hotel. Three successful wells drilled over the last holidays, each producing more than all their wells combined over the years. Driller was out of Alpine using an Ingersol Rand,if I recall. Cheers, mark

[@HopingforPower]

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 KZbin. 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.

[@Ministrator03]

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

[@StandAndFightSir]

so you too did no research before mouthing off? We deploy these sophisticated geophysical systems globally for a wide range of clients. The gamma system is from Bavaria with 35+ years of R&D! Sheesh... Just trying to make it accessible to the average homesteader's budget--while havin' some fun in the desert! Cheers, mark

[@Ministrator03]

@@StandAndFightSir ​ @markburr1417 If you think spamming copy and paste answers under every youtube comment will magically make your "product" or "service" more attractive, you're wrong. Go deceive some corporations instead of people trying to restore the environment

[@DaDunge]

@@StandAndFightSir What he's saying is completly correct. I've studied groundwater engineering as a part of my engineering degree, and you have in no way laid any scientific groundwork for your claims. If this was real you would be able to explain it instead of appealing to authority and bad mouthing people. Also if it's from Bavaria then please show us the reports about it. My german is excellent and the guy you just commented on is a native speaker. Show us the reports, show us the studies. Show us anything more than unsubstantiated claims.

[@zeolite2]

@@DaDunge Absolutely DaDunge. I have plenty of experience in using subsurface well logging equipment and 30 years in using gamma detection equipment. Come on markburr1417! Let's see what you got!

[@zeolite2]

@@DaDunge Like Arthur Compton you mean! A real radiation scientist who won a Nobel prize.

[@dave7038]

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.

[@jmmypaddy]

Yep, he comes across as faux science, where the data doesn't seem apparent enough as to where it comes from but talks over any questions about the data. But sadly as Shaun is a tech guy, he will forget to question it, as it's tech.

[@herobrinenoch3522]

@@StandAndFightSir Getting snotty doesn't make you seem more authentic. Just sayin'.

[@JK_Clark]

@@StandAndFightSir Defensive much? Insulting people doesn't convince them, unless they're particularly hard of thinking - like you.

[@DaDunge]

@@StandAndFightSir He doens't use any of the proper terminology or give any estimtes for the metrics those of us in the field use. this guy reeks snake oil salesmen.

[@mradventurer8104]

Chatterbox can be ok but 1) upside and downside of an expensive project and 2) realistic results /goals should be clear and they were not to me.

[@inigoromon1937]

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.

[@dustupstexas]

The water production won't stay at 3 GPM if you run 24-7

[@stvkomer]

@@dustupstexas you will run that fucker dry in a few hours, silt up the pump and be out thousand to repair it.

[@dmitrmax]

@@stvkomer dry pumping detection can be automated easyly

[@worskaas]

He is doing it for the grassy type that needs water, to create mulch. The mulch will then be used to retain more water and create more biomass elsewhere as he expands.

[@DaDunge]

@@dustupstexas Then what is the transmitivity and storativity of the well? It's a lot cheaper to do a slug test than top drill a well.

[@mmg486]

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

[@wasp586]

yes, really disappointing

[@jmmypaddy]

You should check out Timeline Ranch, they have a thriving pond, where plant live is gradually growing around it and built their own well.

[@lilgator6969]

That’s because the true desert forest is just a mesquite thicket lol. Nothing wrong with this though and I think it’s better than depleting your local water source by drilling.

[@zarroth]

yah, you can't build up the water table up higher if you are depleting it from down lower. It's just like those people in Vegas during the drought saying they don't use the reservoir, but have no idea how the aquifer they are connected to refills...hint, it wasn't from limited rain with that many people in the area.

[@ethandoingstuff1433]

It’s definitely the least sustainable thing he’s considered doing thus far. Earthworks is one thing (an incredibly useful tool, but can cause damage) but drilling deep down into the Earth is waaayyyy more drastic, irreversible, and expensive (both to install and maintain). It also doesn’t make sense if the earthworks are intended to store more water in the landscape, in the long term the well will be unnecessary and a waste of money. If he wants to grow plants with irrigation forever then I don’t know why he’s done all this other work. He’s just getting over excited because the nearby well has helped him so much. He wants the crutch forever :p

[@Bob-j5o3b]

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

[@StandAndFightSir]

yep, and then the client pays me for the water, like we do for offtake concessions, water sale agreements etc. We had a paid client who bought desert land about 2 miles away from Dustups. We stopped by to give a free demo and happened to locate a great structure right off the pad. We do this globally for a wide range of clients from homesteaders to ranchers to large farms to commercial projects, conservancies and municipalities. Just havin' some fun out in the desert, bro! Semper fi, mark

[@dosquats]

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

[@ezforsaken]

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.

[@ezforsaken]

@@StandAndFightSir sir where I live you can get water digging almost anywhere, sometimes you gotta go deeper. The thing is bad placed wells have ton of issues, or just die after 1-2 years. You finding water is just normal odds, you finding high quality, big streams of water, that will last a lifetime, is something people find out after a year or two of digging the well.

[@zombi3907]

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.

[@b4k4survivor]

He's spoken about possibly wanting to grow a cash crop, including nut trees, since early on. Certainly as early as when the syntropic forestry guys were visiting/etc. I think if his dream is to pump water from a confined aquifer to grow water thirsty non-native nut trees like pecans, then it's a foolish, destructive dream. If the dream is to grow and cultivate a NATIVE tree/shrub forest (species like honey mesquite, gray oak, redberry juniper, algerita), using little more than annual rainfall and well designed earthworks/catchment, then THAT is a beautiful dream. Just my opinion.

[@ezforsaken]

@@b4k4survivor I agree with you B4k, but apparently he doesn't have the money for that, that's why he intends to make the land produce something for him in order for him to finance these endeavors. I get it tho, with no money how are you going to hire manual laborers? or bring stuff in from the town like tools/materials? Personally I believe he should find which native crop/plant/tree can grow there normally and sell that, i don't know if it ends up being agave or cacti, but he needs to find someway to make money there, and Hopefully that is NOT draining fossil water and growing nuts.

[@b4k4survivor]

@@ezforsaken Some plants that fit that kind of requirement would likely be prickly pear and mesquite. The prickly pear fruit can be harvested, processed, and made into jelly relatively easily (probably not a terribly profitable endeavor unless done at a very large scale). Mesquite pods can be ground (including the seed) to make an excellent flour substitute that I believe sells for around $15/pound. That requires a large/expensive piece of equipment though (hammer mill). I'm not really sticking around this channel to find out what he does. It seems to be going in a direction I don't find interesting.

[@ezforsaken]

@@b4k4survivor I agree b4k, its kinda painful to watch at this point.

[@djblackprincecdn]

I think he has gotten impatient with the drought he is experiencing and wants to supercharge things with irrigation so he can show more tangible results. He is falling into the KZbin trap.

[@0chuklz0]

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.

[@mattanderson6781]

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

[@abelvalle6188]

The geo gama nerds came out the woodworks and im here for it🍿

[@DaDunge]

I mean yeah he talked about electric fields in the earth... God what a quack.

[@WinterMafia]

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.

[@Nuggettfaz]

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.

[@ricoviselli]

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.

[@davidmende3409]

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

[@SuperJman991]

I too noticed this.

[@halbedelstein-missiongitar3030]

The scientist telling about the "Cat and Horse" shit. It was the same story as the man with the long beard told me 20 years ago to sell some "copper coils" for better sleep. You just pay 1.000 $ for 20$ worth of copper and put it under your bed. Then the earth radiation would not interfeer with your sleep. AND you won´t get cancer. I would not expect that story from a scientist.

[@DaDunge]

Yeah funny how the guy doesn't use any of the language of the field no estimates for storativity or transitivity. Ansd he doesn't once use the word layer which is how you really do geology.

[@russellzauner]

I tried to tell this guy how to build a native aquifer and he was like "nah I'll do the thing that isn't working and ask for more grants" and now it's like "well I failed at that too, may as well to the thing that everyone else tries to do when they can't figure it out and ask for more grants". Now he's getting scammed, but see - it's donations from well intentioned folks and grants (funded by taxes no doubt) that are being flushed. So it's kind of the scamming circle of life playing out in front of us. It's why I unsubbed, bro won't even consider other methods and guaranteed he's gonna power on ahead with this "project" too. Can't keep getting funds if you actually succeed. You have to fail *just enough* to keep the gravy flowin. I wish YT would stop showing me these - I'm not going to resub, I have channels doing useful stuff that teaches me things instead of making me constantly cringe to spend them on.

[@drinkwater3155]

He does a lot more yapping in the comment section, along with childish insults. Extremely unprofessional!

[@deezynar]

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

[@indiansummerboy2]

exactly, if you tap the ground water you take it away from it's current cycle, disturbing that. It inflates the project and makes it a lot less sustainable on it's own. My 2 cents.

[@matthewwelch1537]

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

[@mozellagi]

As long as they leave some bio-mass, nothing wrong with that...

[@trentgay3437]

It's fun but not productive lol

[@timgunn3670]

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

[@ethandoingstuff1433]

You were wrong once, but that doesn’t mean you are always wrong. And it doesn’t mean that the person who corrected you is always right.

[@johnstreater260]

You are looking at the ecological devastation of the dust bowl.

[@AivoPaas]

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.

[@edgedg]

Yes, I'm sure there's a thousand excuses why the water turns out deeper than expected, or of super rare cases of failure. Taking this on only makes sense if Shaun asks the water shamans to cover extra cost if the well is deeper than promised, at a _small_ insurance fee matching their confidence.

[@esmith1771]

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

[@traildude7538]

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!

[@tvstation8102]

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!

[@StandAndFightSir]

it's okay, everything will be alright. See my comment to @RichardEden1 above. We provide these services globally from homesteaders to ranchers and large farms and even $300k for wide area municipality and conservancy projects. Just having fun out the desert for a demo, dude. Cheers, mark

[@JG-nm9zk]

might be a two parter....

[@georgematcek7515]

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.

[@TBasianeyes]

that water guy sure likes to hear himself talk

[@OzToyReviews]

Yeah I trust him and his methods far less because we won't stop talking and selling himself or his product. It's like the trope of a used-car salesman

[@averegeyoutuber9133]

Same, no way I would trust him.

[@trueaussieray9093]

Certainly not.. a $20,000 decision.. having a quick read up on gammarays im not sure how he's Gammaray device could work without killing whoever's holding it let alone gamma rays can't gather data.? but I'm no scientist..

[@StandAndFightSir]

um, yeah, that's how you explain what you're doing, you know...marketing! Sheesh... next time we'll do a silent movie for you. Cheers, mark

[@StandAndFightSir]

Next time we'll make a silent movie! Cheers, mark

[@JOHNDANIEL1]

Shaun, If your going to spend that much $$$$ I suggest you hire from Lubbock down to Fort Stockton area or Snyder for your drillers. They have the gear for that aquifer. You MUST ask for full air drill 6" bore 50% casing. Silt is bad there. When I was with Mundy Co we drilled 40+ wells in your region. Marfa to Saragosa. We used real ground sonar but the thing to get water there is not great, about 1 in 8 was dry and we dynomited those dry ones to fracture and drilled 50 to 100 feet away to get good water that would show in a few days later. 3 Half Sticks LOL! dropped on detcord. A real solution is LOTS OF ROOFS! and even metal on the ground with tanks though. Wells are often season rated there. Dry from Sept to Feb.

[@ethandoingstuff1433]

lots of roofs! yes!

[@b4k4survivor]

I've been suggesting he fix metal roofs to the oil rig doghouses he has on site, add gutters/downspouts, and direct the water to IBC's or an appropriately sized tank for each structure.

[@boxner1]

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.

[@worskaas]

I think the irrigation is for him to grow mulch faster and cheaper and locally produced.

[@eslnoob191]

I've been watching since Video 1 too. Shaun said at some point that he has ADHD, which really explains a lot about his project and behavior. He's kind of trying to do everything all at once, and he'll occasionally be drawn to the things that seem more ”fun" to do (whether he admits it or not) rather than slog through the stuff that actually is the most productive but ultimately boring because it's repetitive. It also can explain why it feels like he's lost sight of his original goal (he probably has), since many people with ADHD will have intense passions for a few months then will suddenly drop them and move onto something else.

[@stefan514]

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

[@knoll9812]

Yeh Wasn't given me good feeling. How about asking a drilling company o pinion

[@StandAndFightSir]

well big guy, sadly like so many you haven't done your homework. See my comment to @RobertEden1 above. Radiometrics has been around quite a long time as a proven geophysical method. We deploy a passive system that "counts" natural gamma ray emissions caused primarily by the decaying isotopes of uranium, thorium and especially potassium in the crust. Oil/gas collect gamma DTH for various reasons. We seek total count unlike mineralogists who would add spectroscopy software to this system. PhD doesn't mean you should stop learning or not do some research before commenting, no? A smart engineer like you adds "af"? What are you, like a recent grad still wearing a mask in your mom's basement? Cheers, mark

[@DevinBaillie]

​@@StandAndFightSir How far do gamma rays from uranium, thorium, and potassium penetrate through dry sand? How much does this change if you have wet sand?

[@Aaron-en5cc]

​@@StandAndFightSir How do you know that you are actually measuring better gamma absorption and not just natural fluctuations in the background? Did statistically norm your measurements what is the sigma value for your result?

[@DaDunge]

@@StandAndFightSir I have. the way Shaun describes the well he's using makes it cleat it has good starativity and crappy transmitivity. In that case water is in the ground and should show up on the scan they did of that well. It does not, proving the method is nonsense. QED. Your theories have been debunked by the highest authoriuty EXPERMIMENTAL EVIDENCE!

[@MrLbstoner]

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.

[@mcrusty2507]

Does texan desert enviroment require bush fire like aus enviroment?

[@docwatson1134]

That crossed my mind, that as the forest a grows thick, it creates fuel. When dead vegetation fully drys out, it's going to burn, if ignition happens. I'm not familiar with fire in Texas. In Oregon we have grass fires, other ground level burns. But also crown fires with entire Douglas fir trees going up, lifting burning limbs, to drop far off in unburned dry vegetation miles away. To fight a fire in the the vicinity of the Dust Up's Ranch, I imagine the problem down there is the wind. And sometimes steep inaccessible terrain. I have no idea how frequent fire is in those mountains. Let's hope not too soon.

[@MrLbstoner]

@@docwatson1134 I would imagine it’s pretty similar to Tecate Mexico but more heat and less trees. Honestly the danger isn’t from within his property where he will be building the underground water tables. The danger is from the brush fires from outside the property sweeping in and burning all the foliage he is planning on creating. I would assume anything from a 6-10ft wide fire break between his property and the outside threat of a wildfire encroaching his property would greatly increase the chance of warding off a brush fire. Especially since there isn’t a lot of huge fuel that can create a fire big enough to jump more than that, obviously if their are high winds with fire there is a good chance of the fire jumping that but you can maybe defend it if you happen to be there and prepared.

[@dansullivan8968]

@@mcrusty2507 Yes, we have had entire counties burn, but we are historical resistant to having the government tell us what to do. Lotta new immigrants from California can't understand it. if we take more than a post modern view of history wildfires were part of the cycle. We have flowers that will not bloom until a burn off.

[@samstaten5163]

@mcrusty2507 I think before the smokey bear initiative annual ground fires were a common occurrence. After understanding what ash and biochar do to the soil and plants it's not really a bad thing long term. The greenest thickest regrowth happens after a fire. It's when the dead biomass is kept from burning for too long that it makes a tall fire that takes out taller trees.

[@JOHNDANIEL1]

Using a thermal camera at 3 to 5 am will show you vapor readings for water up to a few hundred feet depth. The thermal camera will see fissures that make it near surface. In that area you have vertical deposits that may be 200 feet tall, but no bigger than 30 feet round. To get your serious water in that area you have to get high powered pumps, a 240 volt 2 horse for sure.

[@honeytubs]

I like your idea. Vapor making its way to the surface would seem to make plants in that area grow better. In dry areas I have seen lines of grass that grows taller than the surrounding grass. I wonder if arial images show anomalies in vegetation.

[@svenrump3287]

soundslike Voodoo hydrology to me.

[@MeditationwithHolly]

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

[@StandAndFightSir]

simple statement which means...what exactly: drill blind? See my comment to @RichardEden1 above. Cheers, mark

[@DaDunge]

@@StandAndFightSir No go the the state geological society and have a look at their geological maps of the area, maybe do a real ground radar scan.

[@HPDrifter2]

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.

[@StandAndFightSir]

I promise next time to make a silent movie just for you! See my comment to @RobertEden1 above. Cheers, mark

[@DaDunge]

He talks a lot but he never uses any terms which actually means anything.

[@ryno488]

He's a salesman.

[@edgedg]

Construction team leads tend to talk a lot, and so do salesmen. It's actually good here, so Shaun can hopefully revisit the video at a later time for analysis of what was said, and cross-reference for truth and bull.

[@AZ-697]

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.

[@Lee-xu2wb]

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.

[@shawnpahl]

Yeah, especially if he’s going to just throw money at snake oil salesman like this that do nothing

[@mattg6057]

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.

[@ezforsaken]

things like true fossil water exist, which is an aquifer that is so deep down that probably won't ever move or do anything productive. but he can't find that with those guys, that requires real research from real geologists using proper equipment.

[@convolutedmind]

Seems like there is a feedback loop of sorts, if you get more vegetation and biomatter, that means more shade and water retention, the water has a better chance of getting into the ground and staying in the area rather than becoming runoff which ends up in the ocean. Small forests can also create a feedback loop like the small water cycle. Crops and livestock are part of the reason we're in this problem in the first place, so catering to those wants shouldn't be a primary concern, native plants and wildlife, sure but I think this still is a restoration project.

[@fangdenhahn]

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.

[@bensouthwell1339]

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

[@brianking4360]

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

[@nunyadayumbusiness591]

It's not hocus pocus, but I'm dubious on using it to find water instead of using it to find how deep the bedrock is and what kind of rock it is. (I've seen that tech used to find ridgelines buried in glacial sediment for road planning & figuring out if it's worth digging to bedrock for the foundation of a house.)

[@DaDunge]

@@nunyadayumbusiness591 No it's psuedoscience. And what ypu've seen is likely a real ground radar.

[@walking_man]

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

[@kenmartin4168]

just talk to the local water well driller

[@JohnPritzlaff]

Buy him a beer or ten at the local tavern

[@seannicholas6629]

Isn't he 8 hours from anywhere?

[@StandAndFightSir]

yes, for sure! and then like many of our clients, call us for hard data after thousands spent down a dry bore... Cheers, mark

[@jaapfolmer7791]

Is there anything you can learn from agrivoltaics to help your forest grow, Shaun? Solar cells provide (partial) shade which reduces evaporation, your biggest enemy. Or course, you do not actually need expensive solar cells if all you want to do is reduce evaporation. A simple lattice of metal strips with holes to let through enough sunlight and rain water would do. Painted white and put on some legs over your planted seedlings. Moveable and long lasting.

[@ahaveland]

Solar panels also get very hot and radiate their heat above and below, therefore warming up the ground underneath - would need to install metallic reflectors underneath the panels to shade the ground from the heat, better still reflect the heat away so it doesn't also heat up the panels and reduce lifetime/efficiency. Energy from the panels could be used to harvest water vapour from the air, especially at night if using batteries, but any local increase in water extraction creates a deficit elsewhere.

[@mcleishmartin]

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

[@dustupstexas]

A few thousand bucks. Not a lot of water, but not a lot of money either

[@randyhaglund7557]

@@dustupstexas you could run the pipe now and reuse it for irrigation.

[@twoc400s5]

This is what I would do. Pipelines are much easier to build than 600ft deep wells.

[@822516bigbear]

Alot of people do this, shared well piped to a holding tank with a float valve. for irrigation purposes you could also plumb in some rain catchment off your existing structures. every drop counts. I did this a few years ago on a shallow well had it fill 4 IBC tanks that where plumbed to a fire sprinkler pump on a timer used to irrigate a 5 acre plot for crops, worked great.

[@822516bigbear]

another thing to keep in mind is eventually when your swales, bathtubs and organic material begin to build up in your soil you may not even need to irrigate via a well, at that point at least for me it would be difficult to swallow the 20,40,60k price tag for a well. I remember a saying I heard years ago " that fastest way to become a millionaire farming is to start with 2 million" something like that. just my thought. your doing great work keep it up.

[@MortalBane]

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 KZbin 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.

[@KelechisOrganicFruitGarden]

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

[@KelechisOrganicFruitGarden]

Thinking about this a bit longer. If you can get someone to come out with GPR. Ground penetrating radar to record from the neighbors well to your property, that will tell if the sand body (water reservoir) continues into your property. In addition to the depth. If it is about a similar depth or slightly deeper, you should be good to go. If that body is shallower then might be a bit riskier. If there is a university close by with a geology department that may be a good research project for students and low to no cost to you if you really are looking at getting a water well.

[@DaDunge]

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.

[@StandAndFightSir]

we deploy both methods globally and within a day or two have a stake in the ground on most homesteads. Why do you continue to beclown yourself acting like you know it all about exploration geophysics? mb

[@DaDunge]

@@StandAndFightSir Cause you need to do that, even if there is water there is no telling how the water flows in the aquifer layer without a slugtest. You could have laods of storativity but low transmitivity. In fact the conditions on the well he is using suggests exactly that, and I see no reason to supsoe the aquifer he'd find in his base camp would be a diffrent one from the one he's tapping over there. Aquifer layers are usually quite large.

[@DaDunge]

@@StandAndFightSir Also if you could use ambient radiation to detect water you'd be on your way to collect the noble prize in physics for overturning the standing electromagnetic attenuation theory and the peace prize for being able to detect water without drilling.

[@stravaganza7616]

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

[@shawnpahl]

He never answers anything. He just talks out his asshole.

[@jenrosejenrose7417]

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

[@ivuldivul]

10:00 I have similar thoughts about that "Resonance Acoustic Profiling". Hardly anything scientific, but an expired patent. Method description in it looks fishy: "The ground is then lightly tapped in the near vicinity of the sensor either with one's finger or a hammer. This tap causes the natural vibrations within the subsurface layers to be amplified. The sensor picks up these vibrations from the resonating layers..." I doubt you can get anything useful this way. Anyway don't trust me, but ask yourself why isn't this method commonly used in geophysical research.

[@dmitrmax]

The theory is that water blocks the gamma rays emitted from within the Earth. But I doubt that the 100 meters of rock mass wouldn't block the gamma rays either.

[@Ifyouarehurtnointentwasapplied]

Look up Australia ABC News they did a episode on finding water in the detest parts of Australia ✌️🤔

[@ivuldivul]

@@dmitrmax That guy is wrong. Water is less efficient at attenuating radiation than anything in that soil is - the greater density of material, the more radiation it blocks.

[@giovannifoulmouth7205]

@@dmitrmax Rock absorbs radiation much better than water, it's all about density.

[@StarGlider47]

You can also build multi sectioned ponds, lined with tarps and surrounded by cover crops like daikom radish.

[@borystsolin]

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

[@samuelwilliams7331]

Hundreds of feet down. No plants have roots to reach that water. Building the soil above will allow rain to stop and recharge the aquifer.

[@klee88029]

​@@samuelwilliams7331Exactly.

[@dansullivan8968]

I think the water returns since it is used to water the soil and once the soil improves more water seeps.

[@JohnPritzlaff]

The groundwater level will eventually be raised by the rugged trees with the deep taproots, anyways.

[@DaDunge]

Well I don't think he's talking about taking water from tje open aquifer but from a deeper confined one. It could work but there are risks, an aquifer that is confined where he is could be open elsewhere and at ay rate it's a non renewable resource.

[@almeidacheang7853]

my friend,use the straw,like China use to recovery the desert(square meter,I thing 1x1 straw,check video ,to combat the wind and grow trees

[@dustupstexas]

That's for combating sand dunes.

[@bengtrobbert9264]

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

[@HarryJensen-kr4qz]

You're not supposed to pay unless they hit water.

[@Eldemaer]

@@HarryJensen-kr4qz drillers drilling for free now?

[@better_than_nothing]

@@HarryJensen-kr4qz this is absolutely untrue. Drillers get paid to drill, not find water.

[@TobiasDuncan]

@@HarryJensen-kr4qz There is no place in the USA where drillers drill for free

[@nataliegist2014]

@@HarryJensen-kr4qz not true you pay by the foot no matter if you hit water or not.

[@XxLenasXx]

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

[@cuongtruong6043]

This expert is full of it. Don't waste your time and money on him. Stick to build swells, planting more trees and building that dam

[@MattJoyce01]

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.

[@dustupstexas]

+1. And on several other channels

[@randomviewer3494]

​@@dustupstexas would be a lot more skin in the game if they'd pay for the well if its below a certain flow/pump rate.

[@ethandoingstuff1433]

KZbin is full of youtubers accidentally selling scams. People get caught up validating each other via views, especially when they can recoup their losses through ad revenue. The scammers don’t have real skin in the game, because they aren’t spending anything to scam. Risking being caught scamming, is not having skin in the game. :(

[@StandAndFightSir]

@@randomviewer3494 yes sir, we do get involved in E&P projects: exploration and production. These are usually based on long-term offtake agreements, water purchase agreements etc. Big money, long term concessions. But no one can bring a homesteader as much hard data as we do at such low cost. Cheers, mark

[@DaDunge]

Do you think the publish their failures?

[@jor4288]

I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona...

[@devono7230]

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.

[@MarkH10]

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.

[@ezforsaken]

thanks for this! he needs to get something (small) working first and then plan to drill and expand, he said it himself he doesn't even know what works (and thats fine), he needs some little amount of water to keep living there and testing things, and when he is sure what's the actual full scale 320 acre plan, then he can invest himself on them.

[@Lee-yb2zr]

O am part of this family now. Learning and loving it ❤❤❤❤❤somebody has got to do it 😊

[@halbedelstein-missiongitar3030]

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.

[@summerlakephotog8239]

60 larger trees will thrive on 4 GPH each, 3 hours every other day. (I actually run 4 hours every other day on the Oregon desert.) That requires a flow of 4 GPM but in actuality more like 5 or 6 GPM allowing for friction loss in your long drip line. 3 GPM will possibly do 20 to 30 trees. There’s a difference between thriving and surviving. I prefer the former. I’m trying to create a desert park under a rocky butte. I started 8 years ago with nothing but sagebrush and greasewood and now some of my trees are 25 feet tall. I have all kinds of wildlife and beautiful shade. Solar submersible pumps will last a long time and are great for drip applications. Your situation is different but I just thought I would share some things I’ve discovered. I applaud your willingness to learn and adapt.

[@gideonporter537]

Love your vids Shaun. Keep at 'em!

[@rebeccacarpenter7616]

Fascinating. Pray over the land

[@TheRealJerseyJoe]

What a load of bollocks !

[@Charlene916]

Finding water in the desert is more interesting than I thought. We were camping out in the Nevada Desert (high desert) dry camp many years ago. It had rained just before we got there, but there were so many animal prints in the mud as to be amazing to the wildlife out in the desert. Some prints we could not identify. We were on an archaeology dig was the reason for our trip. Love the desert, it's quiet and somewhat peaceful, anyway. 🙂

[@brandnewcadillac]

water dowser? cheaper to create a shrine to Fontus

[@joseluisfeliu5887]

I love your adventure, Shaun! Cheers from Spain!!

[@alfredmolison7134]

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

[@jimdotcom1972]

this was a bit rambling about something most people are probably sceptical of, if a weekly upload schedule is too much to create worthwhile content or real progress then i think its ok to leave stuff out or have a bi monthly upload instead.

[@StandAndFightSir]

hey big jim, so you're skeptical therefor don't research it? See my comment to @RobertEden1 above. both are proven geophysical systems. We survey from homesteads to large projects globally. Take a deep breath, just havin' some fun in the desert for a YT channel. Cheers, mark

[@SomeDudeerilodude]

Build the three mile aqueduct. Add a solar panel to the pump.

[@malharapte5989]

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.

[@leedza]

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

[@beautanicalgardens6353]

My little homestead. And there is no way that old water rig would make that drive. But a crossover would be cool. They aren't doing much in the way of permaculture but I do love what they do

[@yungcat-q5b]

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.

[@xduskflyerx]

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

[@jeffstover9579]

This channel has me hooked. I've been going through the hornets nest this video has stirred up and I see more opinions than a congressional debate.

[@DAEDALUSesq]

+1 BS Alert

[@Darklightflash-z8j]

I m sceptical too. But water does dampen gamma rays. Heavy metal too. Dense rocks too. I m still a little defiant to this passive acoustic residence stuff.

[@angrylittlespider4593]

Where do your local well drillers get THEIR information?

[@DaDunge]

Likely geological survey maps. The west texas gological society should be able to point him in the right direciton. I would give him some but the ones I have are for the great plains region.

[@ezforsaken]

you can do many things like talk to the universities there, and the state to give you good survey data; as well as actual experts that perform real ground scans (not this).

[@Lee-xu2wb]

@@DaDunge Don't forget local boring logs.

[@StandAndFightSir]

they are either dowsers themselves and witch the wells they drill or they choose the site randomly, visually, based on experience. Less than 1% of wells have hard data to assist in selecting the site. We had a paid client who bought desert land about 2 miles away from Dustups. We stopped by to give a free demo and happened to locate a great structure right off the pad. We do this globally for a wide range of clients from homesteaders to ranchers to large farms to commercial projects, conservancies and municipalities. Just havin' some fun out in the desert, bro! Semper fi, mark

[@DaDunge]

@@Lee-xu2wb Appearently the people with the geological maps for texas are the texas train comission.

[@oliviaglass3843]

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

[@chrisbranton65]

Another option is cisterns. Cut channels to lead to the cisterns and capture the rain when it comes. The house next to my grandmother house in Altus OK had a cistern tied to the gutters of the house. The house and cistern were built in the early 1900s. Well, will need power to pump the water and the rate you need it will demand a lot power.

[@Dread9ko]

Whould be cool to have a short update on terrace progress each episode.

[@randooom2345]

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.

[@randooom2345]

1. Having clients is no argument that a method is scientifically valid. In fact a huge number of people pay for pseudoscientific stuff (homeopathy, etc.) with no evidence of any benefit. 2. Having a positive result is no argument that a method is valid. I could make a wild guess where he should drill to find water and it could be correct. 3. In the video you talk a lot without saying anything.

[@Pechbird]

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?

[@SuperJman991]

I’m a bit torn on it myself. I get what you’re saying, but having stuff growing on the dirt is ultimately going to add more organic material and improve the soil. At least I think it would.

[@worskaas]

​@@SuperJman991yes, it is there to accelerate the grass like plants to generate local mulch for the specific purpose that it is intended for

[@DaDunge]

They're not talking about drilling a well into the open aquifer. But into a confined one beneth it. That said Fossil water is a non renewable resource and once it's gone it gone. It will take thousands of years to come again.

[@b4k4survivor]

@@worskaas makes no sense to deplete confined aquifer water to grow exotics like Elephant Grass. It's a stupid waste of a finite resource. Why not just plant native grass seeds instead and work with rain patterns. Growing a forest in the desert via the depletion of deep groundwater is not the way. Enhancing and cultivating natives that are already adapted to the climate and growing a forest of those using earthworks and local rainfall... THIS IS THE WAY

[@brucebender5917]

when you first drill the well, measure the water depth. Record every gallon that you pull out and periodically go back and measure the water depth in the well.... . . . Seems like important data if your goal is to not deplete the aquifer.

[@NateRidderman]

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.

[@BillionsOfDollarsAreRollingIn]

A well is only for kick-starting the growth and speed it up in the begining temporarily. Sure one can do it without a well, but if a well 10x or 100x your expansion in the same time window, it's dumb not to take advantage of it in my mind.

[@tomatito3824]

This. To me it looks like he's gonna waste the little water that accumulates, grow things that shouldn't grow there, and then cause a massive fire. Even in this episode you can see a lot of native vegetation around he could work with.

[@tlpineapple1]

@@BillionsOfDollarsAreRollingIn Except if his goal is to build the groundwater, hes not exactly making any progress. It would be fine if it was just for his personal use of minor irrigation, but hes talking about so much more. The first issue in this area isnt the lack of vegetation, its the lack of groundwater and available soil. I know everyone wants to see the area green, but his efforts really should be on creating as many water retaining structures as possible. Building a well is just going to pull up what groundwater hes collecting and make no real difference.

[@authorcharlieboring]

When I was a small child, my dad worked at the Consolidated Aircraft Factory in Fort Worth during WWII. We lived in White Settlement. My first memory is at our home there. Later, we moved to Anson, TX, where I was raised.

[@charleslamontagne983]

Merde, well, I want money for a ferrari ! Dont invest in that scammer, maybe a well is what you need but the best indicator for wells is always what the closest wells will tell you.

[@MartinPHellwig]

Having a geological model of your terrain will help you not only extract water from the spots but it will also tell you where you can most effectively place dams to recharge and where not to place structures if you plan on keeping water on the surface for shallow root uptake.

[@DaDunge]

Sure but this does not give him a geological model of his terrain, he need a flyby with a ground penetrating radar for that.

[@StandAndFightSir]

we often come in behind fancy hydrogeological studies that have ended in dry bores. They are way to broad to explain how one well can produce 500 gpm for a pivot farm and less than a hundred yards away the farmer drilled 1000 feet dry. Check out the Kanarraville UT case study on my main website. We just hit project water for a long-stalled commercial project south of Buckeye AZ. We recommended drilling through granite from the surface to 700 feet releasing first water as predicted at 600 feet. Pumping 140 gpm from the small truck so now they are contracting a bigger pump while asking us to the 3D the zone to select the best site for a second, production well. We had a paid client who bought desert land about 2 miles away from Dustups. We stopped by to give a free demo and happened to locate a great structure right off the pad. We do this globally for a wide range of clients from homesteaders to ranchers to large farms to commercial projects, conservancies and municipalities. Just havin' some fun out in the desert, bro! Semper fi, mark

[@bolle666]

Random idea: Could you put a bunch of poles into the ground and install some kind of sun protection fabric over them to get shade for the plants until things got big enough to generate natural shade for anything small starting to grow?

[@AhmedHassan-yc5fb]

There are very strong winds that blow over there. Will blow such a thing away.

[@Moonplant432]

WTF? What planet are you on? Seriously, he's in BFE. Wow.

[@bolle666]

@@AhmedHassan-yc5fb The fabric would have to be insect-screen like, not like a giant sail of course.

[@bolle666]

@@Moonplant432 I only know BFG.

[@arwedgroen]

Aloha ❤ from Germany. It s so amazing what you are doing. Healing mother earth. Good job for nature. 😍🙏

[@Pwn3dbyth3n00b]

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.

[@BarbaraShafferIsagenix]

More like skin walker ranch vibes 😅

[@tomasbrchan]

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.

[@Moonplant432]

@Shawn connect with the Texas Railroad Commission. The have all the data you need. Oil and Gas data too.

[@Moonplant432]

​@@StandAndFightSirOkie dokie. I've drilled for O&G in West Test and New Mexico over the past 30 years. I kinda know what I'm talking about. Shaun, unfortunately, nor you, don't. Good luck my friend.

[@DaDunge]

Why the railroad comission? I figured someone would have maps (cause I happen to have them for the great plains states) but that would not have been my guess.

[@Moonplant432]

​​​@@DaDunge In Texas the Railroad Commission manages oil and Gas lands. Well, as far a permits go, etc. It goes back to the Standard Oil days when oil was moved by rail. Today it is by pipeline. It's one of those Texas anachronisms. We have lots of odd "traditions" here. Regardless, the RRC has terabytes of GIS data. You can get a really good idea of the strata from the data. The Majors and Independents use to develop plays. I'm no expert, but working with those who are is fascinating.

[@roberthicks9191]

Yes