VILLANOW, Ga. -- A well being drilled in south Walker County was halted Thursday because it unexpectedly caused the ground around it to begin sinking.

County officials had authorized the drilling of the well in an attempt to find water to relieve the thirsty community of Villanow.

“This is one of the problems that can sometimes occur with a shallow well of this type,” Walker County Coordinator David Ashburn said.

A sinkhole can be caused by the displacement of the water beneath it, he said.

The area where the cavity began to appear was located on Ga. 136, near the Villanow Fire Station.

Evidence of the cavity was minimal, with cracks in the asphalt at the fire station entrance as the most visible sign.

Ashburn said crews hit water at the site at only 180 feet.

Ashburn said the city of LaFayette faced a similar occurrence a few years back when it began drilling for a new well south of the city on Lee School Road.

“Old Trion Highway had a huge sink in it. We probably put 30 truckloads of gravel in it,” Ashburn said.

Ashburn said the new well could potentially be good news for the community, which must rely on personal wells for water.

“At about 180 feet, we hit good water that was pumping about half-a-million gallons a day on a six-inch line,” Ashburn said. “Then we went deeper and hit a couple of more pockets that were estimated to be pumping at about 50 gallons per minute. The well has the potential of being an aqueduct for this area on this side of Taylor’s Ridge.”

For years County Commissioner Bebe Heiskell has sought a solution for the lack of water available to residents in Villanow. Most recently she went to Washington, D.C., to talk to federal lawmakers about funds that had been promised North Georgia that would provide for infrastructure to be created that could pump water into the community from other wells located across the county. So far Congress hasn't released the money.

“As a part of Bebe’s commitment to try and get water in the Villanow area, this is the second well we have drilled,” Ashburn said. “First we drilled in a field off Manning Mill Road about four years ago. That well didn’t have adequate flow. Now off West Cove Road here in the valley, a private citizen drilled a well that is flowing and is owned by them. We are trying to work with them with that well, but the intention here was that if we had both wells we would have plenty of water for the area.”

The county owns the parcel of land where the second well is being drilled.

Ashburn said the decision to attempt the second well was based on a geological study that was recently conducted where an underground aquifer was located in neighboring Gordon County that appeared to flow in the direction of Villanow.

“What we have seen so far is that the well could potentially supply Villanow along with the Walker of portion of Armuchee Valley. We think it might have enough flow to do that,” Ashburn said.

“We would have loved to have hit a five-million-gallon hole because, if we did, we could sell water to Chattooga County, Gordon County and Whitfield County,” Ashburn said. “Whitfield is hurting for water. We could run main lines to it and connect it and put a meter on it and then your helping the whole region.”

Ashburn said the county would not abandon this second well.

“We’ll seal off this shallow end and then begin to drill deeper to see if we can hit something better at the bottom,” Ashburn said. “We have already made the decision to go down more than 560 feet because that is where the Gordon County well hit water that is now supplying about six million gallons of water a day.”

Ashburn said the process of developing such a well, “one of the things you do is, once you drill a well, is let it set. Then you come in and put in a pump to begin flowing the water. That is what they were doing when the sinkhole cavitation appeared. They are flowing large volumes of water to allow it to pump the bad water out over an extended period of time to get to the clear water. Then you test it to see of the well is under the pressure of service water or not. If it is, then we have to build a million dollar treatment plant that won’t be cost effective. If it isn’t, then we add chlorine and fluoride and just start pumping it out.”

Ashburn said county road crews would repack the area that began to crack from the displacement of the water and resurface the asphalt.

Ashburn said the county plans to start redrilling the well in the next week or so depending on when the crews were available.