The concept for the radial collector well was originally used for development of oil using first a
horizontally-drilled borehole into an oil-producing formation, followed by development of a vertical shaft
with multiple horizontal boreholes drilled out laterally into the oil shales. The inventor, a petroleum
engineer named Leo Ranney, first drilled horizontally for oil in the early 1920's in Texas, and then later
in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The theory is that a horizontal borehole could expose more of the borehole to
the producing formation, and thus develop higher quantities of oil for a given well site. As oil prices
in the United States dropped in the 1930's, Mr. Ranney applied this concept to developing water supplies
from alluvial aquifers.
The first Ranney® water collector well was constructed for the London
Water Board in London, England in about 1933. Mr. Ranney then took this technology to Europe before
returning to the United States in 1936 and installing the first water collector well in the country in Canton,
Ohio. Since then , hundreds of Ranney® collector wells have been
constructed all over the world.
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Leo Ranney, petroleum engineer and water pioneer, circa 1927.
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