Environmental horizontal wells are commonly designed and installed with prepacked wire-wrapped stainless steel screen to assure proper filter pack. This is especially true of sites where ground water recovery is the goal and the ground water is known to contain hazardous chemicals that may attack screens composed of materials such as polyvinyl chloride.

A lower-cost alternative to wire-wrapped stainless steel prepacked screen is the Roscoe Moss Company Mini-Louver screen. A recent field test, where Roscoe Moss Company collaborated with FlowMole Environmental and Baroid International, produced the first ever successful installation of the Mini-Louver stainless steel screen in horizontal boreholes. The demonstration was conducted for a confidential client in California at a challenging drilling site consisting of unconsolidated dune sands. Two wells, 210 feet and 450 feet in length, were installed below the water table to be used for air sparging at a petroleum-contaminated ground water location.

Mini-Louver screen can be ordered with flush-threaded couplings or welded collar joints. It may be a useful alternative at a number of environmental sites where horizontal wells are proposed.