All this talk of screens and such has me pondering water screening, which I
recall only using once up in NY.  We pumped water out of the nearby ditch
and all it did was more quickly freeze the cold soil into a giant mass of
glacier-like ice on the screens.  (that was the same site that Marty
Pickens set up a small tent so he could dig all winter, only to find that
the warm humid air in tent condensed on the colder tent fabric and it
rained on him all day long!)

Anecdotes aside (I'm starting to sound like George M.!) I did refrained
from using water sifting on one site because it would have created a great
morass that would not have gone over well with the land owner.  It also
would not have been feasible to take the soil back the lab for sifting.

How does one logisticize (?) water screening in those situations where the
soil needs to go back into the hole, where there is little drainage, or
there are other problems ...?

        Dan W.