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Perhaps 200 times the total annual flow in all rivers is stored in fresh water
aquifers and there are saline and briny aquifers present at depth below many
freshwater aquifers.
Benefits:
Active Aquifers
However aquifer materials are not inert.
Deep Concepts:
Once infiltration has replenished soil moisture and deep percolation has
resulted in groundwater recharge, the water may remain underground for days,
weeks, years, centuries or millennia.
Example: my backyard well water in Las Vegas fell as rain circa 12,000 years
ago.
Where does the tritium come from: nuclear weapons detonations in the
atmosphere?
Aquifer geologic settings:
Soil zone
perched aquifer
aquitard (clay layer)
capillary fridge
water table aquifer
aquitard or aquiclude
confined aquifer
bedrock (aquifuge)
Sources of groundwater recharge:
Infiltration of water from precipitation
Influent streams (or lakes)
Recharge areas are often upland areas or swampy areas with permeable soils
and underlain by unconsolidated deposits (gravels and cobbles).
Discharge:
Discharge can occur from springs, into the bed and banks of streams and
lakes and because of phreatophytes.
In arid areas there is little recharge (less than 1%) in most of U.S. recharge is
about 10% of precipitation.
Balance of nature:
Therefore a water balance can usually be worked out for a river basin.
Groundwater aquifers and river basins are not coincident:
Examples:
New Orleans, water table within a few feet of surface.
In some areas the only aquifer is the unconfined (water table) aquifer but
usually one (as many as 16) other aquifers can occur under the initial aquifer
trapped by aquitards (retard flow) or even aquicludes (preclude flow).
Most water seeps into beds of streams (or lakes or even the oceans).
Significance:
Spring water is often more reliable than base flow water in terms of flow and
quality.
Types of springs:
Contact springs
Fracture springs
Fault-controlled springs
Solution springs
Hot springs.
Contact springs.
Usually located on a hill slope where there is a hallow. Flow is often low and
intermittent. Interflow is a temporary discharge from a contact type spring location
while continual seepage is a true spring.
Fracture springs:
follows fractures in massive rocks like granite or sandstones, can yield large
flows of high quality water. If water in fracture is intercepted or earthquake occurs
spring can dry up.
Solution springs:
Hot springs:
In hot springs gravity is not the only force acting on the water to cause it to
discharge the geothermal heat can cause water to be superheated and discharged in
large quantities at the surface: this can cause huge amounts of dissolved solids
(including valuable minerals) to precipitate and can also be a source of energy.
Examples: Thermopolis Wy, Hot Creek, CA, Coso Hot Springs, CA, Hot
Springs, AR, Wirackie NZ.
The key factors that a hydrologist looks at with respect to any geologic
formation that may serve as an aquifer are:
Porosity
Hydraulic conductivity
Thickness
Uniformity
Stratigraphy
Porosity:
Porosity is the proportion of pore space. The more pores and the more pores
of uniform size, the better the aquifer will be. Unconsolidated rocks at depth can
have 5%-20% plus porosity while sandstones can range from almost zero to 10% or
more porosity.
Primary vs. Secondary Porosity:
Operation Plowshare.
High Porosity usually implies high permeability (and high HC) but if pores
are not connected this may not be the case.
likely to be contaminated.
Most aquifers are made up of alternating layers of water bearing and low
porosity formations:
THICKNESS:
The thicker the aquifer the more water it can yield caterus paribus.
UNIFORMITY:
Geologic materials are never uniform, but the less uniform they are the more
difficult the job of the hydro-geologist. This is particularly true in areas like complex
alluvial environments (old stream channels) and glaciated areas.
Complexity:
In this area (complex alluvial history) and in Ohio and Wisconsin (glaciated
areas) for example.
If the layers are stratified in continuous horizontal beds (strata) then things
are easier, but if the beds are tilted twisted and warped and/or pinch-out, the
situation is complex and the aquifer likely to be less suitable.
Stratigraphy:
The water table aquifer can be easily contaminated; also it never rises above
the ground-surface (except at springs where it intersects the ground surface).
Ideal aquifers:
Glaciated terrain.
Alluvial Valleys.
Ancient Alluvial Valleys.
Alluvial fill in tectonic Valleys.
Glaciated terrain:
Glaciated valleys are complex aquifers.
The porosity depends very much on what part of the glacial till, drift,
outwash, moraine etc you are drilling into. Some glacial till is clay with low porosity
and hydraulic conductivity.
Outwash grades from coarse (good aquifer material) to fine (poor aquifer
material).
Glacial features like buried valleys, eskers, terminal moraines, etc will cause
significant local differences.
Examples:
In upper mid-west and Ohio there are many buried valleys with excellent
high quality confined aquifers in them.
Point bars and the river channel have coarse sediments and form good
aquifer materials.
Many communities extract water from under the beds of rivers, which are
actually in hydraulic contact with an aquifer.
Pumping water from an alluvial valley can often dry up the stream in the
valley, however.
When the aquifer is adjacent to an existing river, figuring out the location
and characteristics of alluvial aquifers is easier.
But when rivers have been wandering all over a gently sloping coastal plane
over the millennia, it makes determining where to drill is an almost random
exercise.
Alluvial fill in tectonic valleys:
Where alluvium filled valleys have been uplifted, or where gravens have
formed, deep valleys form that have thick and often productive aquifers (Las Vegas
is more than 14,000 feet to bedrock). These conditions create some of the best
aquifers in the US.
This tectonic activity traps water that would otherwise drain out, and since
many of these valleys are in the mountainous and semi-arid or very arid West, the
Include the eastern Sierra Nevada and the Las Vegas areas and other valleys
in the Basin and Range.
Frequently, the alluvium is both deep and quite coarse and snow melt helps
recharge these frequently closed basins via seepage through alluvial fans on the
mountain sides.
Sandstone
Karst
Coal and lignite
Sandstone:
Water will seep through sandstone and discharge from springs in the walls of
canyons or move down to aquicludes of low permeability (shales).
Most sandstone areas are not productive, but in of the Colorado Plateau this
is the only water source.
Examples:
The Term Karst refers to limestones with dissolution cavities. This is a very
important and often bizarre type of aquifer. Underground rivers, sink holes that
swallow car dealers (or at least their cars), waterfalls, lakes, weird blind fish and
disappearing rivers all occur in Karst areas.
Good site for a whiskey still:
Karst areas often have productive springs with excellent water quality and
constant flow and temperature.
Locations:
Ozarks, Appalachians, some areas in the West and the Hill country of Texas
is Karst dominated.
Coal and lignite.
Coal and lignite can hold large quantities of water, but unfortunately coal
also has sulfides present that can degrade water quality. Grimes County (at least
around Carlos) has rotten water, since it is coming from a lignite aquifer.
Examples:
Columbia River Plateau and Decan area in India. The discharge from such
areas is likely to be very uniform and the water quality excellent.
Other volcanics:
Deep unconsolidated volcanic ash makes a good aquifer but the water quality
will not be as good as basalt areas. Examples include the Pallouse Plateau in
Washington State.
Welded Ash (tuff) will not retain or transmit very much water.
Porous lava such as present in Hawaii has high porosity but pores may not be
connected, Lava tubes can produce underground rivers much like karst areas.
Water is hard to obtain in such places.
Intrusive igneous rocks:
Fractured granites: Do not hold much water in primary pores, but cracks
can hold and transmit some water.
Since granite is very inert, such water will be of very good quality.
Many famous springs for drinking water are in fractured granite: Such as
Arrowhead Springs in San Bernardino Mountains in CA.
The down side of granite is that fractures are vulnerable to up-gradient wells
and earthquakes,
Also granite can contain uranium so water in some areas like western
Pennsylvania contains radon gas.
Marble:
Narrow Alluvial valleys, shallow soils, limited aquifers, headwater areas for
many rivers.
2. Alluvial Basins:
Mountain bordered alluvial valleys.
Like:
Owens Valley,
Central Valley of California
Las Vegas Valley
San Gabriel Valley.
Large very important aquifers.
3. Volcanics.
Fractured basalt,
Buried valleys productive in an otherwise arid area.
Eastern Oregon and Washington (Columbia Plateau) is largest area.
Many Indian Reservations (Palefaces didnt want the land in 19th century)
5. High Plains:
Thick Alluvial Deposits over sedimentary rocks:
Excellent aquifers but recharge is modest.
Ogallala is most famous aquifer in this region.
Also Dakota Sandstone.
Where carbonate rocks are present this area can provide good aquifers, also
ancient alluvium can be productive.
Valleys contain most productive aquifers where carbonate rocks are present
can have good aquifers.
9.Northeast and superior uplands:
New England and Lake Superior area (surface water is abundant). Granite
shield rocks are pre-Cambrian.
Rocks are unproductive but gravel filled valleys can yield water.
But sink holes, salt water intrusion and shallow groundwater can be a
problem.
Mostly in Florida.
Bamboo Drilled wells in china to 2,500 feet over 2,000 years ago.
Hand dug wells.
Ass powered wells.
ISSUES FOR ANY WELL.
LOCATION.
DESIGN.
INSTALLATION
OPERATION
ABANDONMENT.
Water Well Location Dos
Tap productive aquifers.
locate near users
locate near power
drill as shallow as possible
Water well location Don'ts
Avoid zones of surface water pollution related contamination
Avoid areas of sub-surface contamination
Avoid areas of subsidence
Around Huntsville this is the typical situation. Wells a few hundred feet apart
will have totally different properties: Some deliver large quantities of good water
others fill up with sand or have little yield of rotten water. It all depends on luck.
Science has little to do with it since the stakes are not high enough to use seismic or
other subsurface mapping techniques. So it is hit or miss.
Drill under a tree or on the shady side of a barn or next to an ice house with
cold beer on tap.
Typical design :
Gravel pack, screen, pump, casing, grout or cement and surface plug and cap
and pipe are typical set-up.
The well diameter and screened interval and screen characteristics impose
maximum production limits.
Caterus paribus a larger diameter, slot size and longer screened interval
produce more water.
Augured wells are of limited depth and can only be used in unconsolidated
materials.
Drilled wells can very deep and drilled in hard rock can be air rotary or
reverse rotary using a drilling mud.
Jetted & augered are cheapest methods work only in shallow unconsolidated
materials.
Drilled wells use a rotary bit but the variations involve how cuttings are
removed.
norm.
Depth of wells:
Most groundwater is obtained from wells less than 500 feet deep and almost
all wells are less than 2,000 feet deep.
As the well is being drilled a geologist should note the texture and other
characteristics of each layer and prepare a well log.
electric (resistively) log: wet soil is more conductive than dry soil.
Measure both water content and porosity. Each is fallible so both are
combined.
Well tests:
Once a well is installed and developed it is typically tested.
Hydro-geologists spend a lot of their time in the field performing well tests.
The basic tests are pump tests.
There are also slug tests
Pump Tests:
A graph of time pumping rate and time versus draw-down are developed to
estimate safe yield of the well. A monitoring well (or more than one) can be a very
useful part of this.
A known quantity of water is pumped into the well and the rise and fall in
water levels are recorded.
This is accomplished by pumping the well to remove silt and sediment inside
the casing then using a surge block or compressed air hose to push sediment out of
the slotted screen and into the gravel pack.
Temperature,
Conductivity.
pH.
Dissolved oxygen
Also taste and odor.
Lab parameters:
TDS,
Hardness,
Alkalinity,
pH.
D.O.,
General minerals: Na, Cl, Mg, Fe, Ca, Mn,
HCO3, H2CO3, SO4, SO2.
Advanced lab analysis:
required if contamination is suspected or for public water supply wells:
Or reduced yield.
Also flow must be adjusted to required water delivery rate and pressure.
Over aeration can promote growth of iron and manganese oxidizing bacteria
that form a slime that gunks up a well. Chlorination is needed,
Well components may need to be oiled and cleaned periodically. Bearings and
impellers wear out.
Well failures:
Casing can blow-out requiring pulling the casing and resetting it.
Wells can sand up or screen or gravel pack can get clogged (re-develop well).
Down hole Video now more common.
Insects (ants particularly) can get in wells.
If air bladder tank is used the bladder may need to be replaced.
Hard water will cause scale, so softening and de-scaling with salfamic acid
may be needed.
This requires pumping cement into the well or dropping bentonite grout
down it. The upper 10 feet of casing should be removed and a hole out at least 5 feet
filled with cement.
20,000 plus solid waste landfills, most not built in compliance with RCRA.
Most of the 20,000 plus dumps existing in 1976 are now closed but their
legacy will continue for decades in form of groundwater pollution and wasted land.
Can old dumps be reused: Yes for parks, golf courses and buildings.
Example: Cave Creek County Club.
LUST:
LUST stands for Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (also LUFT) with over
4 million tanks mostly holding fuel oil or gasoline many tanks or associated piping
have leaked(estimated at 1/3). Usually LUST is first a groundwater contamination
problem but due to discharge of aquifers this can get in surface water.
Industrial facilities
Most contamination due to losses from pipes and tanks of chemicals, solvents
and hydrocarbons.
Also nitrites derived from animal wastes is a major problem for rural wells
near feedlots.
Light non-aqueous phase liquids like gasoline, benzene, jet fuel will float on
the water table.
phase.
Behavior of DNAPLs
Dense non-aqueous phase liquids such as TCE and other chlorinated solvents
will sink rapidly.
Nitrites
Pesticides
Landfill leachate
Heavy metals
Radio-nuclides
Most groundwater protection is indirect (clean water act (CWA), & RCRA)
but Underground Injection Control Program (UIC) program provides direct
protection.
Typically at least one up-gradient and three down- gradient. More for nonpoint source.
Since water in formation, not in well is desired three well volumes are
pumped out with an external pump or temporary submersible pump.
Tape
Popper
Pressure transducer.
Monitoring wells are only used occasionally (usually every 3 months) but
they can get slime like other wells so may need chlorination.
Monitoring Well Abandonment
Assessment
Modeling
Design and installation
Operation
Monitoring
Closure.
Assessment
Requires data from soils, recharge, depth, aquifer transmissivity and any
boundary conditions to be known.
Some sites can be definitively cleaned some may need to have long term
monitoring following active clean-up.
Closure.
If monitoring reveals that plume has been abated then site may be closed
with no further action required.
Many sites that remain open still can be used for other activities but access
to treatment systems or monitoring wells must be maintained.
Remediation methods
Monitoring/natural attenuation
Pump and dispose
Pump and treat by air stripping
Pump and treat by aqueous carbon filtration
Air sparging/bio-venting
In-situ enhanced bio-remediation
Use a 57 chevy
Monitoring/natural attenuation
Least costly alternative merely monitor and model plume and show that due
to dispersion, absorption and bioremediation the concentration of contaminants will
be diminished below action levels prior to reaching wells, springs, etc.
Drums are placed in series, flow of contaminants from 1st drum n series is
tested for when contaminants seep from 1str drum it is replaced by 2nd and a clean
drum added at end.
Air sparging/bio-venting
Air is bubbled down into well or pumped into contaminated soil.
This flushes volatile contaminant up through and out of the aquifer.
Works for TCE near surface and for residual gasoline contamination of soil
Creates air pollution possible explosion hazard,
Works badly in clay soil, well in sand,
Heads:
Head refers to a height above some reference level.
Head differences are the driving force causing groundwater flow.
Water flows from higher to lower head.
Driving Force:
Since elevated things have more potential energy than lower ones, head
relates to the gravitational potential energy which is a driving force for flow.
In a water table aquifer, the head is the elevation of the water surface above
sea level.
Heads above the rest:
The difference between the top of the water table at one point and at another
point is a head difference in a water table aquifer.
The head difference divided by the distance between the measuring points
(rise over run) is a slope called a
Gradient.
Groundwater will flow from an area of higher head to an area of lower head
(just as surface water flows downhill).
Aquifers transmit water. The speed at which water flows in an aquifer is the
hydraulic conductivity.
Units of HC:
The most common units for HC are CM/SEC. Also M/day, Ft/Day.
The higher the HC, the faster water will flow through the formation and
Caterus Paribus the more water the formation can yield to a well in a given period of
pumping.
Tortuosity
A measure of how much torture devices hurt you
The property of the porous media that causes this complex path is the
tortuosity.
In an entire aquifer, the complex pattern of flow gets equalized and flow can
be assumed to follow straight paths, perpendicular to the contours of the
groundwater table elevation.
Stream-lines:
The reason these flow lines are perpendicular to the groundwater elevation
contours is that the elevation is a measure of the force (gravity) that is driving the
flow.
So if one can draw a groundwater contour map, one can determine the
direction of groundwater flow.
A single well allows a point to be drawn, two a line, three a plane, so at least
four wells are needed for contours.
Implications:
So areas with higher elevations have higher groundwater tables. Also,
streams and ponds are usually in contact with the water table, at least during base
flow conditions.
The rate at which groundwater will flow through an aquifer is the hydraulic
conductivity it is estimated by use of the single most important equation in
groundwater hydrology
pipe.
So
Transmissivity:
However, aquifers are not of uniform, they have variable HC, gradients and
cross sectional area.
This is the quantity of water that a given aquifer can transmit. It is the
average hydraulic conductivity times the average thickness of the aquifer.
Estimating transmissivity:
There are recharge areas that are generally where porous rock, sand or soils
outcrop or areas where streams and ponds and wetlands are present.
Out of there:
There are discharge areas where springs appear, where streams are fed by
exfluent flow and also the ocean.
The storage coefficient is a measure of how much water can be gotten out of
an aquifer.
Specifically, it is the drop in head per unit surface area for a given quantity of
water that has been pumped out.
The more transmissive the aquifer, the less the head will fall for a given flow
of water being pumped out.
Cone of Depression:
What sitting through more boring lectures on groundwater will drive you into
Cone of Depression:
This is not undesirable, rather it is the increasing slope of the water table that
draws water into the well to continue to feed the pump.
Steep & Deep:
Super-position.
Two (or more wells) in close proximity will
Have cones of depression that overlap.
Multiple wells are put in, because production from a single well can be
limited and because distribution facilities are costly and recharge sources, aquifers,
etc may have multiple locations that can have great local differences.
The challenge is to operate the wells so as to produce the most water with the
least cost.
Well monitoring:
Wells should be checked periodically to determine:
Depth to groundwater,
Water quality,
Production rate,
Time/draw-down.
Down-hole video is now common.
Groundwater Laws Requiring Monitoring:
Safe Drinking Water Act SDWA requires yearly tests for most municipal wells.
meter.
Well-head protection:
This refers to a program of controlling landuse and remediation and survey
Most groundwater protection is indirect (clean water act (CWA), & RCRA)
but Underground Injection Control Program (UIC) program provides direct
protection.
CHARACTERISTICS:
Vulnerable to overdraft.
Home of Satans catfish and other weird, wonderful and white creatures.
Protected in Nebraska Kansas and Colorado but not very well in Texas
where it is most threatened
Story of 6 aquifers:
Santa Barbara
Goleta
Santa Maria
Lompoc
San Antonio Creek
Cayuma Valley.
Santa Barbara:
Small aquifer provides 30% of water for city of 100,000.
Supplemented by rain fed reservoirs in the mountains.
Contaminated by TCE
Overdrafted, but protected by fault from salt water intrusion.
During drought strange things happened:
Well permits (bring your lawyer)
Goleta.
Santa Maria
Sandy alluvial plateau, easy recharge easy contamination.
Twitchell Dam and conjunctive use of surface water
Contamination from oil and gas and hazardous waste dump.
Agricultural conversion, growth center of county.
Lompoc:
1952.
Examples:
San Jose area, CA.
FT. Stockton, TX.
2) Water that formally flowed in streams and surface water features may be
drawn into the aquifer and the well.
Thus over-drafting a well can dry up not only the aquifer but streams
flowing over the area underlain by the aquifer.
Salt water intrusion
Subsidence
When the water pressure in the aquifer is reduced the pressure holding the
clay layers apart is also reduced and the clays are compressed by the weight of
overlying sediments.
Examples of subsidence:
Eastern San Joaquin Valley, CA.
Arizona.
Brownwood and other areas along ship channel in Houston area, Jersey
Village & north-west Harris County
Venice, Italy
Mexico City.
Las Vegas Groundwater management
Use of both surface and groundwater
Conservation program
Groundwater injection program
Well fields:
To exploit groundwater, frequently more than one well will be placed into an
aquifer.
Contamination at Nellis AFB Nevada