Bay State Groundwater Forum: Alphabetical Content Listing
2013 William A. McEllhiney Distinguished Lecture Series in Water Well Technology — Keeping the Pump Primed: Aquifer Sustainability
John Jansen, P.G., P.Gp., Ph.D.
Discussion: Should local states regulate the amount of water people use?
Kathryn J. Butcher, CMP
Ensuring Wise Use and Management of the Commonwealth’s Bedrock and Alluvial Aquifers and Meeting the Challenges Posed by Climate Variability and Long-Term Change (cont.)
Cape Cod’s Wastewater Management Challenge and 208 Plan Update
Tom Cambareri
Cape Cod is challenged to clean up impaired coastal water quality resulting from excess nitrogen loading from septic systems. There are 57 separate watersheds to coastal embayments that are defined by groundwater flow. Wastewater from only 3% of the developed 133,000 parcels on Cape Cod presently receives advanced treatment. The estimated volume of untreated wastewater from on-site septic systems is 9.5 billion gallons per year, of which residential use accounts for 82%. Total maximum daily loads established to restore coastal water quality indicate that an average of 54% of the septic nitrogen load will need to be reduced from watersheds to impaired waters. The wastewater flow required to be collected from the impaired watersheds is estimated at 3.2 billion gallons per year. The cost of conventional infrastructure to achieve that goal is estimated to be $4 billion to $8 billion dollars. The magnitude of the projected costs has challenged Cape Cod’s regional and municipal governments to investigate and implement innovative wastewater solutions that are affordable and sustainable over immediate and long-term time scales. The Cape Cod Commission has recently been designated as the 208 planning agency to lead the development of an appropriate response to the regional wastewater challenge. Therefore the commission will be conducting a watershed-based planning approach that includes the development of a wastewater management planning tool called the Watershed/Multi-Variant Planner. Watershed MVP combines interactive mapping, land-use and water-use data, and general cost information in a flexible application that enables the user to develop wastewater management scenarios to evaluate their cost-effectiveness in achieving water-quality objectives. Watershed MVP is a web-based scenario planning application that will allow technical experts and the general public to generate and compare wastewater management alternatives at neighborhood, watershed, and subregional scales.
Defining Groundwater Flow and Transport to Help Reduce Nitrogen Discharge to Cape Cod’s Coastal Waters
Denis R. LeBlanc
Development and Implementation of the National Groundwater Monitoring Network in the Bay State
Robert P. Schreiber, PE, BCEE, D.WRE
Groundwater a strategic resource when dealing with the climate change in the Czech Republic
Eva Novotna
With the accession of the Czech Republic into the EU and the implementation of EU legislation in the field of water management, in particular the Framework Directive on Water Policy 200/60/EC, the Czech Republic has undertaken the assessment of the quantitative status of hydrogeological units. Thus, in 2005 there was made a new version of the hydrogeological zoning of the Czech Republic, where they have been defined territorial units with identical natural conditions. Hydrogeological zones are conceived as the basic unit for the water balance and evidences of groundwater.
For the above reasons, the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic, with financial support from the EU, initiated a project which is focused on a new assessment of the natural resources of groundwater in 56 major water resources units. Its aim is to provide the sources of strategic planning to national authorities. Similarly, as in the case of energy resources, the project will provide data on the degree of self-sufficiency of the Czech Republic on water resources and develop different scenarios for the future development of water management policy.
Ensuring wise use and management of the Commonwealth’s bedrock and alluvial aquifers and meeting the challenges posed by climate variability and long-term change
Impacts of Climatic Variability on Groundwater Resources of Massachusetts
David F. Boutt, Ph.D.
This presentation gives a detailed synthesis of instrumental records of groundwater level fluctuations in response to climate and land-use change in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Massachusetts is extremely fortunate to have a tremendous wealth of long-term monitoring sites (perhaps the greatest density of sites in the U.S.) that allow a robust spatial and temporal analysis of water level change due to droughts and floods. A statewide analysis of streamflow, climatic information (such as precipitation and air temperature), and groundwater level data yields important information concerning the coupling of surface water to groundwater. Groundwater tends to be disconnected from surface water during major droughts, implying that these systems can be temporally distinct even in a humid-temperate climate. Trend testing results using the seasonal Mann-Kendall test suggest that the majority of the state has higher water levels in the 2000s compared to reference levels in the 1960s. A significant amount of variability exists in the sensitivity of water level to yearly and decadal climate variability. From this data we develop maps of sensitivity of groundwater levels to differing climatic conditions and postulate on the impacts of increasing levels of precipitation on the hydrologic response of aquifers. This sensitivity is strongly influenced by subsurface heterogeneity and should be included in decision support tools used for coupled surface water/groundwater management Recommendations for future monitoring and water management scenarios are provided in the context of this spatially and temporally distributed water level analysis.
The Federal Advisory Committee on Water Information and How It Benefits the Bay State
Robert P. Schreiber, PE, BCEE, D.WRE
The Federal Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI) and its several subcommittees perform many functions of significant relevance and usefulness for the Bay State and its sister New England states and beyond. ACWI subcommittees tackle topics ranging from water quality methods development, to reservoir sedimentation, bulletins providing guidance for hydrologic analysis, remote sensing for water resources and hydrologic characterization, water resource sustainability, and design and implementation of nationwide water monitoring networks. These are only a few of the dozens of activities and initiatives conducted through ACWI that all groundwater professionals in the Bay State should be aware of. Therefore, this presentation will provide a description of each ACWI subcommittee while focusing specifically on the activities and initiatives of greatest relevance to groundwater in the Bay State and New England. In addition, the process for getting involved will be explained, including highlighting the most pressing current needs, such as the prioritization of federal monitoring in the face of shrinking budgets.
Keynote Address: Small Aquifers — Challenges and Opportunities
John Wilson, Ph.D.
Maintaining Streamflows and Water Supplies in Stressed Basins with Substantial Groundwater Use
David F. Boutt, Ph.D.
Protecting A Drinking Water Aquifer and an Estuary System A Massachusetts Contingency Plan Success Story
Anthony Urbano, P.E.
While MassDEP focused its efforts on ensuring that the private wells were not impacted, the facility and its licensed site professional were also able to conduct additional assessment without MassDEP approval. Within one year of notification, more than 100 monitoring wells were installed and the extent of the 7000- by 1000-foot-wide plume was defined. The highest concentrations of tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene were 940 and 1100 micrograms per liter (μg/L), respectively.
Source area sparging and soil vapor extraction reduced the concentration of solvents to background. A permanent solution for the facility property was filed with MassDEP on February 16, 2000. Groundwater treatment systems were installed 1500 feet and 3500 feet downgradient of the facility. The first operated for four years, the second for nine years. Both systems shut down when influent concentrations dropped below the cleanup standard of 5 μg/L. In 2012-2013 the concentration of solvents throughout the plume dropped below the cleanup standards.
The flexible semi-privatized program, with its defined cleanup standards, allowed MassDEP to focus on risk reduction efforts and gave the licensed site professional the ability to conduct expedited assessment/remedial measures and ultimately achieve cleanup.
Stormwater Recharge Effects on Groundwater Levels in Boston's Groundwater Conservation Overlay District
John Kastrinos
To assess the effects of stormwater recharge through engineered structures (dry wells, infiltration trenches), probability-time curves were constructed for the BGWT database of more than 700 shallow observation wells for nine years of water level monitoring data (2004-2013). Over this time period, more than 180 recharge systems were installed in various areas of the city per the GCOD requirements. To assess changes in the data distribution over time, the percentage of data points falling below elevations 5, 4, and 3 BCB (Boston City Base) were plotted. These elevations were selected because El. 5 is a common pile cutoff elevation in some areas where wood-pile-supported structures and engineered recharge systems are common.
Based on trend lines fitted to the probability plots for the three elevations, groundwater levels in the GCOD have generally increased over the period of 2004-2013 (over time, smaller percentages of the data are at El. 5 and below). Some of the declining probability may be due to higher annual rainfall that occurred in 2008, 2010, and 2011; however, the probability curves generally do not respond inversely to rainfall. Accordingly, the declining probability is likely due in part to stormwater recharge in engineered recharge systems within the GCOD.
Protecting Groundwater Resources and Ecosystem Health from the Adverse Impacts of Disposal Practices in Upland and Coastal Areas
Ken Gaynor, CGWP, CWD
Effluent Recharge to Groundwater and Wastewater Planning – Finding Acceptable Recharge Sites
Karilyn Heisen, P.E.
For Cape Cod communities, collection of wastewater and recharge to groundwater may be the best alternative to meet requirements of the total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for nutrients developed as part of the Massachusetts Estuary Program (MEP). Identifying appropriate sites for groundwater recharge faces many regulatory and technical challenges. Locations are limited by availability of land and regulatory constraints. The sole source aquifer on Cape Cod provides good recharge capacity, however, since it is the source for drinking water, locations must be identified which do not impact the existing water supply wells. Locations must also take into account nitrate loads which already exist in the watershed and TMDLs for downstream rivers and embayments in order to meet the requirements of the MEP. Once a potential site was identified as part of the CWMP process, groundwater modeling was used to understand the recharge capacity of the site and limitations due to flow and nutrient impacts on adjacent wetlands, streams and cranberry bogs. The Town of Harwich recently completed a draft CWMP and Expanded Environmental Notification Form. The Town of Yarmouth has completed a final CWMP and the project is awaiting funding.
Limiting Water Quality Impacts Due to Large Scale Blasting
Charles Crocetti, PhD, PG
Municipal officials were very concerned about the potential impact to the town’s water supply wellfield located 3000 feet away from the site, given the project’s magnitude. These concerns were further heightened due to several highly publicized incidents of blasting impacts to drinking water wells in southern New Hampshire over the past five years. Because of the level of concern about the proposed blasting, a blasting and water quality monitoring program, which we believe is one of the most rigorous in the country to date, was developed and implemented in concert with the town and its hydrogeological consultant. The water quality monitoring program included pre-construction monitoring and monthly monitoring, for approximately 24 months of construction, of 17 monitoring wells and five surface water locations for a broad list of parameters. Semi-annual monitoring for up to five years after construction is ongoing.
With blasting completed in November 2011, as of the date of this abstract only very limited exceedances of the project groundwater or surface water quality criteria potentially attributable to blasting have been observed at the site. These were limited to short-term nitrate exceedances in the vicinity of a blasting “misfire,” and the observed nitrate concentrations quickly returned to within project water quality criteria.
Modernization of Groundwater Protection Area (Zone II) Delineations: A Case Study
Brent V. Aigler
The Zone II of an aquifer is defined as the area of the aquifer that contributes water to a well under the most severe pumping and recharge conditions. The Massachusetts Division of Water Supply (DWS) definition of the most severe conditions is a groundwater-supply well pumping at its designed safe yield for 180 days in the absence of recharge from precipitation. Since the mid-1980s, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has identified or approved wellhead protection areas (WHPAs) for public groundwater resources, one of which is Zone II. The delineation of Zone II and other WHPAs included conceptual desktop studies, meaning that the boundaries were drawn using topography, historic geologic mapping, and simplified analytical calculations. Conceptual Zone II delineations often resulted in little or no consideration to the position of the water table relative to the stratigraphy of the basin in question. In this study, we incorporate a more rigorous and integrated field and numerical modeling approach to Zone II delineation. This modernization decreases uncertainty and provides a more defensible hydrologic interpretation of an aquifer’s response to stress. We use data and software in the public domain to supplement the integrated approach, including the Massachusetts’ Sustainable Yield Estimator (SYE), which calculates daily upstream and downstream flows of a watershed using a referenced, gauged basin. The results illustrate the importance of more rigorously evaluating the saturated thickness of aquifer materials during Zone II delineation. The framework offered by this case study presents a model to develop cost-effective and technically defensible modernization of existing conceptual Zone IIs.
Three-Dimensional Plume Evaluation to Restore a Sole Source Glacial Aquifer in Western Cape Cod
Grady Dante
The site-specific modeling framework encompasses a subregional model cut from the Western Cape Cod regional groundwater model developed by the U.S. Geological Survey. Evaluation of several historic groundwater flow models constructed for the CIA within the MMR showed that changes to the model domain size, domain orientation, and application of boundary conditions significantly affected simulated groundwater flow. Also, due to the hydrogeologic aquifer characteristics and resulting groundwater flow regime, mapping horizontal and vertical plume extents, even with the extensive monitoring well network that exists, has presented challenges.
This study focused on (1) evaluating groundwater model configurations to develop a comprehensive tool to design and evaluate the remedial action and to predict future plume characteristics during remediation, and (2) developing a process to better predict and interpolate contaminant plume extents with a greater level of certainty.