Monday, October 13, 2008 : 3:10 p.m.

The Dockum Aquifer in Texas: Municipal Replacement for the Ogallala?

Ken Rainwater, Ph.D., PE, BCEE, Texas Tech University and Judy Reeves, Ph.D., PG, Cirrus Associates, LLC

As the water levels in the Ogallala aquifer have declined in many areas of the Southern High Plains of Texas, some municipalities are concerned about the long-term viability of their groundwater supplies.  In addition, the Ogallala water quality in the southernmost counties is often impacted by constituents such as high total dissolved solids, hardness, chloride, arsenic, and perchlorate.  Municipalities using Ogallala groundwater for water supply have traditionally only disinfected prior to use, but as they plan for the future they must consider the new drinking water standards and are likely to add treatment processes.  Another local groundwater source is the Dockum or Santa Rosa aquifer that underlies the Ogallala in this region.  The Dockum aquifer is significantly deeper than the Ogallala, and its water quality is brackish to saline in most of the region.  The Texas Water Development Board has encouraged consideration of the Dockum as a supplemental water supply as desalination technologies have become more affordable.  To date, only limited data is available on the aquifer characteristics and potential productivity of the Dockum.  In this presentation, we discuss the data collection and technological challenges to development of this water source for municipal water supply.

Ken Rainwater, Ph.D., PE, BCEE, Texas Tech University Ken Rainwater is the Director of the Texas Tech University Water Resources Center and a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas and has a B.S.C.E. from Rice University, and M.S.C.E. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Ken has 22 years of experience in water resources and environmental engineering. He teaches courses in environmental engineering, engineering hydrology, water systems design, groundwater hydrology, groundwater contaminant transport, and water resources management. His research expertise includes groundwater quantity and quality, remediation of soil and groundwater contamination, and water resources management.

Judy Reeves, Ph.D., PG, Cirrus Associates, LLC Dr. Reeves has over 15 years of experience performing environmental and water resource projects for both private industry and government. Her water resource management experience includes evaluation of water use by agricultural and industrial users and analysis of the various methodologies used for calculation of volume of water in aquifers. She has managed hundreds of environmental investigations and remediation projects for hydrocarbons and hazardous waste sites, including USTs, oil and gas pipelines, chemical plants, etc. Dr. Reeves is an expert on the Ogallala aquifer and is a coauthor of “The Ogallala Aquifer (of the Southern High Plains).”


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