What Is An Aquifer

Public urged to be Sensitive When Using Highway Pond

Public urged to be Sensitive When Using Highway Pond Page Last Updated: Monday June 27, 2011 3:54pm MDT During high water years the aquifer south of Pocatello rises to the surface and this raises the potential for contamination of our drinking water.   That's what is happening this year where the pond is beginning to fill up again. There is a moderate risk right now but not enough to prohibit the public from using the pond for recreational purposes as long as they do so responsibly. After a 21-year old man was caught on camera urinating into a reservoir, the city of Portland responds with what some are calling "the big flush". The city sent 8 million gallons of drinking water down the drain. The city of Pocatello gets its water from the Portneuf aquifer and one of its most vulnerable spots is at the Highway Pond south of the city. In recent years it has been mostly dry but this year it is filling up. "Vulnerable spots are anywhere where there's a thin layer of soil over the aquifer and so anywhere in the southern part of the valley is a lot more vulnerable than the northern part of the valley where there is a lot more ground between the surface and the aquifer that we drink out of," said Hannah Sanger, Environmental Educator for the City of Pocatello. The pond was originally mined in the 1960s when they were building Interstate 15. Through the years it has served the community in different capacities. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was a popular spot for anglers as Idaho Fish and Game routinely stocked the pond with trout. Most of these activities stopped after a homeowner near the pond discovered contamination in his well.  Mining in the area was discontinued ten years ago and ITD has been restoring the land ever since. The area is open to the public but it's important to exercise caution when recreating in this sensitive area.

El Paso beats worst drought in a generation

When Ed Archuleta first arrived in El Paso to manage the local water authority, the cotton barons and cattle men who run this desert city had a blunt message for him. This is Texas , they told him. We don’t do conservation .

It’s a good thing Archuleta didn’t listen. As a record drought scorched America’s south-west this spring , El Paso went 119 days without rain. The Rio Grande, which forms the border with Mexico, shrunk into its banks. An hour’s drive out of town, ranchers sold off their cattle so they wouldn’t have to watch them die.

Archuleta, in his office overlooking a long seam of strip malls, saw no reason for panic – even though, in his words, the amount of precipitation in the first rain this year was about as much as someone spitting on a water gauge.

“We’re going to be fine this summer,” he said. “We’re basically drought -proof.”

The city will be fine next year too, even if it doesn’t rain, and even if the Rio Grande stays low. “We can handle drought next year. Theoretically, even if we have no water in the river, even if there wasn’t a single drop of water coming from the river, we could make it through the summer,” Archuleta said.

Under Archuleta’s lead, El Paso has emerged as a model to other cities in the south-west forced to adapt in a hurry to a world running out of water. The prolonged dry spell and declining snowfalls in the mountains due to climate change are forcing cities in Texas and other areas of the south-west into crisis measures.

This year’s historic drought has for the first time cajoled cities into water rationing. San Antonio banned all fountains and lawn sprinklers. Galveston asked citizens to avoid filling their swimming pools. Odessa, which could drain its main source of ground water by the end of 2012, is thinking of building a reclamation plant.

It’s been a shock awakening. According to some projections, 900 communities in the south-west could go dry by the middle of the century if there is a serious drought. But Texas is a conservative state, and there is reluctance to talk about the extreme events caused by climate change. It is also the only western state that does not have a central authority to manage ground water. In the lone star state, it’s every one for themselves.

“It is basically a pirate’s approach,” said John Matthews, director of fresh water and climate change at Conservation International . “The right of capture is the legal framework. If you’re able to get it, then it’s yours. If you’re on a river and draw all the water, then it’s just tough luck for the people downstream. If you deplete an aquifer on your land and that aquifer serves a much larger area, then it’s just tough luck to the other people.

Hands-on general science activities with real-life applications, ready-to-use labs, projects, & activities for grades 5-12

When it rains, water falls on the recharge zone, the area above an aquifer, and percolates back down to the groundwater. Prelab Questions 1. ...

Ground Water

A 20 cm well completely penetrates an artesian aquifer. ... Assuming equilibrium conditions and a homogeneous aquifer, what is the discharge at 9 m drawdown ...

Practical enhanced reservoir engineering, assisted with simulation software

Water Influx from an Aquifer Many petroleum reservoirs are influenced by water influx and ... In the case of a radial aquifer, it must be noted that water ...

Hydrology, an environmental approach

INTRODUCTION Within any aquifer system the general direction of ground-water flow is from the point of highest water- table elevation (hydraulic head), ...

Groundwater in the environment, an introduction

(a) A schematic cross-section through a system of three aquifers and two ... While aquifer 1 is unconfined throughout the field of view, aquifer 2 is only ...