Virginia
Aquifer Susceptibility
Public water system |
Problem
The
Commonwealth of Virginia is required to develop a program
for assessing public supply source waters to determine their susceptibility
to contamination. The
Commonwealth needs a tool to screen over 1,500 public ground-water supply
systems and to determine which systems need detailed source-water
assessments.
Objective
To
identify the intrinsic natural susceptibility of regional aquifers in
Virginia that serve as public water supplies and to apply this information
in screening public ground-water supplies and identifying those that require
detailed source-water assessments.
Relevance and Benefits
The
results of this study will allow the streamlining and focusing of the
Source-Water Assessment Program of the Virginia Department of Health (VDH)
on public water supply systems that have the greatest natural susceptibility
to contamination from near surface sources. The study will allow the
Commonwealth of Virginia to prioritize source-water investigations and to
devote available resources to water supplies that are potentially most
susceptible to contamination. The apparent ages of ground water provided by
this study will greatly enhance the current understanding of Virginia's
regional aquifer systems and will result in improved management of the
Commonwealth's public water supplies.
Approach
Various
ground-water dating techniques (CFC's, tritium, tritium/helium, and
carbon-14) will be used. Isotopic
and water-quality analyses will be used to aid in the interpretation of age
determinations for approximately 150 sites.
Compilation of existing data on age determinations, hydrogeologic
framework, and well construction. Geochemical
modeling will be used to refine age determinations, especially carbon-14
ages. Age determinations will
be related to the regional aquifers using statistical techniques.
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