Groundwater Monitoring Washington State Department of Ecology

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Groundwater Monitoring- Washington State
Department of Ecology

• July 13, 2007
• Charles F. Pitz
• Washington State Department of Ecology
• Environmental Assessment Program (EAP)

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• Why should we devote resources to assessing
  groundwater conditions?
• Groundwater is a vital natural resource for our
  state
• provides drinking water for gt60 of state
  residents often the sole source
• a major source of industrial and irrigation water
  supply
• groundwater baseflow sustains streamflow during
  biologically critical low flow periods
• dependence on groundwater is rapidly increasing

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• Groundwater is an important, but often
  overlooked, component of the hydrologic cycle
• Groundwater and surface water are in reality an
  interconnected resource
• Groundwater routinely interacts with the surface
  water we spend so much time and money trying to
  rehabilitate
• Groundwater can exert a significant influence on
  surface water quality, quantity, and habitat
  value
• Water management decisions that ignore the
  contributions of, or impacts to, groundwater are
  not sustainable in the long run

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Groundwater Quality

• The cost of repairing groundwater problems is
  very high and in certain cases is simply not
  economically feasible or technically possible
• Large portions of state aquifer systems are
  already contaminated above drinking water health
  criteria (e.g. Columbia Basin, Whatcom Co.)
• There are gt1 million private well owners with
  almost no knowledge about the quality of the
  water they are drinking
• Remember that quality is an important part of
  determining new supply

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• Groundwater Quantity
• In drought years our dependence on groundwater
  rapidly increases (emergency wells)
• Already a number of areas in the state showing
  significant water-level decline
• Recharge patterns, and therefore aquifer storage,
  may be changing (think climate change)
• Growing interest in using state aquifers to store
  and recover water (ASR)
• Groundwater availability will be one of the most
  important natural resource limits dictating the
  future development of the states economy

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Theres clearly a high demand for groundwater in
Washington
Szymarek, 2006
Are we in the middle of a gold rush for more
water?
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• As an agency, we have formal programs to monitor
  and describe ambient conditions for
• air
• fresh surface water quality/temp
• stream flows
• marine water and sediment quality
• fish habitat
• beach health
• toxics in fish tissue
• stream biological conditions
• invasive aquatic plants
• However, despite its high value, and the stress
  on the resource, there is no formal state program
  to monitor and assess larger-scale groundwater
  conditions
• The resources devoted to monitoring groundwater
  conditions are not commensurate with the value of
  the resource to the state

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• Why doesnt the state have a formal groundwater
  monitoring program?
• Out of sight, out of mind
• - groundwater monitoring is expensive work
• The US federal government does not dictate gw
  management or monitoring requirements to states
  like it does other environmental media state
  responsibility
• Currently no explicit state-level legislative
  mandate or funding

What DO our state groundwater scientists work on??
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WA Dept. of Ecology Groundwater Monitoring

• EA Program (agency monitoring branch)
• Groundwater team historically focused on
  client-driven, one-time studies of groundwater
  conditions generally concentrated on water
  quality issues, problem-focused studies
• All data goes to web-based agency database (EIM)

• Over the past 5 years, weve been developing and
  testing a proposal for a formal state Groundwater
  Assessment Program (GAP) A more effective way
  to deliver information about groundwater to those
  who need it?

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Ecology Groundwater Monitoring (cont.)

• Water Resources Program Regional Water Level
  Monitoring Efforts
• Periodically measure water levels in approx. 620
  wells mostly in eastern WA
• Could be characterized as a spare-time effort
  what success weve had is due to the dedication
  of individual groundwater staff in the regions,
  beyond their primary duties
• Essentially 4 different state water-level
  monitoring programs
• Differing levels of sophistication and coverage
• 4 separate databases, not linked
• Difficult to access the information outside of
  each region
• Limited formal standardization and documentation
  of procedures, QA of data
• Starting to deploy automated recording devices on
  a larger scale
• Early discussions about bringing databases
  together into a common format but will be a
  labor intensive effort ()

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• Who else is monitoring groundwater in Washington?
• USGS, private consultants, counties, larger
  municipalities, tribes
• 2002 survey of local monitoring programs
• WDOH Drinking Water Program
• Is the combined monitoring work adequate?
• Wide variety of sophistication, data quality
• Often poorly documented
• Often one-time or short duration event, not
  sustained
• For water quality, often limited list of
  parameters tested
• Not necessarily focused on the data needs of the
  Department of Ecology
• Getting all these organizations to cooperate
  would be a major challenge ()
• GAP Proposal
• one of the reasons why we like this approach is
  it synthesizes

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2002 Survey of Locally-based Groundwater
Monitoring in Washington State
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2002 Local Groundwater Monitoring Survey
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Washington State Department of Health Drinking
Water Program
Often polished water monitoring, not an adequate
substitute for a groundwater monitoring program
goal is focused on quality of water delivered to
the consumer
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• GAP Proposal and Pilot Study
• EAP has proposed a new state groundwater
  monitoring program focused on field-based
  measurement and characterization
• Designed with the business needs of the agency in
  mind, but beneficial for many stakeholders
• Basic measurement and description, provides the
  foundation for decision-making (not a magic
  bullet just a requirement of informed water
  management)
• Comprehensive approach
• Hydrogeologic characterization
• Water quality
• Water levels
• GW/SW interactions
• Local-scale
• Augments, rather than replaces, existing efforts
  (e.g. WR Program water-level monitoring)

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GAP Proposal (cont.)

• Pilot study of approach in Centralia/Chehalis
  area (2003-2005)
• Technical report posted to the web - serves as a
  good example of the sort of product that would
  be generated by a continuing program
• (http//www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/0503040.pdf)
• Lessons-learned report to management also on
  web (with cost estimates of permanent program)
  http//www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/0703008.html

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If you only read one book about water this year