Groundwater Travel Times near Spreading Ponds: Inferences from Geochemical and Physical Approaches
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 13, Issue 11
Abstract
Groundwater travel time is an important criterion for regulating managed aquifer recharge (MAR) operations because of its relationship to water quality. Here, three complementary methods for determining travel times are examined. Sulfur hexafluoride , a gas tracer, was injected into 23 spreading basins at the Montebello Forebay MAR operation (Los Angeles County, United States) and monitored at ten monitoring and 18 production wells within . Over , was detected at nine monitoring and 11 production wells. Travel times showed a significant relationship with depth, but not with horizontal distance or pumping rate. A pumping influence was apparent as the tracer arrived sooner at production wells then at monitoring wells of similar depth. In the unconfined aquifer, estimated hydrogeologic travel times were and agree with the data. However, in the confined aquifers, estimated travel times were and the agreement with the travel times was poor. At the seven production wells with detections, leakage through low permeability layers leading to earlier tracer arrival provides a likely explanation. All tritium/ ages at production wells are greater than ; this data combined with the results indicate the wells produce a mixture of young and old groundwater.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The work could not have been completed without B. Chong of the Water Replenishment District of Southern California who assisted with the planning of the experiment and the collection of well samples. M. Ragland, E. Bloomhagen, and M. Pack helped to collect and analyze the surface and ground water samples. The research was supported by Water Replenishment District of Southern California. This is contribution No. UNSPECIFIED0790 of the Institute for Crustal Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Calif.
References
Avisar, D., and Clark, J. F. (2005). “Evaluating travel times beneath an artificial recharge pond using sulfur hexafluoride.” Environ. Eng. Geosci., 11, 309–317.
Bookman-Edmonston Engineering Inc. (1994). Hydrogeologic assessment and background data for domestic wells within 500 feet of the Montebello Forebay recharge areas, Water Replenishment District of Southern California, Glendale, Calif.
Bouwer, H. (2002). “Artificial recharge of groundwater: Hydrogeology and engineering.” Hydrogeol. J., 10, 121–142.
California Department of Public Health (CDPH). (2007). ⟨www.cdph.ca.gov/certlic/drinkingwater/Pages/Regulations.aspx⟩ (Sept. 2007).
California Department of Water Resources (CDWR). (1961). “Planned utilization of the groundwater basins of the coastal plain of Los Angeles county.” Bulletin 104, Appendix A., Calif.
California SWRCB. (2006). “GAMA program: A comprehensive groundwater quality monitoring program for California.” ⟨http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/gama/⟩.
Clark, J. F., Hudson, G. B., and Avisar, D. (2005). “Gas transport below artificial recharge ponds: Insights from dissolved noble gases and a dual gas ( and ) tracer experiment.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 39, 3939–3945.
Clark, J. F., Hudson, G. B., Davisson, M. L., Woodside, G., and Herndon, R. (2004). “Geochemical imaging of flow near an artificial recharge facility, Orange County, California.” Ground Water, 42, 167–174.
Cook, P. G., and Solomon, D. K. (1997). “Recent advances in dating young groundwater: Chlorofluorocarbons, and .” J. Hydrol., 191, 245–265.
de Jonge, H. G., Kortleve, M. W., and Frapporti, G. (2002). “Sustainable use of aquifers for artificial recharge in South-Holland.” Management of aquifer recharge for sustainability, P. Dillon, ed., Balkema, Adelaide, Australia, 41–48.
Dillion, P. (2005). “Future management of aquifer recharge.” Hydrogeol. J., 13, 313–316.
Donaldson, J. H., Istok, J. D., Humphrey, M. D., O’Reilly, K. T., Hawelka, C. A., and Mohr, D. H. (1997). “Development and testing of a kinetic model for oxygen transport in porous media in the presence of trapped gas.” Ground Water, 35, 270–279.
Drewes, J. E., Heberer, T., Rauch, T., and Reddersen, K. (2002). “Fate of pharmaceuticals during groundwater recharge.” Ground Water Monit. Rem., 23, 64–72.
Fox, P., Narayanaswamy, K., Genz, A., and Drewes, J. E. (2001). “Water quality transformations during soil aquifer treatment at the Mesa Northwest Water Reclamation Plant, USA.” Water Sci. Technol., 43, 343–350.
Fry, V. A., Istok, J. D., Semprini, L., O’Reilly, K. T., and Buscheck, T. E. (1995). “Retardation of dissolved oxygen due to a trapped gas phase in porous media.” Ground Water, 33, 391–398.
Gamlin, J. D., Clark, J. F., Woodside, G., and Herndon, R. (2001). “Large-scale tracing of ground water with sulfur hexafluoride.” J. Environ. Eng., 127(2), 171–174.
Haarhoff, J., and Van de Merwe, B. (1996). “Twenty five years of wastewater reclamation in Windhoek, Namibia.” Water Sci. Technol., 33, 25–35.
Heilweil, V. M., Solomon, D. K., Perkins, K. S., and Ellett, K. M. (2004). “Gas-partitioning tracer test to quantify trapped gas during recharge.” Ground Water, 42, 589–600.
Hiscock, K. M., and Grischeck, T. (2002). “Attenuation of groundwater pollution by bank filtration.” J. Hydrol., 266, 139–144.
Ho, D. T., and Schlosser, P. (2000). “Atmospheric near a large urban area.” Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 1679–1682.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). (2006). ⟨http://isohis.iaea.org⟩ (June 7, 2006).
Istok, J. D., and Humprey, M. D. (1995). “Laboratory investigation of buoyancy-induced flow (plume sinking) during two well tracer tests.” Ground Water, 33, 597–604.
Lester, D., and Greenberg, L. A. (1950). “The toxicity of sulfur hexafluoride.” Arch. Environ. Health, 2, 348–349.
Manning, A. H., Solomon, D. K., and Thiros, S. A. (2005). “ age data in assessing the susceptibility of wells to contamination.” Ground Water, 43, 353–367.
Mansell, J., and Drewes, J. E. (2004). “Fate of steroidal hormones during soil-aquifer treatment.” Ground Water Monit. Rem., 24, 94–101.
Massmann, G., Knappe, A., Richter, D., and Pekdeger, A. (2004). “Investigating the influence of treated sewage on groundwater and surface water using wastewater indicators in Berlin, Germany.” Acta Hydrochim. Hydrobiol., 32, 336–350.
McDermott, J. A. (2006). “Groundwater near the Montebello spreading grounds: Inferences from geochemical and physicals approaches.” MA thesis, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, Calif.
Mills, W. R. (2002). “The quest for water through artificial recharge and wastewater recycling.” Management of aquifer recharge for sustainability, P. Dillon, ed., Balkema, Adelaide, Australia.
National Research Council (NRC). (2007). Prospects for managed underground storage of recoverable water, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 337.
Quast, K. W., Lansey, K., Arnold, R., Bassett, R. L., and Rincon, M. (2006). “Boron isotopes as an artificial tracers.” Ground Water, 44, 453–466.
Schlosser, P., Stute, M., Sonntag, C., and Munnich, K. O. (1989). “Tritiogenic in shallow groundwater.” Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 94, 245–256.
Tufenkji, N., Rayen, J., and Elimelech, M. (2002). “Bank filtration: A simple technology may inexpensively clean up poor-quality raw surface water.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 36, 423A–428A.
Vulava, V. M., Perry, E. B., Romanek, C. S., and Seaman, J. C. (2002). “Dissolved gases as partitioning tracers for determination of hydrogeological parameters.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 36, 254–262.
Water Replenishment District (WRD). (2005). Engineering Survey and Rep., Water Replenishment District of Southern California, Cerritos, Calif., 1–62.
Wilson, R. D., and Mackay, D. M. (1996). “ as a conservative tracer in saturated media with high intraganular porosity or high organic carbon content.” Ground Water, 34, 241–249.
Yates, M. V., and Yates, S. R. (1987). “A comparison of geostatistical methods for estimating virus inactivation rates in ground water.” Water Res., 21, 1119–1125.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: Sep 13, 2007
Accepted: Jun 4, 2008
Published online: Nov 1, 2008
Published in print: Nov 2008
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.