Water Well Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/681918
It matters, in ways big and small, to the country, economy, quality of life, safety, and communities. "Even though groundwater and the subsurface environment is not visible, we rely on it daily," says NGWA CEO Kevin McCray, CAE. "The essential products and services of this unseen nat- ural infrastructure must be managed and protected to sustain the well-being of the nation." NGWA has created a five-step guid- ance for public supply well operators to use in collaborating with consulting hy- drologists and water well system profes- sionals to maximize their systems' water and energy efficiency. An estimated 262,000 public water supply wells rely upon the natural stor- age of water in aquifers. Transmission of groundwater to their wells' intakes is used by 137,900 public systems serving a combined 102.6 million Americans. While the nation's civil engineers grade the nation's overall drinking water infra- structure with a "D," these water wells work every day to supply essential water. Improved well pump designs and controls are lowering energy needs for these wells, too, helping to make well systems one of the nation's most afford- able infrastructure projects. Groundwater and wells serve other critical needs across America as outlined below. Supply and production infrastructure • Stream baseflow is maintained by 492 billion gallons per day of groundwater discharge through streambeds to supply larger public water systems using surface water, providing inland river navigation and commerce to support ecosystems. • The nation's food supply (and some of the world's) relies on more than 400,000 irrigation wells dependent upon the storage and transmission of groundwater through aquifers with- out a vast infrastructure network. • More than 13 million occupied household wells rely on the natural storage and transmission of ground- water without an extensive central- ized water distribution system. • An estimated 500,000 ground source heat pump installations exchange heat, often with groundwater, effi- ciently reducing dependence on ex- tensive pipe networks for fuel to heat homes and buildings. Storage in natural subsurface reservoirs • Aquifers around the nation store groundwater for 13 million house- holds, 137,000 public (community and noncommunity) water systems, and 121,000 irrigated farms without extensive collection and distribution pipes and vast surface storage areas. • Hundreds of aquifer storage and re- covery sites store water supplies nat- urally in the Earth for future use. Water watchdogs • Thousands of groundwater monitor- ing wells are in place across the country to ensure groundwater is safe to drink, usable for crop irrigation and manufacturing processes, and managed to provide sufficient quan- tity and quality of water for a large range of products and services, in- cluding ecosystem support. Unfortu- nately, the nation still lacks a fully equipped, integrated, and funded National Ground-Water Monitoring Network to sustain and grow this diligence. Coordinated by a steering committee representing America's business, labor, NEWS continues on page 14 Twitter @WaterWellJournl WWJ June 2016 13