Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Sep;52 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):3-7.
doi: 10.1111/gwat.12260. Epub 2014 Aug 19.

If groundwater is contaminated, will water from the well be contaminated?

Sandra M Eberts  1
Affiliations

If groundwater is contaminated, will water from the well be contaminated?

Sandra M Eberts. Ground Water. 2014 Sep.
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Location of selected wells having low concentrations of manmade and naturally occurring drinking-water contaminants, typifying different aquifer-well combinations. Woodbury, Connecticut: volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrate, pesticides, uranium, and radon; unconsolidated sediment (sand); mostly oxic conditions; short well screen (10s of feet); and young water in well. Near Tampa, Florida: VOCs, nitrate, pesticides, arsenic, uranium, and radon; carbonate rocks; oxic and anoxic conditions; open hole; and mix of very young and generally young water in well. York, Nebraska: VOCs, uranium, and arsenic; layered unconsolidated sediment (sand); anoxic conditions in confined aquifer; well screen beneath clay confining unit; and mix of young and old water in well.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Simulated water-quality response to widespread contaminant input at the water table in a public-supply well producing water with different age distributions in each of four study areas. (1) Connecticut study well: <15 years between recharge at the water table and discharge at the well; (2) Florida study well: 1 day to 125 years between recharge and discharge; (3) California study well: 10 to 1000s of years between recharge and discharge; and (4) Nebraska study well: mix of water recharged between 10s and 1000s of years before discharge (Eberts et al. 2013).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chapelle FH, Bradley PM, McMahon PB. Lindsey BD. What does “water quality” mean? Ground Water. 2009;47(6):752–754. - PubMed
    1. Eberts SM, Thomas MA. Jagucki ML. The quality of our Nation's waters—Factors affecting public-supply-well vulnerability to contamination: Understanding observed water quality and anticipating future water quality. 2013. U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1385. Reston, Virginia: USGS.
    1. Eberts SM, Böhlke JK, Kauffman LJ. Jurgens BC. Comparison of particle-tracking and lumped-parameter age-distributions models for evaluating vulnerability of production wells to contamination. Hydrogeology Journal. 2012;20(2):263–282.
    1. Einarson MD. MacKay DM. Predicting impacts of groundwater contamination. Environmental Science & Technology. 2001;35(3):67A–73A. - PubMed
    1. Focazio MJ, Reilly TE, Rupert MG. Helsel DR. Assessing ground-water vulnerability to contamination: Providing scientifically defensible information for decision makers. 2002. U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1224. Reston, Virginia: USGS.

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources