Jake and Laurel perform a well drawdown test on Appledore Island to understand how much water is feeding the well.
What 'Well' We do?
Water must be pretty easy to come by on Appledore, right? I mean, it's an island! Well, if you're talking about saltwater, you'd be right! It literally surrounds us. Freshwater? Now that's a completely different story.
One of the biggest challenges at Shoals Marine Lab (SML) is the delicate balance between freshwater use and its availability.
Shoals relies on one, 20-ft. primary dug well for potable water. This well that provides freshwater for students and staff to shower and flush toilets (in the dorms currently) and supplies the island with clean drinking water. As you can probably tell, the well is extremely important for sustaining us on Appledore!
As long as the island gets ample rain over the summer season, the well can provide enough freshwater to support our island life. But, one must always have a backup, especially when the well is running low due to a drought, or lack of rainfall. In our case, that backup is to revert to desalinization, or reverse osmosis, which is an energetically intensive process powered by a large diesel generator. Shoals tries to be as sustainable as possible, so falling back to diesel generators is our last resort!
SML has already taken huge steps towards conserving our precious freshwater. We limit showers to two times per week for students/staff and ask that showers be "military style" with the water only running when rinsing off. The Shoals community also follows the "yellow let it mellow" and "brown flush it down" rules in the dorms (which have regular flushing toilets instead of composting toilets). These freshwater conservation strategies have reduced freshwater use from the average 100 gallons per person per day on the mainland, to just 20 gallons per person per day here on Appledore!
Even with these implemented initiatives, the freshwater level in the well is relatively low this summer. This has raised questions regarding the surrounding aquifer, and how much water is readily available to the well. Past SEI interns have tried to locate a better well site on the island with geophysical surveys, but the results all came to the same conclusion: the current well is the best location. Go figure!
Thus, one of the intern projects this summer involves performing a well drawdown test, which will illuminate just how big the aquifer is on the island and if the source is adequate and not being depleted. The results of the test are very important as they will inform water-use management decisions on the island and allow the Appledore community to gain a better understanding of their precious freshwater supply.
It's Groundwater Day!
On Tuesday, June 27th, Jake and Laurel spent the day collecting data with John Brooks of Emery & Garrett Groundwater Investigations LLC (EGGI), to measure the well capacity. To do this, they conducted a well drawdown test. You may be wondering... what's drawdown? It is the drop in water level in the well as water is being pumped.
Calculations from this drawdown test will ultimately be able to tell us if the water supply is slowly declining – maybe even leaking out of the aquifer and into the ocean – and allow us to assess the overall performance and efficiency of our island well. Performing this preliminary test can provide more time for alternative solutions to be explored or stricter conservation initiatives to be implemented.
Finally some light will be shed on the Appledore aquifer and SML's freshwater supply! Thanks to Laurel and Jake, we will soon know more about what is happening beneath the surface and gain a better understanding of our freshwater well system!
Watch Laurel and Jake work with John Brooks of EGGI to conduct the drawdown test!