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1. Figure 19 Interpolated change in water level for 2009 10 using data from the annual water level measurement program 4 3 Thomas County Expansion Project Initially five wells including retired and active irrigation wells and a domestic well were selected and instrumented with pressure transducers provided by DWR to monitor the 2009 2010 recovery Due to a sensor malfunction and the desire to enhance data coverage two KGS sensors were installed in the fall of 2010 to supplement a malfunctioning sensor at well TH3 and add a new well TH11 into the network A summary of sensor installation dates and other significant events is provided in Table 8 Hydrographs from the index well and the five monitored wells that functioned in 2010 are given in Figure 20 These expansion wells and a newly added annual well were surveyed in early 2012 to provide elevations of the land surface as well as casing stick up at each well site Although full recovery information was not available for either TH3 or TH7 water levels in both are clearly higher than levels in the index well Water levels in wells TH9 TH10 and TH11 are close to the levels in the index well This is expected given the water table map constructed as part of the Thomas County water 40 budget project indicated an overall west to east ground water flow field Stotler et al 2011 At the time of this report sensors are operating in wells TH7 to be removed prior to the st
2. Minimum 29683 Drawdown Date 9 7 07 9 2 08 8 25 09 9 6 10 9 4 11 Elevation Maximum 2975 9 2975 4 2976 4 2975 2 Observed Recovery Date NA 4 30 08 5 12 09 6 10 10 2 20 11 Elevation A Apparent Water Feet N NA 0 5 1 0 1 2 Level Change from Previous Year 18 Recovery Season Pumping During Recovery Season Length of Pumping Season 2 mi Water Use Start NA 9 8 07 9 8 08 8 26 09 9 6 2010 yI Days Days N Acres i ac ft per 0 96 0 94 0 65 0 75 NA Irrigated Acre ft 3 3 2 Measurement Comparisons Table 7 Annual water level measurement comparison with transducer measurements Thomas Co bd Date WL elev ft Indicated Annual Method WL Change ft 1 3 2008 2974 67 NA Steel tape 2974 61 NA Transducer 1 4 2009 2973 29 1 38 0 53 Steel tape 2973 18 1 43 Transducer 2973 59 NA Transducer 1 2 2010 2974 64 1 35 1 05 Steel tape 2974 74 1 56 Transducer 2974 65 1 06 Transducer 1 3 2011 2973 89 0 75 1 24 Steel tape 2974 14 0 60 Transducer 2974 15 0 50 Transducer 1 3 2012 2972 56 1 33 NA Steel tape 2972 61 1 53 Transducer 2972 36 1 79 Transducer Steel tape measurements are from annual water level measurement program http hercules kgs ku edu geohydro wizard wizardwelldetail cfm usgs_id 38313210054 3101 gt Value in is the decline in the maximum recovered water le
3. In an aquifer of infinite lateral extent drawdown after a relatively short period of pumping will fall on a straight line in this plotting format an indication of large scale radial flow to the pumping well In this case however the drawdown falls on the straight line only through the first four to five days After that time the drawdown increases at a more rapid rate an indication that the cone of depression has reached the boundary of the aquifer in one or more directions The increasing rate of deviation from the straight line shown on Figure 10a is an indication that at least two boundaries have been reached The nature of the aquifer boundaries can be explored further by plotting drawdown versus the time since pumping began and not the logarithm of that quantity As shown in Figure 10b drawdown after about 15 days falls on a straight line when plotted in this format an indication that the cone of depression has reached the boundary of the aquifer in all directions i e the sands are acting as a closed basin bathtub or compartmentalized aquifer Thus the conclusions derived from a detailed examination of a single pumping period are consistent with those obtained from the longer term hydrograph Note that the rapid recovery illustrated in the hydrograph of Figure 9 is a result of the linear in time relationship of Figure 10b Water level changes during the recovery period can be modeled by the superposition of a pumping well and an imag
4. Kansas Geological Survey High Plains Aquifer Calibration Monitoring Well Program Fifth Year Progress Report J J Butler Jr R L Stotler D O Whittemore E Reboulet G C Bohling and B B Wilson Kansas Geological Survey University of Kansas with contributions by J Munson D Means and S Ross Division of Water Resources Kansas Department of Agriculture Thomas County Index Well Recovery Comparison gt 6 g 2008 09 Recovery M 8 2009 10 Recovery hh La ii Ne 2 2011 12 Recovery aang ey O i E4 m f i My j 2 m p i i gt W Mm NN 8 Pi P a hi NN c 2 PAY o W sS ran 0 2 Oo z T T T T F jf T T T T T T T T 45 0 45 90 135 180 225 270 Time days since start of recovery Kansas Geological Survey Open file Report No 2012 2 March 2012 GEOHYDROLOGY KANSAS GEOLOGICAL SURVEY The University of Kansas The University of Kansas Lawrence KS 66047 785 864 3965 www kgs ku edu KANSAS GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OPEN FILE REPORT 2012 2 gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt NOT FOR RESALE lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt Disclaimer The Kansas Geological Survey made a conscientious effort to ensure the accuracy of this report However the Kansas Geological Survey does not guarantee this document to be completely free from errors or inaccuracies and disclaims any responsibility or liability for interpretat
5. 2558 75 9 19 Transducer Steel tape measurements are from annual water level measurement program http hercules kgs ku edu geohydro wizard wizardwelldetail cfm usgs_id 37392510039 5301 gt Value in is the decline in the maximum recovered water level measured by the index well transducer Average of values over time interval 0800 1600 not corrected for barometric pressure d Average of values over time interval 0800 1600 corrected for barometric pressure using the KGS barometric pressure correction program 10 3 2 Scott County 05005115 2 eel Miles J Index Well WIMAS_PD DOM dh Monitored Annual Wizard Wells ret WC5vells IND IRR MUN REC STK Figure 4 Scott County site showing the index well other monitored wells and adjacent points of diversion Figure 4 is an aerial overview of the Scott County site at a scale that shows the index well the surrounding network of annual program wells and the location of wells with water rights within the area 11 3 2 1 Hydrograph and General Observations The complete hydrograph for the Scott index well is shown in Figure 5 and its general characteristics are summarized in Table 4 The unconfined nature of the aquifer zone in which the index well is screened is illustrated by the relatively small change and rate of change in water level during each pumping and recovery season despite at least two high capacity pumping wells with
6. Incr 3600 000s x 2881 pts Duration 120 04167 days 15 11 2010 20h00m00 000s 638 53562 nmis 2 IDX_YR 7652 Location instrament 1 Measurement1 7 Thomas_Co_hv Theory Sol Earth To export the computed values from TSoft click the rightmost of the two squares next to the channel name It will turn red to indicate that the channel is selected for export Then select Export channels from the File menu This will generate a plain text file named expchan dat For this example the first few lines of this file contain 7383 97 1388935 7384 50 1369591 7385 31 3465880 7386 148 4776570 7387 433 5105504 7388 T32 1223302 7389 945 0343588 7390 986 9680693 7391 815 4135353 The first column contains a sample time index and the second column contains the theoretical earth tide value for that time in nm s nanometers per square second According to the manual the time index represents the number of sample intervals since the first January of the first year of the current data series A bit of experimentation has shown that the proper way to translate this index into the appropriate date time value in Excel is essentially 83 sample time date 1 1 yyyy 0 00 sample interval in days index 1 where yyyy is the year containing the first sample time in the series In this example if we import expchan dat into Excel as a space delimited text file and add a couple headers we get Gl vi f A B C D Index
7. Water levels in the Thomas County index well for later winter and spring of 2009 rn E a E E OE ead E E RER 33 Drawdown in the Thomas County index well after removal of linear trend versus the time since pumping began for the pumping event from points A to Bonm Figur Deceit esha ve eh loca a E E E 34 Drawdown in the Thomas County index well versus the time since pumping began for the summer 2010 pumping period beginning at point B on Figure 7 R marks the beginning of the recovery period cessation of widespread pumping for 2010 0 0 cee ceececcceeseceteceeeeeeeeeeeeenneenes 35 Figure 18a Water levels in the Thomas County index well for the 2008 09 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery periods recovery for the 2008 09 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery periods calculated from points C D and E respectively On Figure Troon err Saltese ay Gu Seago he os eevee teens 38 Figure 18b Water levels in the Scott County index well for the 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery periods recovery for the 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery periods calculated from points F and G respectively on Figure 5 39 Figure 18c Water levels in the Haskell County index well for the 2010 11 and 2011 12 recovery periods recovery for the 2010 11 and 2011 12 recovery periods calculated from points B and C respectively on Figure 3 39 Figure 19 Interpolated change in water level for 2009 10 using data from the annual water level measurement program cceec
8. 07 12 1 07 6 1 08 12 1 08 6 1 09 Figure 26 Hydrograph from the Thomas county KDA DWR well 06S 35W 26 ACB These two additional sites illustrate the benefit of a continuous monitoring approach in areas of particular interest Although the data are sparse and incomplete the methods and knowledge gained through the intensive investigation at the index well sites can be applied to determine important aquifer characteristics with only a single year of pumping and recovery data Obviously data from additional years would increase confidence in any interpretations made from monitoring data for a single year 5 Geochemical Sampling As part of the effort to determine the sources of the water pumped from the HPA water samples were collected from the Haskell and Scott index well in April 2011 from each of the index wells in mid June 2011 and from four operating irrigation wells near the Thomas index well in September 2011 A Bennett pump was used to extract water from the index wells while samples from the irrigation wells were collected at water sampling 48 ports within 3 ft of the well column Samples were collected for cation anion stable isotope H 5 O H and C determination Combined with the water level information these analyses will help clarify aquifer dynamics such as quantities and sources of recharge The water samples are all fresh Table 9 and all of the Thomas County waters are relatively similar in composition The s
9. 9 Water Level Date 8 23 07 8 8 08 8 16 09 8 9 10 8 21 11 Elevation Maximum 2586 1 2581 1 2577 2 2570 4 Recovery Elevation Recovery NA Annual Change Feet N NA 5 0 3 9 6 8 in Maximum Observed Recover Recovery 8 24 07 8 13 08 8 18 09 8 24 10 Season 2 28 08 2 10 09 3 6 10 2 15 11 Days Pumping Days NA 41 5 20 00 5 2 25 8 During Recovery Season Length of Length NA 166 1 188 5 171 0 193 7 Pumping Days Season Water Use Acres Total 8764 01 9931 71 8720 45 8972 70 NA Use ac ft 1 35 1 28 1 39 1 47 NA Use per Irrigated Acre ft Overall the recovery was not very smooth indicating some pumping in the area for much of the recovery period Number based on hours of water level decline during the recovery period 3 1 2 Measurement Comparisons Table 3 Annual water level measurement comparison with transducer measurements Haskell Co p Date WL elev ft Indicated Annual Method WL Decline fo 1 15 2008 2584 48 NA Steel tape 2584 44 Transducer 1 7 2009 2580 41 4 07 5 0 Steel tape 2580 19 4 25 Transducer 2580 10 NA Transducer 1 14 2010 2575 63 4 78 3 9 Steel tape 2575 54 4 65 Transducer 2574 51 5 59 Transducer 1 4 2011 2568 67 6 96 6 8 Steel tape 2567 91 7 63 Transducer 2567 94 6 57 Transducer 1 11 2012 2558 57 10 1 NA Steel tape 2558 82 9 09 Transducer
10. B15 and B16 again including the end points Filling Data Gaps The BRF and WLC computations do not allow missing values of WL or BP within the range of measurement times spanned by the BRF or correction start and end dates cells B13 and B14 or cells B15 and B16 The same applies to ET values when earth tides are considered For the sake of illustration the WL and BP columns shown in the screen dump on page 5 include a few missing values You can use the Fill Gaps button to interpolate across gaps within the data series like the gap in the water level series represented by the empty cells B24 B25 However the Fill Gaps code will not fill empty cells at the beginning or end of the record like the three missing BP values represented by cells C20 C22 since this would involve extrapolating beyond the available data The Fill Gaps code performs a linear interpolation between the observed data values on either side of the gap interpolating to the provided measurement times for the missing data values This code requires that the measurement times be in strictly increasing order 69 and will display an error message and stop if they are not Once it is done running the code will present a dialog box showing the number of missing data values that it filled in Microsoft Excel Filled in 2 WL values 0 BP values and 0 ET values Interpolated values are highlighted in red As stated by the dialog box the interpolated values will be high
11. ETide nm s2 7383 97 13889 7384 50 137 7305 31 3466 7386 148 4777 7387 433 5106 2 3 4 5 6 Since the series starts in 2010 we can add sample times by entering midnight of Jan 1 2010 as an anchor for the calculations then generate a column of times using the formula above formatting the results as date time values Ca al 2 z ca Home Insert nsert Page Layout Formulas Data Review Vi H G hdp koo PivotTable Table Picture cp sigas Smart rt Column Line Pie Bar X X ad X _ Tables f ANER Charts C2 E924 1 24 A2 1 A D E F 1 Index ETide nm Sample time EJ 7383 97 13889 11 4 10 16 00 1 1 10 0 00 7384 50 137 11 4 10 17 00 3 4 7385 31 3466 11 4 10 18 00 5 7386 148 4777 11 4 10 19 00 6 lt 7387 433 5106 11 4 10 20 00 7388 732 7226 11 4 10 21 00 The first sample time in cell C2 is highlighted and its formula appears in the formula bar above E 2 refers to the date in cell E2 with the dollar signs to fix that cell address as you fill down the column 1 24 is the sample interval one hour expressed in days and A2 1 is first cell index plus 1 This generates a sample time that corresponds to the 84 series start time shown in TSoft and pulling down the formula to the last sample generates the intended end time of 3 4 2011 16 00 Iqgule gt IOU JUUTI LT C2882 fe E 24 1 24 A2882 1 A D 0 E 2876 10257
12. N N Bh ah eh sh ah anh hh a ans Figure 20 Hydrograph comparison from the Thomas expansion well program The general water level trend indicates west to east ground water flow Additional information can be gained from the hydrographs of the Thomas expansion wells For example the hydrograph at well TH9 appears to be responding to the same pumping events as the Thomas index well Figure 21 The responses are more subdued and smoothed indicating a greater distance to the pumping wells in TH9 but are still clearly apparent Note that the closest irrigated section to TH9 is the section containing the index well 42 2980 2975 T a lt E Ai 2 T gt e mr 2970 TH Index Well TH9 2965 a ea i ea aa a a i a a a aa 6 1 09 8 31 09 12 1 09 3 2 10 6 1 10 8 31 10 12 1 10 3 2 11 6 1 11 8 31 11 12 1 11 3 1 12 Figure 21 Hydrograph comparison of Thomas index well and expansion well TH9 TH9 is located approximately 1 5 miles NE of the index well 0 75 miles north 1 25 miles east The water level change at well TH3 is much larger than that at the index well Figure 22 because of the proximity of TH3 to an active pumping well Stotler et al 2011 However both wells appear to be responding to many of the same pumping stresses The hydrograph for well TH3 is relatively complete for the 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery reasons Thus the recovery records can be superimposed to reveal the same coincid
13. New insights from well responses to fluctuations in barometric pressure Ground Water 49 4 525 533 Stotler R J J Butler Jr R W Buddemeier G C Bohling S Comba W Jin E Reboulet D O Whittemore and B B Wilson 2011 High Plains aquifer calibration monitoring well program Fourth year progress report Kansas Geological Survey Open File Rept 2011 4 175 p 74 Appendix Computing Theoretical Earth Tides Using TSoft This appendix briefly explains how to obtain the program TSoft and use it to compute theoretical earth tides for any location TSoft is a free software package for the analysis of time series and gravity data in particular The software which was developed at the Royal Observatory of Belgium is described in Van Camp and Vauterin 2005 Please refer to that paper and references therein for further details regarding the computation of theoretical earth tides The TSoft web page is located at http seismologie oma be TSOFT tsoft html At the time of this writing the software installation package could be downloaded by scrolling down to near the bottom of this web page and clicking on the link labeled Download TSoft Package The current version at the time of this writing is 2 1 12 The target of this link is a self extracting archive named Tsoft_c exe After you click on the link your browser will ask for confirmation that you want to download the file Opening Tsoft_c exe You have ch
14. Shift L Calibration spring grav Fit tidal model Other Detide Gravity gradient In the Location database window select Add location from the Location menu E Location database Add location Edit location Delete 77 In the resulting Location parameters dialog box enter a name and description for the new location along with the latitude longitude and height Location parameters Location name Thomas Co Iw Description Thomas County Index Well Latitude 39 23000 North South Longitude 101 02000 East West Height 971 5 m Cancel Note that latitude and longitude should be given in decimal degrees with the sign conventions as shown on the dialog box The height should be given as meters above sea level Click OK and the new location will be added to TSoft s list of locations Note that TSoft will replace spaces in the name with underscores The next step is to add a set of tidal parameters for the new location These parameters will be used in a subsequent step to compute the theoretical earth tide at that location over a specified time frame We will use TSoft s default approach for generating solid earth tide parameters For additional information and options please see the TSoft manual 78 To create a set of tidal parameters for your newly added location select the location name with a single left click and then choose Compute tidal parameters from
15. Trust Center Settings button on the right and then select Macro Settings from the list on the left of the Trust Center dialog box Trust Center Trusted Publishers Macro Settings Trusted Locations p For macros in documents not in a trusted location Add ins Activex Settings Disable all macros except digitally signed macros macro Settings O Enable all macros not recommended potentially dangerous code can run Message Bar Developer Macro Settings External Content Fl Trust access to the VBA project object model Privacy Options J Select Disable all macros with notification which is comparable to the Medium security setting in Excel 2003 then click OK twice to get back to Excel With this security level setting Excel 2007 will display a warning below the menu bar when you open a macro bearing workbook Ca a i cay Home Insert Page Layout Formulas Data Reviews Cut e B amp Arial 711000 gt ee v i 53 Copy A aste w iii Zt Y Y x J Format Painter B 7 Ure Or An E Sls Clipboard a Font a Ali e Security Warning Some active content has been disabled Options To allow the KGS BRF code to run click the Options button to the right of the warning and select Enable this content on the resulting dialog box Alternatively you could choose Enable all macros under Macro Settings in the Trust Center dialog box This is comparable to the Low security l
16. calibrate the manual measurements of annual program wells in their vicinity thus providing more consistency and confidence in the calculation of the water table surface and its changes in those general areas However initial findings of the project led to the realization that more extensive measurements and calibration were necessary to develop a suitable measurement protocol To achieve this the project was expanded to include wells of opportunity in the vicinity of the index wells 1 Haskell County expansion with the collaboration of DWR the project obtained access to water level records from additional wells In the vicinity of the Haskell index well numerous wells are instrumented by DWR that provide an opportunity for more extensive comparisons over a relatively short distance However the fact that the producing wells at the Haskell site may draw on and measure either or both of two separate aquifer units makes it more complicated than the commonly adopted view of the HPA as a single unconfined aquifer 2 Thomas County expansion with the collaboration of DWR and GMD4 six additional wells two of which are annual program wells have been equipped with transducers Monitoring is currently ongoing in four of these additional wells although only for the recovery period at one of the wells The commonly adopted view of the HPA as a single unconfined aquifer appears reasonable in the vicinity of the Thomas County site 3 Sco
17. each individual site it is possible to calculate the results for each of the models using the geochemical modeling program NETPATH Plummer et al 1994 Parkhurst and Charlton 2008 and make some preliminary determinations based on the range of values provided by the different correction models Table 11 Uncorrected laboratory results indicate dissolved inorganic carbon DIC in water sampled from both the Haskell and Scott index wells are of a similar age 11 700 years before present ybp whereas DIC sampled from the Thomas County wells is significantly younger between 3900 4700 ybp Applying corrections to these values introduces a significant range and preliminarily confirms a conclusion that Thomas County DIC is significantly younger than that from the Haskell and Scott index wells The corrected C in DIC from the Thomas County wells may in fact indicate modern since 1950 recharge or mixing of older HPA water with significant amounts of modern recharge On the other hand corrected C in DIC sampled from the Haskell and Scott index wells indicate significantly older recharge likely under different climatic conditions than present Table 11 Result of C corrections using NETPATH for each of the C models TH 9S TH 9S TH 9S TH 9S 33W 33W 33W 33W HS IW SC IW TH IW 32BBA 32A 32DBC 29B Mass Balance 7434 7908 143 modern modern 938 283 Vogel 10406 10316 2846 2594 2734 3396 3188 Tamers 6639 6291 modern modern modern modern
18. generally similar water level responses in Thomas and Rawlins counties and in Haskell and Stevens counties This year two additional datasets from DWR sensors were available to the project one in Sheridan County and a second in northwestern Thomas County These two sites are interesting as the former is located within the western edge of the Sheridan 6 sub unit whereas the latter is located between the Thomas County index well and the Rawlins County DWR wells analyzed in the year four report The well record from Sheridan County Figures 24 and 25 is incomplete but the data quality from the mid late recovery periods for the 2005 06 and 2006 07 recoveries and from the complete 2008 pumping season and most of the 2008 09 recovery appears to be quite good The apparent noise in water levels is undoubtedly produced by barometric pressure fluctuations as at the Thomas index well As at the index well full recovery was not achieved in any year during the monitoring period The shape of the late time recovery is also similar to that observed in the Thomas and Scott index wells compare concave upward curvature in lower right plot on Figure 25 with curvature in Figures 16 and 17 in Stotler et al 2011 This concave upward curvature in the format of the lower right plot of Figure 25 is an indication of non pumping induced inflow and undoubtedly would produce the same coincidence of recovery plots as seen at the Thomas index well and TH3 The
19. in 2010 but essentially the same as that in 2009 and only 0 42 ft below that of 2008 Thus the change in maximum observed water level was quite modest between the spring of 2008 and the spring of 2011 particularly if one considers that the recovery period was over 50 days longer in 2008 In 2011 the lowest water level was recorded on September 4 and was nearly 1 4 ft lower than the previous minimum recorded water level elevation Thus the expectation is that in the absence of a relatively long recovery period the maximum observed water level at the end of the 2011 12 recovery will be the lowest value recorded to date at the Thomas index well 17 Thomas Co Index Well parc eee Tape ee lemon 09S 33W 33BBB Annual Program Measurements 2977 2976 HY T B 2 2975 li M a 4 E 2974 ao rl i P T al cad 2973 F Ta a i A g 2972 i l T 4 fe c 2971 gt 2 2970 iW C 2969 1 NA SBOE SK BFQoQoe o2oveeevevevewrrrereres oa a a aoa a a a SSO Soe SS S ASSN S SNNT NOTSA Figure 7 Thomas County index well hydrograph total data run to 2 23 12 A water level elevation of 2968 ft corresponds to a depth to water of 219 56 ft below land surface Isf the top of the screen is 274 ft below Isf and the bottom of the aquifer is 284 ft below Isf Table 6 General characteristics of the Thomas index well hydrograph and local water use data 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
20. index well and DWR monitored wells in that vicinity reveals that despite the relatively thick saturated interval it is likely that large scale irrigation withdrawals will not be sustainable beyond the current decade in the vicinity of the Haskell site except possibly in those wells that are also completed in the discontinuous sandstones of the underlying Dakota Formation 5 A detailed examination of the hydrographs from the Thomas County index well and nearby wells monitored with the assistance of DWR and GMD4 reveals that a significant amount of water flows into the HPA in that vicinity This inflow which is revealed by the near coincidence of recovery rates between years is independent of conditions in the previous pumping season e g duration withdrawals and precipitation Determination of the origins of this inflow at the Thomas County index well is critical for assessing the continued viability of that portion of the HPA as a water source for irrigated agriculture 6 Hydrograph patterns observed at the Thomas County index well were also discerned in shorter term hydrographs from two wells in Sheridan and northwestern Thomas counties indicating that such inflow is likely also occurring in those areas 7 A detailed examination of the hydrograph from the Scott County index well reveals that inflow independent of conditions in the previous pumping season is also affecting water levels during recovery periods at that well Further data
21. levels in the Thomas County index well for the 2008 09 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery periods recovery for the 2008 09 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery periods calculated from points C D and E respectively on Figure 7 38 3 5 2009 10 Recovery 3 2011 12 Recovery 2 5 Water Level Position ft above start of recovery oa 45 0 45 90 135 180 225 Time days since start of recovery Figure 18b Water levels in the Scott County index well for the 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery periods recovery for the 2009 10 and 2011 12 recovery periods calculated from points F and G respectively on Figure 5 3120 5 gt 2010 11 Recovery 2011 12 Recovery J e s n 804 0 gt fe Q o 4 Cc Ao T 404 0 oO D gt a a aa S S 0 45 0 45 90 135 180 Time days since start of recovery Figure 18c Water levels in the Haskell County index well for the 2010 11 and 2011 12 recovery periods recovery for the 2010 11 and 2011 12 recovery periods calculated from points B and C respectively on Figure 3 39 Interpolated Change in Feet Cooperative Wells 2009 to 2010 Decline greater than 10 E 10 to 5 B 5 to 2 5 2 5 to 0 0 25 E 25t 5 B increase greater than 5 Well Measured 2009 and 2010
22. maximum observed recovered water levels in 2005 06 and 2006 07 were approximately the same but the maximum observed level was approximately 3 5 ft lower at the end of the 2007 08 recovery An additional drop of 1 ft from the maximum observed water level in 2008 was observed at the end of the monitoring in May of 2009 but it is not clear if the end of the recovery had been reached The one full pumping season indicates annual pumping season drawdown is on the order of 12 ft Note that the pumping induced drawdown plot in the lower left of Figure 25 does not show any indication of boundary effects ae SD 8S 29W 03 CBA Water Above Sensor ft wo Oo 1 Transducer Malfunction T 225 20 i Transducer _ 230 Steel Tape H 3 1 05 9 1 05 3 1 06 9 1 06 3 1 07 9 1 07 3 1 08 9 1 08 3 1 09 9 1 09 Depth to Water Below Land Surface ft Figure 24 Hydrograph of well 8S 29W 03 CBA in Sheridan County 46 205 210 215 SD 8S_29W_03_CBA eee Pumping 1 211 hrs Recovery 1 531 hrs 220 Pumping 2 47 hrs Recovery 2 194 hrs Pumping 3 216 hrs Pumping 4 221 hrs 225 Recovery 4 47 hrs Pumping 5 257 hrs Recovery 5 652 hrs Pumping 6 97 hrs 230 Recovery 6 3603 hrs Water Above Sensor ft Depth to Water Below Land Surface ft 4 08 6 1 08 8 1 08 10 1 08 12 1 08 2 1 09 4 1 09 6 1 09 ro a Recovery at SD 8S29W03CBA ft Pumping 6 97 hrs Pumping 5 64 hr
23. modern ipgersonand 864 1483 modern modern modern modern modern Pearson Fontes and 810 1440 modern modern modern modern modern Garnier Eichinger modern 760 modern modern modern modern modern No 11749 11659 4190 3937 4077 4739 4531 Correction 52 6 Spin offs and Related Research During the fifth year of the Index Well Project complementary research furthered the work of the project 6 1 Haskell County NSF Project In the summer of 2010 the KGS was awarded a 381 000 grant from the National Science Foundation NSF to study the subsurface stratigraphic framework sedimentary facies and chronostratigraphy of the Ogallala Formation and overlying units Haskell County is the focus of this investigation In April 2011 drilling began at a location adjacent to the Haskell County index well using the new KGS sonic drilling rig However a series of problems were encountered so the borehole had not been completed at the time of this report 6 2 Department of Energy Grant The KGS was recently awarded the second phase 225K of a grant subcontract from the Department of Energy to work together with Stanford University and Vista Clara a company located near Seattle WA on assessing the potential of nuclear magnetic resonance NMR technology for estimation of water filled porosity and permeability in small diameter 2 5 ID wells In the late fall of 2010 a prototype NMR tool was tested at the Thomas and Haskell index wells The co
24. of sample points 1 or in this case 3600 s 2880 120 days 81 Now that you have generated the series of sample times return to the Location database window opening it if necessary by selecting Open location database from the Synthetic tides submenu of the Tides menu or using the Shift L keyboard shortcut select single click the location name on the left Thomas_Co_IW in our example and then select also with a single click the synthetic tide parameter set on the right WDD E Location database Fie Location Theotide Location Sythe tide vesuvio_Napoli 1 thomas_co_tw Take a moment to make sure that both the desired location and the synthetic tide parameter set are highlighted and then select Calculate from the Theotide menu E Location database File Location n Location Add new thetic tide Edit parameters Compute tidal parameters Delete Calculate residues A Calculate polar motion effect Once you click Calculate the code will compute the theoretical earth tide values for the selected location and specified times 82 The computed values will be added as a new channel in the time series You can display these values in the plot window by clicking on the leftmost of the two squares next to the channel name E TSoft File Edit Show Calculate Filters Correctors Sismology Tides Script Help Thomas_Co_M Theory Sol Earth WDD nm s Start 04 11 2010 16h00m00s
25. of the aquifer can also be estimated from the hydrograph of Figure 9 using a mass balance expression WU S AAsis 2 where WU and As are the total water use L and the water level change L over the irrigation season respectively Using the reported 2007 WU for well HS 20 of 221 ac ft 9 63x10 f the As of 4 09 ft calculated from Figure 9 difference between water levels 24 hr averages on April 15 and November 15 and the same Sy as before 0 2 an aquifer area of 11 7x10 ft is calculated which is in excellent agreement within 9 of that found with equation 1 Virtually all the DWR wells screened in the unconfined interval in the vicinity of the Haskell index well display some form of closed basin behavior However hydrographs from observation wells will differ in form depending on the position of the well relative to the pumping well and the aquifer boundaries If the observation well is relatively close to the pumping well water levels will rise up to the final water table position upon cessation of pumping similar to well HS 8 in Figure 9 If the observation well is relatively far from the pumping well water levels will continue to fall until the final water table position is reached e g well HS 10 in Appendix A of third year report Buddemeier et al 2010 In some of the wells in the unconfined interval water level changes highly correlated with pumping in the confined interval are superimposed on the close
26. of the index wells 3 1 Haskell County Monitored Transducer Monitored Annual Wizard Wells ret WCS Wells jos Index Well WIMAS PD a Figure 2 Haskell County site showing the index well adjacent monitoring wells and points of diversion within the area of concentrated DWR studies Most of the marked wells are equipped with transducers The Haskell County site is the most extensively monitored of the three sites because of its location within an area of concentrated DWR monitoring Figure 2 is an aerial overview of the Haskell County site at a scale that shows the index well the additional wells being monitored by DWR and used by the index well program and the location of wells with water rights within the area 3 1 1 Hydrograph and General Observations The complete hydrograph for the Haskell index well is shown in Figure 3 and its general characteristics are summarized in Table 2 The confined nature of the aquifer zone in which the index well is screened is illustrated by the greater than 120 ft change in water level during each pumping season despite the absence of high capacity pumping wells in the immediate vicinity of the index well closest pumping well is almost half a mile away The 2010 11 recovery started on August 24 the date of last pumping for 2010 that had a major impact on the index well and ended on February 15 when nearby pumping began However very few periods during this time were complete
27. season Third the decline in the maximum observed water level was considerably greater than the decline in the minimum observed water level early in the monitoring period decline in minimum observed water level was 1 4 ft from August 2007 to August 2009 while the decline in the maximum recovered water levels for these years was 8 9 ft These characteristics are an indication of a high degree of well interference coupled with vertical leakage induced by the large drawdown Note that not one of the monitored wells screened only in this interval exhibits the very short recovery period seen in wells in the overlying unconfined aquifer However well HS 21 which is screened in both intervals does have a very short recovery period e g Figure 3 4 in Young et al 2008 a further demonstration that the lower sand at HS 21 is isolated from the heavily pumped intervals to the south As with the sands in the unconfined interval conditions in the confined interval can be explored in detail using traditional pumping test interpretation methods and a more recent extension of those methods A close examination of hydrographs from wells screened in this interval reveals that the water level drop at A on Figure 3 is produced by a relatively short 5 3 d period of pumping at a single well in the confined interval well HS 1 the closest pumping well distance of 2 467 ft to the Haskell index well Thus water level changes at the index well during this period
28. the Theotide menu E Location database File Location ines Location Add new hetic tide Edit parameters Compute tidal parameters Delete h Calculate Calculate residues Calculate polar motion effect On the resulting Tidal parameter set dialog box accept the default tidal parameter set by clicking OK Tidal parameter set Set name Wave groups separated by CTRL ENTER Min freq Max freq Amplitude factor Phase shift Group name 000000 000001 0000 000140 002427 0000 002428 249951 0000 721500 906315 0000 921941 940487 0000 958085 998028 0000 999853 003651 0000 005329 005623 0000 007595 011099 0000 013689 216397 0000 719381 182843 0000 Component Aziumuth Not available Deg O i i Sold Earth Tide Gravity Not available m s 2 Ocean Loading NPPPPOOOCOOO ooooo0oo0o00oo0dco Cancel 79 Now that you have created a set of tidal parameters the next step is to create the series of times at which you want to compute the theoretical earth tide values To do this select Create new data set from TSoft s File menu Edit Show Calculate Filters Correctors Sismology Tides Script Help Open Ctrl O Append file s Ctrl 4 Create new data set Ctrl F Open database Alt D Change database filename Save as Ctrl S Change sample rate Shift sample frame Print image Ctrl P Print image settings Copy image
29. to clipboard Export channels Import graph Exit You will then be presented with a dialog box asking for the time series specification Presumably you will want to enter values that will generate a series of times corresponding to the measurement times for the water level data that you are analyzing To generate a series of times at hourly 3600 second intervals starting from 4 00 pm 16 00 00 on November 4 2010 and extending for 120 full days to 4 00 p m on March 4 2011 2881 hourly samples including both end points you would enter Number of points 2881 Increment s 3600 Init Date yyyymmdd 201 01104 Init Time hhmmss f 60000 Init sec decimal jo 80 After you click OK on the dialog box the data set an empty time series will be created and the upper left corner of the TSoft window will show summary information E TSoft File Edit Show Calculate Filters Correctors Sismology Tides Scrip Start 04 11 2010 16h00m00s Incr 3600 000s x 2881 pts Duration 120 04167 days Location instrament EEI Measurement 1 Note that the date format used in this display and in time axis labels in the TSoft plot window is dd mm yyyy exactly the opposite of the format used in the previous dialog box Also note that the duration shown 120 04 days here includes the sample interval past the last sample time The time span between the first and last sample times is given by sample interval number
30. wells in the vicinity of the Scott and Haskell index wells Continue progression towards improving end user capabilities for broader implementation of the index well program 54 e Develop a computer tool to readily identify susceptibility of point water level measurements to barometric pressure effects e Cooperate with GMD4 on interpretation of monitoring data from the Sheridan 6 index wells e Assess contribution of Dakota aquifer to pumping withdrawals in the vicinity of the Haskell County index well 7 3 Outstanding Issues Major unresolved issues include the following e the source of the vertical inflow which is not induced by pumping activity in the vicinity of the Thomas County index well e the areal extent of that inflow Figure 19 indicates that the extent may be large e conditions in the aquifer at the Scott County site understanding is still incomplete but inflow not induced by pumping may also be occurring in the vicinity of that site 8 References Bassett R L S G Perkins and R K Waddell 1980 Preliminary data describing the distribution of fluoride and silica in the Ogallala aquifer on the High Plains of Texas U S Geological Survey Open File Report 80 349 109 p Buddemeier R W R Stotler J J Butler Jr W Jin K Beeler E Reboulet P A Macfarlane S Kreitzer D O Whittemore G Bohling and B B Wilson 2010 High Plains Aquifer Calibration Monitoring Well Program Third Year Progr
31. 2008 mia y 2009 2550 2500 aquitard 2450 ees us Confined aquifer i i T I i i i i i I i i i LUT 2400 0 Index L fine sand silty sand sandy silt and sand sand ii y clay fine sand and clay coarse gravel coarse sand sand sandy clay with gravel streaks clay and sand silt sandy sit clay silty clay w medium gravel gravel o medium sand e sandy soil sand and sandy clay sandy clay with sand streaks clay and caliche very coarse sand sand and gravel and clay sand and caliche top soil clay with sand streaks sand and gravel sand with clay streaks Permeability Transmissivity increase decrease Figure 8 Lithologic cross section for the HPA at the Haskell site In N S orientation the displayed wells are HS 21 HS 2 HS 4 index well irrigation well near HS 6 C S2 SW sec 36 T 27 S R 31 W and HS 6 The 2007 level represents the measured January 2007 water level in annual well HS 21 Wells in unconfined interval Figure 2 is an aerial view of the Haskell County site with the DWR monitored wells henceforth DWR wells marked by yellow circles The majority of the DWR wells are screened in the unconfined interval of Figure 8 Figure 9 displays 2007 08 hydrographs from two such wells an irrigation well HS 20 and a nearby separation distance of 66 ft observation well HS 8 located approximately 1 mile north of the index well Three notewor
32. 2009 10 and the ongoing 2011 12 recovery seasons were chosen because 1 the much larger water use expected for the 2011 pumping season and 2 the data for these two recovery seasons are less affected by pumping interferences Although there was no indication of pumping induced inflow from the hydrograph of Figure 5 the coincidence of recovery plots again points to the possibility of inflow similar to that at the Thomas site i e not induced by pumping Further conclusions can be drawn once the 2011 water use data are available Figure 18c presents two recovery seasons from the Haskell well The 2010 11 and the ongoing 2011 12 recovery seasons were chosen because 1 the much larger water use expected for the 2011 pumping season and 2 the data for these two recovery seasons are less affected by pumping interferences The lack of coincidence of recovery plots indicates that inflow similar to that at the Thomas site i e not induced by pumping is insignificant at the Haskell site The recovery during the 2010 11 recovery is much more rapid than the 2011 12 recovery because of the shorter 2010 pumping season As the water levels during the 2010 11 recovery begin to approach recovery the rate of change greatly decreases and the 2011 12 recovery water levels catch up 36 Determination of the origins of the vertical inflow into the unconfined aquifer at the Thomas County index well and the possible inflow into the unconfined aquifer at the Sco
33. 267 Kruseman G P and N A de Ridder 1990 Analysis and Evaluation of Pumping Test Data ILRI Pub 47 Int Inst for Land Reclamation and Improvement the Netherlands 377 p Muskat M 1937 The Flow of Homogeneous Fluids Through Porous Media New York McGraw Hill Parkhurst D L and S R Charlton 2008 NetpathXL an Excel interface to the program NETPATH U S Geological Survey Techniques and Methods 6 A26 11 p Plummer L N E C Prestemon and D L Parkhurst 1994 An interactive code NETPATH for modeling net geochemical reactions along a flow path version 2 0 U S Geological Survey Water Resources Investigations Report 94 4169 Simpson H J A L Herczeg and W S Meyer 1992 Stable isotope ratios in irrigation water can estimate rice crop evaporation Geophysical Research Letters 19 377 380 Stotler R J J Butler Jr R W Buddemeier G C Bohling S Comba W Jin E Reboulet D O Whittemore and B B Wilson 2011 High Plains Aquifer Calibration Monitoring Well Program Fourth year Progress Report Kansas Geological Survey Open File Report 2011 4 Available online at http www kgs ku edu Hydro Publications 2011 OFR11_4 index html Streltsova T D 1988 Well Testing in Heterogeneous Formations Wiley 413 p 56 Van der Kamp G 1989 Calculation of constant rate drawdowns from stepped rate pumping tests Ground Water 27 2 175 183 Young D P R W Buddemeier D O W
34. 36 30 73604 27 10 28 08 11 00 PM 2575 739 30 72868 Hovering the cursor over the cells marked with triangles will reveal comments briefly explaining the cell contents To use this spreadsheet you update the information in the yellow cells appropriately paste your measurement time water level and barometric pressure data into columns A C starting at row 20 and then press the Compute BRF or Correct WL button the latter requires that you have already done the former Neither the BRF nor water level correction WLC computations allow missing values in the measurements If you have gaps in the data like the WL measurements that are missing from cells B24 and B25 above you should fill them using the Fill Gaps button as explained below Important The Visual Basic code looks for each piece of information by cell address This means don t move anything Just revise the information in place In order to avoid mixing up your new data with the data that are already in the worksheet we recommend that you delete the old data first by selecting the data from row 20 on down and then deleting them Clearing the cells using the Delete button should be sufficient If the new data record is as long or longer than the old data record so that pasting in the new data will completely overwrite the old data then the deletion step is not necessary However it is advisable to delete the old data first just to be sure 67 The code determines
35. 53 83585 3 4 11 10 00 2877 10258 447 609 3 4 11 11 00 2878 10259 725 1399 3 4 11 12 00 2879 10260 822 9927 3 4 11 13 00 2880 10261 723 8885 3 4 11 14 00 2881 10262 461 4495 3 4 11 15 00 2882 10263 111 664 __ 3 4 11 16 001 2883 IANA Generating a column of sample times in this fashion will help you confirm that you are properly matching up the computed earth tides with your water level measurements Once you have done so you can transfer the earth tide values column D of the Input_Template worksheet in KGS_BRF xls or a copy thereof by copying and pasting Reference Van Camp M and P Vauterin 2005 Tsoft graphical and interactive software for the analysis of time series and Earth tides Computers amp Geosciences 31 5 631 640 85
36. 60 p 2960 2950 2950 2009 10 Recovery Season 2011 12 Recovery Season Elevation for 2009 water levels ft AMSL Elevation for 2011 Water Levels ft AMSL 2940 2940 8 1 09 8 31 09 10 1 09 Figure 23 Hydrograph of the initial recovery period for TH3 from 2009 bottom x axis and right y axis and 2011 top x axis and left y axis Note that the spans of the two x axes and the two y axes are the same in this plot Well TH3 is now plugged 4 4 Additional Wells of Opportunity Late in 2011 arrangements were made with landowners and GMD 1 to install KGS pressure transducers in two wells in the area of the Scott index well The only continuous monitoring data we currently have from this area are the water level records of the index well Utilizing old USGS recording wells sensors were installed in February 2012 One of the new locations is 6 5 miles south of the Scott index well and the other is 22 miles to the west just north of Leoti The water columns are short in both wells 16 feet and 10 feet respectively When downloaded data from these wells will be shared with GMD1 and the landowners In a continuing collaboration with DWR the KGS is looking into additional water level data that have been recorded by pressure transducers in the western tier of GMDs Data from Rawlins and Stevens counties were presented in the year four annual report Stotler 45 et al 2011 indicating
37. 8 4 2 09 4 5 10 3 17 11 Pumping During Days NA gt 48 2 13 7 21 Recovery Season 12 8 A A A A A A 0 A Length N gt 203 201 3 217 8 200 2 Days Length of Pumping Length N 182 3 150 0 145 7 168 1 Season Days 2 mi Radius Water Irrigated 4132 3950 3923 3665 NA Use Acres Total Use 3035 89 NA ac ft Irrigation 3095 78 4014 33 2955 48 3017 08 NA Use Only ac ft Irrigation 0 75 1 02 0 75 0 82 NA Use per Irrigated Acre ft 14 3 2 2 Measurement Comparisons Table 5 Annual water level measurement comparison with transducer measurements Scott Co Date WL elev ft Indicated Method Annual WL Decline fi 1 7 2008 2835 29 NA Steel tape 2835 29 Transducer 1 6 2009 2834 23 1 06 1 24 Steel tape 2834 21 1 08 Transducer 2834 95 NA Transducer 1 7 2010 2833 49 0 74 0 42 Steel tape 2833 48 0 73 Transducer 2833 55 1 40 Transducer 1 7 2011 2832 76 0 73 0 73 Steel tape 2832 86 0 62 Transducer 2832 86 0 69 Transducer 1 4 2012 2831 82 0 94 NA Steel tape 2831 92 0 94 Transducer 2831 95 0 91 Transducer Steel tape measurements are from annual water level measurement program http hercules kgs ku edu geohydro wizard wizardwelldetail cfm usgs_id 39140410101 0701 gt Value in is the decline in the maximum recovered water level measured by the index well transducer Average of value
38. E 54 7 2 Planned Activities 2012 iccccccccccccssesssssssccsessssssssssssssceseessesseaees 54 To OQ tstanding LSSUCS mrenani a i a a aA 55 Bie Referenee Sinerien aera aiei T AEE AEE EIEEE EEEE REEERE 55 BE PRANTL a E E E A E A E AA 57 iv List of Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10a Figure 10b Figure 1 la Figure 11b Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Figure 16 Figure 17 The Kansas portion of the High Plains aquifer with aquifer and county boundaries ShOWN sais siseeiietiienieAaus nese eenaees 4 Haskell County site showing the index well adjacent monitoring wells and points of diversion within the area of concentrated DWR studies 6 Haskell County index well hydrograph total data run to 2 21 12 eee 8 Scott County site showing the index well other monitored wells and adjacent points OF GIVERSION was sas casita unas dees aatedacivade capbaadoeansdesccuatansandsoateeadaavizes 11 Scott County index well hydrograph total data run to 2 22 12 eee 13 Thomas County site showing the index well nearby wells that have been equipped with transducers surrounding annual program wells and points OF GIVEFSION IN TE ARCA coers iaiia iiaa 16 Thomas County index well hydrograph total data run to 2 23 12 18 Lithologic cross section for the HPA at the Haskell site 0 0 eee eeseeee
39. able 4 General characteristics of the Scott index well hydrograph and local Water se data isser siine ienis e arase i iE a E ten tescaseaayastonsuneatr i 14 Table 5 Annual water level measurement comparison with transducer measurements Scott Corrieri eae ees O E E AE ER 15 Table 6 General characteristics of the Thomas index well hydrograph and local PUM USC data sisao a a EE A R A E naga i a a 18 Table 7 Annual water level measurement comparison with transducer measurements Thomas Co occccccccccssssscsccsssssssssssssscescessesssssssscssesesessssesessess 19 Table 8 Installation date and other notes for Thomas Co expansion wells 006 41 Table 9 Selected chemical results samples collected in June and September 2011 49 Table 10 Stable isotope results from the index wells and irrigation wells eeee 50 Table 11 Result of C corrections using NETPATH for each of the C models 52 vi 1 Introduction and Background The calibration monitoring index well program is directed at developing improved approaches for measuring and interpreting hydrologic responses at the local section to township scale in the Ogallala High Plains aquifer henceforth High Plains aquifer or HPA The study is supported by the Kansas Water Office KWO with Water Plan funding as a result of KWO s interest in and responsibility for long term planning of ground water resources in western Kansas The Kansas Department o
40. also indicate that the code had filled in 0 WL values That is running Fill Gaps more than once on the same data record will obliterate the distinction between measured and interpolated values Computing a BRF and Correcting Water Levels When you have your data in place and have modified the informational yellow cells appropriately click on the Compute BRF and Correct WL button to 1 compute a BRF based on the WL and BP measurements in the worksheet with measurement times between the BRF Data Start and BRF Data End date times inclusive specified in cells B13 and B14 and 70 2 use that BRF to remove or significantly reduce the influence of BP variations from the WL measurements in the worksheet with measurement times between the Correction Data Start and Correction Data End date times inclusive specified in cells B15 and B16 The coefficients of the computed BRF along with confidence intervals on those coefficients will be written out to a new worksheet that is added to the current workbook The name of this new worksheet will be BRF n where n is an integer The code will count all the worksheets in the active workbook whose names start with BRF and then set n to that number plus 1 The code will also add a plot to the BRF worksheet showing the BRF values equation 2 of Butler et al 2011 with error bars If ET values are used then the BRF worksheet will also contain the earth tide response function ETRF coeff
41. amples from Thomas and Haskell counties have lower total dissolved solids TDS concentration than the sample from Scott County and are relatively similar in composition The sample from Scott County may be affected a little by the higher TDS in ground water in the partially closed basin of the Scott Finney depression The Scott County sample has higher Cl and SOg as well as a relatively high silica concentration although even higher silica values exist for parts of the HPA in western Kansas The F concentration is also higher in the Scott County sample than in the other samples A very general correlation exists between F and SiO concentrations for High Plains aquifer waters Bassett et al 1980 and this sample fits in that general relationship Sulfate and chloride concentrations are low and are generally correlated with one another SO Cl mass ratios are highest in the Haskell County sample and higher in the index wells than any of the irrigation wells Given that the index wells are screened at the base of the aquifer and the irrigation wells are probably screened over the entire saturated thickness this could be an indication of upward diffusion of solutes or even recharge from the underlying Cretaceous units However given the overall fresh quality of the water sampled at all sites it would seem that none of the sites are being substantially affected by the more highly mineralized waters that are expected in the underlying bedrock Nit
42. and 252 ac ft more than during 2007 and 2009 respectively The 2010 water use however was applied on fewer irrigated acres than previous years resulting in higher water use per acre irrigated Table 2 In 2009 and 2010 the index well recorded year to year declines in the maximum recovered water level of 5 0 and 3 9 ft respectively In 2011 the decline was 6 8 ft Given the much lower water level minimum recorded in 2011 the expectation is that the decline in the maximum recovered water level in 2012 will exceed the 2011 decline Hourly Water Level Measurements Haskell Co Index Well Periodic Electric Tape Measurements 27S 31W 36BDC Annual Program Measurements 2595 2585 z AT LN V T 2565 el ees LS VO A E Saas Wl Vil o Pg sas M W H UY 3 o y l cael 2455 B C 2445 NA oOo o 0 ORO ROR OUR oc ose S S Cee Se Stk SS ASUSA wo rn or SC cK VSS NO N nS xy HOH FY HF HF HY Oo HOH YF oO Ho H sy eS Oe Soe ES ee ON Se PS S Figure 3 Haskell County index well hydrograph total data run to 2 21 12 A water level elevation of 2445 ft corresponds to a depth to water of 392 85 ft below land surface Isf the top of the screen is 420 ft below Isf and the bottom of the aquifer is 433 ft below Isf Table 2 General characteristics of the Haskell Co index well hydrograph and local water use data 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Minimum Feet 2462 1 2460 8 2460 7 2453 8 2445
43. art of the irrigation season TH9 and TH10 A replacement for well TH3 which has been plugged is currently being sought The malfunctioning sensor in well TH11 will be replaced shortly Table 8 Installation date and other notes for Thomas Co expansion wells Well Sensor Installation Date TH3 Retired DWR 8 12 09 Irrigation KGS 9 13 10 TH7 Irrigation DWR 9 30 09 4 18 10 11 23 10 4 6 11 11 4 11 TH8 Retired DWR 11 5 09 Irrigation TH9 Retired DWR 11 5 09 Irrigation 7 n TH11 Retired KG 11 3 10 Irrigation Notes 9 13 10 KGS sensor added because of malfunctioning DWR sensor 11 22 11 Both sensors pulled at request of the land owner Well has been plugged Active irrigation well sensor installed and removed each year by KGS and GMD 4 at land owner s request Sensor malfunctioned 12 4 09 yet to be replaced Sensor removed 11 11 to 11 14 09 for well cap installation operator error data gap from 11 23 10 to 2 23 11 Unexplained break in data 6 22 10 9 15 10 otherwise operating normally Sensor fitting failed sometime after 11 11 11 download sensor pulled for repairs 41 3020 3000 2990 7 2980 lt q si 2970 2 5 al Oo gt 2960 i 2950 TH index Well 2940 TH3 TH7 TH9 2930 TH10 TH11 2920 yb a a a aa a oe a i 9 9 9 o o o o N N y o oO AJ N N N N QN N N
44. as an unconfined aquifer Figure 5 is the hydrograph of the index well for the entire monitoring period Four characteristics are worth noting 1 the maximum drawdown is only 3 4 ft yr as result of the unconfined nature of the aquifer and the distance to the closest high capacity well 2 there is no indication in either the pumping or recovery periods that the sands are acting as a closed basin aquifer or that there is a significant component of vertical leakage induced by pumping 3 water levels are still recovering from the previous irrigation season when pumping begins for the following year and there is no indication that the water levels are nearing stabilization at the onset of pumping and 4 the maximum and minimum observed water levels decrease in a similar manner Given these characteristics the unconfined aquifer at the Scott County site appears to be more laterally extensive than the unconfined sands at the Haskell site with no signs of pumping induced vertical inflow to the system as in the confined interval at the Haskell site 29 SCOTT COUNTY NW SE v PRE Figure 12 Lithologic cross section for the Scott County site The 2007 level represents the measured January 2007 water level in a nearby annual well See Figure 8 for legend Conditions in the unconfined aquifer at the Scott County site can be explored in more detail using traditional methods for interpretation of pumping tests As with the unconfined interval at
45. askell 2559 6 154 6 433 420 430 2006 8973 50396 Scott 2834 1 90 1 223 215 225 910 3036 15982 Thomas 2972 1 69 1 284 274 284 918 2256 11118 2012 annual tape water level measurements from WIZARD database http www kgs ku edu Magellan WaterLevels index html 3 Overview of Index Well Sites and Monitoring Data This section provides a brief overview of the hydrographs from all three sites With over four and a third years of hourly measurements our understanding of water level responses and trends at all three sites has improved significantly All three index well hydrographs indicate that although pumping occurs sporadically throughout the year the major drawdown in water levels occurs during the pumping season in the summer when the aquifer is stressed significantly for an extended period of time For this study the pumping season is defined as the period from the first sustained drawdown during the growing season often but not always following the maximum recovered water level to the first major increase in water level near the end of the growing season The recovery season is defined as the time between pumping seasons Since water levels increase throughout the recovery period at all three index wells and full recovery has not been observed at any of the wells the difference between water levels measured during the recovery season from one year to the next only provides a measure of the year to year c
46. can be viewed as drawdown resulting from a short term pumping test Figure 11a is a plot of pumping induced drawdown versus the logarithm of the time since pumping began for this pumping event As with Figure 10a a 26 period exists during which drawdown falls on a straight line an indication of large scale radial flow to the pumping well However in contrast to the response in the unconfined sands the rate of drawdown at larger times decreases below that expected for radial flow an indication of inflow of water to the aquifer The source of that inflow is most likely from the overlying aquitard and unconfined sands but upward flow from the underlying Dakota formation could also be contributing The increasing rate of deviation from the straight line is an indication that the water level is beginning to stabilize as a result of that inflow However pumping ceased before further stabilization could occur Van der Kamp 1989 developed a method for calculating the drawdown that would have occurred during the period in which water levels are recovering if pumping had not stopped That approach was used here to calculate the drawdown that would have been observed if well HS 1 had continued pumping Figure 11b is a plot of drawdown versus time that shows the drawdown calculated using the Van der Kamp extension This extension which is based on a theoretically sound manipulation of the observed drawdown demonstrates that the drawdown would have stabili
47. cutable and then reads the output from the executable back into Excel This means that the Excel worksheet cannot work without access to the executable Consequently a copy of the executable file kgs_brf exe has to exist in the folder that contains the Excel workbook with which you are working You may make copies of kgs_brf exe using any of the methods provided by Windows Explorer selecting an existing copy of the file then copying and pasting the new copy in the desired folder selecting and ctrl dragging etc To see the full file name with the extension you will need to tell Windows Explorer to show you file extensions But even if you don t the Excel file KGS_BRF xls should be tagged with an Excel icon distinguishing it from the executable You will likely want to use workbooks that are named something other than KGS_BRF xls The Excel Visual Basic code is directly attached to the Input_Template worksheet in KGS_BRF xls This means that you can make copies of this worksheet and or workbook using any name you please and the code will be part of each new copy This allows you to create and save copies of the Input_Template worksheet using more meaningful names without breaking the software But again you will need to copy the executable kgs_brf exe to each folder that you work in You cannot change the name of kgs_brf exe because the Excel VB code looks for it by that name 63 The executable program has been designed
48. d basin response e g well HS 15 in Appendix A of third year report Buddemeier et al 2010 In those cases the responses appear to be produced by flow down the gravel pack of a well screened in the lower confined interval or by pumping induced vertical leakage through the aquitard In all of these cases the sands in the unconfined interval appear to be of limited lateral extent The closed basin compartmentalized nature of the sands in the unconfined interval has important implications for the continued viability of those sands as a water source for irrigated agriculture The amount of water that ultimately can be withdrawn from these materials is essentially determined by the volume of water stored in them the rate of lateral or vertical inflow is too small for those mechanisms to be major contributors on the time frame of a few to several years Thus for example given the screened interval 2529 2609 ft and the average yearly decline about 4 ft yr at well HS 20 and assuming the pump is at the base of the screened interval the current rate of pumping will be unsustainable within six to seven years if not sooner Reductions in pumping at HS 20 would extend the lifespan of the aquifer because of the closed basin nature of the sands 1 e the common pool in this case has only one member Although management activities can significantly and predictably alter decline rates in such systems the small degree of lateral and vertical i
49. dsheet was published in 2011 and is attached to this report as Appendix A 4 2 Interpretation of Hydrographs from the Index Wells and Associated Wells of Opportunity An understanding of the primary mechanisms controlling the changes in water level in the index wells is critical for reliable assessment of what the future holds for the portion of the HPA in the vicinity of each index well A major component of the activities for the fifth year of this project has been directed at that issue In this section we will briefly describe the insights that have been gained from interpretation of the hydrographs from the index wells and nearby wells of opportunity Haskell County Figure 8 is a N S lithologic cross section of the unconsolidated sequence in the HPA at the Haskell site The hydrostratigraphy of the site consists of unconfined and confined aquifer intervals separated by a thick clay aquitard unit Wells in the vicinity of the Haskell site are primarily screened in the unconfined interval the confined interval or both However some of these wells are also screened across sandstone units within the underlying Dakota aquifer Even when the well is only screened in the lower confined interval of the HPA the gravel pack extends to near land surface in virtually all wells other than the index well 20 N HASKELL COUNTY a S index EL ft 4S2 2800 2750 2700 2650 2600 Sa nconfined aquifer V 2008 V
50. e index wells and irrigation wells Well Sample Date 6 O VSMOW o 67H VSMOW o HS Ind 14 Jun 11 8 59 60 HS Ind 19 Apr 11 8 65 60 SC Ind 14 Jun 11 9 48 63 SC Ind 14 Apr 11 9 54 64 TH Ind 15 Jun 11 11 41 78 9S 33W 32NE 1 Sep 11 11 37 79 9S 33W 32NW 1 Sep 11 11 45 79 9S 33W 32SE 1 Sep 11 10 79 74 9S 32W 29NW 1 Sep 11 11 15 77 Stable isotope data from the three study sites plot near the GMWL and show no evidence of evaporation Figure 27 This is not surprising for the index wells which are screened at the bottom of the HPA It is interesting however that none of the irrigation wells in Thomas County exhibits an evaporation signature or any indication of mixing of native aquifer water with irrigation return flow as these wells are likely screened across the entire aquifer The separation of values between the three sites with Haskell waters the most enriched in heavy isotopes H and 8O Thomas the most depleted and Scott in 50 between is a typical geographical trend probably related to variations in average annual temperatures at the three sites that affected historic precipitation especially if the historic periods of the precipitation that contributed to the bulk of the water differed at the sites From this limited dataset isotopic signatures indicate a precipitation source for HPA water that has not been significantly affected by recent anthropogenic activities However two ongoing related studies should
51. e three index wells and from four irrigation wells near one of the index wells and e the final version of the KGS barometric correction spreadsheet program which calculates the barometric response function for a given well and corrects the measured water levels for the impact of barometric pressure changes A particular emphasis of this report is on the important new insights that have been obtained from the interpretation of hydrographs from the index wells and from wells in the expanded monitoring areas in the vicinity of two of the index wells The major findings of the project are as follows 1 Water level data collected using a pressure transducer and data logger provide a near continuous record of great practical value that can help in the assessment of the continued viability of the HPA as a source of water for large scale irrigation 2 The data from the index wells provide the critical context needed for improved interpretation of the results of the annual measurement program 3 Hydrographs from the index wells and associated monitoring wells can be analyzed using methods developed for the interpretation of pumping tests to obtain insights into the primary mechanisms controlling the changes in water level in those ii portions of the HPA An understanding of these mechanisms is critical for reliable assessment of what the future holds for the HPA in western Kansas 4 A detailed examination of the hydrographs from the Haskell County
52. e to increase until the pumping wells have an insufficient saturated thickness of permeable sediments to meet irrigation demands For example the water column at the index well which is screened at the bottom of the aquifer and is over 2 450 ft from the closest pumping well was only 39 ft in height at the maximum observed drawdown for 2011 In the immediate vicinity of the irrigation wells the saturated thickness was likely considerably less Given that pumping from the confined interval will undoubtedly increase as shallower wells are replaced by deeper wells it is likely that the large scale irrigation withdrawals will not be sustainable beyond the current decade in the vicinity of the Haskell site except possibly in those wells that are also completed in the discontinuous sandstones of the underlying Dakota Formation Scott County Figure 12 is a NNW SSE lithologic cross section of the unconsolidated sequence at the Scott site The hydrostratigraphy of the site consists of an interbedded mix of coarse gravels through clays Although the upper half of the unconsolidated sequence is made up of relatively fine sediments changes in water levels in the Scott County index well whether in response to pumping or fluctuations in barometric pressure indicate that the sands in which the well is screened are unconfined Given that the well is screened at the bottom of the unconsolidated saturated interval we can assume that the entire interval behaves
53. eason Figure 7 Thus the 2011 water use is most likely greater than that of 2008 The agreement between the superimposed recovery plots is remarkable the rate of water level change during the three recovery periods is essentially identical The near coincidence of recovery rates indicates that the recovery is not a function of withdrawals during the previous pumping season some other mechanism must be primarily responsible for the water level changes during recovery A similar coincidence is seen when the 2007 08 and 2010 11 recovery seasons are included a further indication that a mechanism beyond pumping in the previous irrigation season is responsible for the rise of water levels during the recovery period Given the similar recovery rates between years the increase in the maximum observed water level in the 2009 10 period is therefore just a product of the relatively high minimum water level elevation for the 2009 irrigation season and the following lengthy period of recovery 298 days If the 2007 08 recovery had extended to 298 days instead of ending 50 days earlier a similar maximum water level would have been attained Likewise if the 2010 11 recovery period had been the same length as the 2009 10 period a maximum water level close to that of the 2009 10 period would have been attained A similar recovery assessment can be performed for the Scott and Haskell index wells Figure 18b presents two recovery seasons from the Scott well The
54. easurements for the influence of barometric pressure BP fluctuations The software can also compute earth tide response functions ETRF and correct for the influence of earth tides However the calculation of ETRFs is still the subject of ongoing research Our preliminary investigations indicate that ETRF estimation can be problematic when the influence of earth tides is small so this option should be used with caution The appendix describes how to compute theoretical earth tides for a given location using free software developed at the Royal Observatory of Belgium File Management The KGS BRF software has two components an Excel worksheet contained in the workbook KGS_BRF xls and a compiled program executable named kgs_brf exe both of which are contained in the zip file that includes this document Questions should be directed to Geoff Bohling geoff kgs ku edu 785 864 2093 The Excel worksheet serves as a front end to the executable providing a template for managing the water level barometric pressure and optionally earth tide data The worksheet contains three buttons one to fill gaps in the data records one to run the computations for estimating a BRF and also correct water levels and one to correct water levels using a BRF that has already been computed The Visual Basic code that is behind these latter two buttons reads information from the worksheet writes it out to a set of input files for the executable runs the exe
55. ece snedeustedensiatatees atte cdaadecasi la debs cde eeveadaaade eases 11 3 2 1 Hydrograph and General Observations cceseeseeeeeteeneeeeee 12 3 2 2 Measurement Compansons wisvcasstiteaicasutsasteeeieieesahens 15 33 Thomas CODING esar och isesdatvcea igen T a AEE ES 16 3 3 1 Hydrograph and General Observations cccesceeseeeteeeteees 17 3 3 2 Measurement Comparisons cccccccccessceseceesceetseeseceseeeeeeenseees 19 4 Interpretation of Water Level Responses cccceesceesseceteeeeeeeeeeeeteeenseenes 20 4 1 Barometric Correction of Water Level Response cceceseetees 20 4 2 Interpretation of Hydrographs from the Index Wells and Associated W ells OF Opportunity er ersinnen o a ta eee asada 20 4 3 Thomas County Expansion Project ccceescesceeseeesseeeeceeeeeeeeeeseees 40 4 4 Additional Wells of Opportunity 0 cc cece ceeeeeeeeteeeeeeceteeeeeeeeaeees 45 5 Geochemical Sain WMG nsien eieiei antaa 48 6 Spin offs and Related Research n nnsssnnsneseesseessessessessessresresseeseesresseesees 53 6 1 Haskell County NSF Project cccsccsssssssccssccesncessccssccssccesceeensenes 53 6 2 Department of Energy Grant ss sseseseseesseseresressessessressessrssresseeseese 53 6 3 Kansas Water Resources Institute Grant s sessesseeeesseseesesseseesesseee 53 7 Summary of Accomplishments and Future Plans ceccesceeeteeteeeeees 54 TA Accomplishm nts Sissel eh i a E E EE EE
56. ed ft 2 r T r T r T r l 0 5 10 15 20 25 Time Since Pumping Began d Figure 16 Drawdown in the Thomas County index well after removal of linear trend versus the time since pumping began for the pumping event from points A to B on Figure 15 Conditions in the unconfined aquifer can be further explored by considering the 2010 irrigation season the least noisy of the irrigation seasons as a long term pumping test beginning at point B on Figure 7 A plot of drawdown versus the time since pumping began Figure 17 shows that drawdown falls on a straight line when plotted in this format for over 35 days an indication that the cone of depression has reached the boundary of the aquifer in all directions i e the sands are acting as a closed basin bathtub or compartmentalized aquifer Thus the conclusions derived from an examination of a single pumping event are consistent with those obtained from the entire pumping season Note that after 45 days of pumping drawdown becomes more variable as a result of pumps cutting on and off However even in this period water levels offset from but nearly parallel to the drawdown trend are observed prior to the cessation of widespread irrigation pumping point R on plot marks the end of widespread pumping and the beginning of the recovery period Water level responses that exhibit closed basin behavior linear responses at moderate to large times of pumping can be in certain situations the produc
57. eeceeeeceesceeeeceeeeeeeeeeseeeaeenes 40 Figure 20 Hydrograph comparison from the Thomas expansion well program 42 Figure 21 Hydrograph comparison of Thomas index well and expansion well TH9 43 Figure 22 Hydrograph comparison of Thomas index well and expansion well TH3 44 Figure 23 Hydrograph of the initial recovery period for TH3 from 2009 and 2011 45 Figure 24 Hydrograph of well 8S 29W 03 CPA in Sheridan County 0 ee eeeeeeeeeeeeeees 46 Figure 25 Pumping and recovery analysis for different periods in the Sheridan County We Mar i uitanci so rece sucecaust cc stuuan yaacae vane Sasceroc eco bean ean et 47 Figure 26 Hydrograph from the Thomas County KDA DWR well OGS SSW 26 ACB cssceslszs awtaed cael ainehseassatetin ss seintansadoliusttetagsaud ities tesumdeatetiuabtelons 48 Figure 27 Relationship between 5 O vs 8 H for the three index wells and for the four irrigation wells near the Thomas County index well eeeseeeees 51 List of Tables Table 1 Characteristics of the index well sSites lt 1 oiaicccuit sas hc rescelon aa tatiene eh aat socetse 4 Table 2 General characteristics of the Haskell Co index well hydrograph and l c l Water USC dat irse etsisi ioke saranat au aahesdeativestelesaaheacuelacsestoctaevns 9 Table 3 Annual water level measurement comparison with transducer measurements Haskell Co ciccccccssccsccssssssssssssscescessessssssssevesesessssessssees 10 T
58. eeneeeeeees 21 Water levels at wells HS 8 and HS 20 from early spring 2007 to late Spring 2 OB sta scecsas ad i ety dss E E e a eae aes tack aah O islets 22 Drawdown versus the logarithm of time since pumping began for the summer 2007 irrigation season drawdown and pumping time are from point A on Figure 9 rrornsan a eaa NEE E ao E a 25 Drawdown versus the time since pumping began for the summer 2007 irrigation season drawdown and pumping time are from point A on Figure 9 slope is approximately 0 053 ft s ocecietva sess srcactensteaseds tacanndeceastanene 25 Drawdown in the Haskell County index well versus the logarithm of time since pumping began for the pumping event at A on Figure 3 0 0 0 eeeeeeeeee 27 Drawdown in the Haskell County index well versus the time since pumping began for the pumping event at A on Figure 3 Van der Kamp extension is an estimate of the drawdown that would have occurred if pumping had continued s ssesseeseseeesseeseeseesseesreseessessesersstessessrssressessrssresseesees 28 Lithologic cross section for the Scott County site s sessssseseesseseesesseseesesseeees 30 Drawdown in the Scott County index well versus the logarithm of time since pumping began for pumping seasons beginning at points A 2008 B 2009 C 2010 and D 2011 on Figure 5 icc scsrisvsskaswiisekisliensedisnasaddsuasaes 31 Lithologic cross section for the Thomas County site sssesseseeseeseesesseseesesseees 32
59. ence of recovery plots as observed at the Thomas index well Figure 23 This coincidence indicates that the mechanisms controlling the recovery at the Thomas index well are not isolated to that well Overall the incomplete data from the 2009 2011 period provide an initial view of what can be determined with more complete and extensive monitoring records As data are downloaded from the remainder of the 2011 12 recovery and malfunctioning sensors replaced the relationship between the index well and expansion wells should become clearer This relationship will be explored further in year six 43 3010 N I amp S Elevation of water level in well TH IW ft AMSL 2990 ui 2980 ml 2970 2974 2972 2960 N o oi So 2970 N to A i TH Index Well TH3 Elevation of water level in well TH3 ft AMSL 2930 ooo 3 2968 9 1 10 12 1 10 3 3 11 6 2 11 9 1 11 12 41 11 3 2 12 Figure 22 Hydrograph comparison of Thomas index well and expansion well TH3 This expansion well is located approximately 2 25 miles to the WSW of the index well 1 25 miles south 2 miles west The span of the vertical axis for the index well plot right y axis is a factor of 10 less than that of well THS3 for illustrative purposes Well TH3 is now plugged 44 8 31 11 9 30 11 10 30 11 2990 o S 2980 reseed 2970 j 2970 29
60. ess Report Kansas Geological Survey Open File Report 2010 3 Available online at http www kgs ku edu Hydro Publications 2010 OFR10_3 index html Bohling G C W Jin and J J Butler Jr 2011 Kansas Geological Survey Barometric Response Function Software User s Guide Kansas Geological Survey Open File Report 2011 10 2011 Available online at http www kgs ku edu HighPlains OHP index_program brf html Craig H 1961 Isotopic variations in meteoric waters Science 133 1833 1834 55 Fontes J C and J M Garnier 1979 Determination of the initial ae activity of the total dissolved carbon a review of the existing models and a new approach Water Resources Research 15 399 413 Harvey F E and S S Sibray 2001 Delineating ground water recharge from leaking irrigation canals using water chemistry and isotopes Ground Water 39 408 421 Harvey F E 2005 Stable hydrogen and oxygen isotope composition of precipitation in northeastern Colorado Journal of the American Water Resources Association 41 447 459 Hecox G R P A Macfarlane and B B Wilson 2002 Calculation of yield for High Plains aquifer wells relationship between saturated thickness and well yield Kansas Geological Survey Open File Report 2002 25C Komor S C and D G Emerson 1994 Movements of water solutes and stable isotopes in the unsaturated zones of two sand plains in the upper Midwest Water Resources Research 30 253
61. etting only if you have virus scanning software installed or you have checked the safety of all documents you open 64 With the macro security level set to Medium you will be presented with the following dialog box when you open KGS_ BRF xls or any other workbook containing macros Security Warning C gcb BRFiKGS_BRF xls contains macros Macros may contain viruses It is usually safe to disable macros but if the macros are legitimate you might lose some Functionality Disable Macros Enable Macros You should click the Enable Macros button on this dialog box If you set the macro security level to Low then Excel will just open a macro bearing workbook with the macros enabled without asking for your permission As noted on the Security dialog box this is not advisable In Excel 2007 you modify the security options by first selecting the Office button in the upper left hand corner of the Excel window to get the Office drop down menu 4 i Recent Documents New 1 KGS_BRF xls ot 2 Excel_BRF_ver0d7 TH3 xls el D open 3 Excel_BRF_ver0d7 _SV45078_TH10 xls 4 picaroon xls Save 5 Excel_BRF_ver0d8 xls x 6 Excel_BRF_ver0d7 xls m ii ll SaveAs gt 7 Jones xls 2 Excel Options X Exit Excel 65 Select the Excel Options button at the bottom right on this menu then select Trust Center in the list on the left side of the Excel Options dialog box Click the
62. evel in Excel 2003 66 The Input_Template worksheet The upper left corner of the Input_Template worksheet looks like this EJ Microsoft Excel KGS_BRF xls iB File Edit View Insert Format Tools Data Window Help Adobe PDF Arial gt i B Z UJ aiaiaaeo A l B ea D l E F Ce ee E _1_ Copy your data into this template then press Compute BRF or Correct WL button Use Fill Gaps button to interpolate across gaps in data _3 Update the yellow cells appropriately This information will be passed on to output BRF worksheet Fill Gaps 4 Comment _5 Well 6 Water Level Units Compute BRF 7 Barometric Pressure Units and correct WYLD _ Earth Tide Units Not used if Number of ET Lags 1 9 Sample Interval 10 Sample Interval Units Cored WL 11 Number of BP Lags Max BP lag 6 25 days z 12 Number of ET Lags Max ET lag 0 041666667 days ee ae 13 BRF Data Start 14 BRF Data End Selected BRF BRF 1 Correction Data Start 16 Correction Data End 17 18 Paste your data below these headings starting in row 20 ET not used if Number of ET Lags 1 Header labels do not affect computations 19 Time WL ft BP feet ET y 20 10 28 08 4 00 PM 2575 699 21 10 28 08 5 00 PM 2575 714 22 10 28 08 6 00 PM 2575 722 23 10 28 08 7 00 PM 2575 733 30 76539 24 10 28 08 8 00 PM 30 7519 25 10 28 08 9 00 PM 30 74828 26 10 28 08 10 00 PM 2575 7
63. f Agriculture Division of Water Resources DWR is providing assistance as are Groundwater Management Districts GMDs 1 3 and 4 A major focus of the program is the development of criteria or methods to evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies at the sub unit e g township scale Changes in water level or the rate at which the water level is changing are considered the most direct and unequivocal measure of the impact of management strategies Because of the economic social and environmental importance of water in western Kansas the effects of any modifications in patterns of water use need to be evaluated promptly and accurately The project has focused on identifying and reducing the uncertainties and inaccuracies in estimates of year to year changes in water level so that the impacts of management decisions can be assessed as rapidly as possible The approach outlined by this study aims to provide more accurate and timely information at the sub unit scale than is provided by the annual water level measurement program Furthermore this study provides data that are valuable for the interpretation or calibration of the water level change estimates from the annual measurement program At the end of year five of the study monitoring data hourly frequency from four full recovery and pumping seasons and one ongoing recovery season have been obtained With increasing data the index well program has demonstrated that 1
64. ftware User s Guide Open file Report No 2011 10 Geoffrey C Bohling Wei Jin James J Butler Jr Kansas Geological Survey Geohydrology Section The University of Kansas Geological Survey 1930 Constant Avenue Lawrence KS 66047 Disclaimer The Kansas Geological Survey does not guarantee this document to be free from errors or inaccuracies and disclaims any responsibility of liability for interpretations based on data used in the production of this document or decisions based thereon 61 Acknowledgments The software described in this report was a product of the calibration monitoring index well program of the Kansas Geological Survey This program is a pilot study to develop improved approaches for measuring and interpreting hydrologic responses at the local section to township scale in the Ogallala High Plains aquifer The study is supported by the Kansas Water Office K WO with Water Plan funding as a result of KWO s interest in and responsibility for long term planning of ground water resources in western Kansas We thank Bob Buddemeier Dustin Fross Ed Reboulet and Randy Stotler for their comments on the current and earlier versions of this software 62 Introduction The KGS Barometric Response Function BRF software implements the method discussed in Butler et al 2011 and Stotler et al 2011 for computing a BRF and the method discussed in Stotler et al 2011 for using the BRF to correct water level WL m
65. gure 7 in the spring of 2009 An expanded view of water levels in the late winter to spring period in 2009 after correction for fluctuations in barometric pressure see Appendix A is given in Figure 15 A pumping period beginning at A and ending at B is superimposed on a near linear recovery trend Water levels however do not return to the trend line during the recovery period A return to the trend line is expected in the case of large scale lateral flow to a pumping well and was observed for a similar isolated pumping event in the Scott County index well hydrograph E on Figure 5 One explanation for the failure to return to the trend line is that the aquifer is behaving as if it is laterally bounded on all sides by low permeability units i e it is acting as a closed basin aquifer This explanation is supported by viewing the drawdown after the linear trend has been removed The resulting plot Figure 16 shows a striking similarity to the well HS 8 hydrograph in Figure 9 Thomas Co Index Well 09S 33W 33BBB 2976 Corrected Water Level Measurements 2975 5 Linear Trend T 2975 gt 6 2974 5 w z 2974 c 2 z o 2973 5 Ww 2973 2972 5 T T 13 T T T T T D O O Q O OQ D Q O y NY gt NY A y y S N Vv oy oy y y Figure 15 Water levels in the Thomas County index well for later winter and spring of 2009 33 Thomas Index Well Spring 2009 Pumping Event Drawdown at Index Well with Trend Remov
66. hange in still recovering water levels This year to year change in recovering water levels must be used cautiously by managers because it can be affected by a variety of factors such as the duration of recovery at the time of the measurement that are of little significance for assessing aquifer trends More importantly it does not involve the final recovered water level the elevation to which the water level would rise if the recovery were not interrupted by the next pumping season Efforts to estimate this final recovered water level which would provide a reliable basis for managers to assess the impact of changes in water use through various extrapolation procedures have proven difficult because of the variety of mechanisms that can affect the recovery process Although the recovery extrapolation work has not resulted in reliable estimates of the final recovered water level at the index wells those efforts coupled with additional work in the fifth year of this project have enabled us to identify recovery signatures These signatures allow recognition of some of the mechanisms affecting the recovery data even when only relatively short data records are available As shown in Section 4 of this report the continuous water level records from a network of index wells can provide the appropriate context for interpretation of year to year changes in annual water level measurements and assessing future prospects for the aquifer in the vicinity
67. hittemore and E Reboulet 2007 High Plains Aquifer Calibration Monitoring Well Program Year 1 Progress Report on Well Installation and Aquifer Response Kansas Geological Survey Open File Report 2007 30 Young D P R W Buddemeier J J Butler Jr W Jim D O Whittemore E Reboulet and B B Wilson 2008 High Plains Aquifer Calibration Monitoring Well Program Year 2 Progress Report Kansas Geological Survey Open File Report 2008 29 57 9 Appendix A 58 Kansas Geological Survey Kansas Geological Survey Barometric Response Function Software User s Guide Thomas County Index Well 2976 2 31 0 2976 0 30 8 2975 8 30 6 2975 6 30 4 2975 4 30 2 g 29752 30 0 g amp 2975 0 29 8 3 e 2974 8 29 6 p i T 2974 6 L 29 4 amp 3 2 5 2974 4 29 2 5 2974 2 29 0 amp 2974 0 28 8 2973 8 28 6 2973 6 WL_Elev ft 28 4 Corrected WL_Elev ft arias Barometric Pressure ft H20 28 2 2973 2 28 0 1 1 2009 1 8 2009 1 15 2009 1 22 2009 1 29 2009 2 5 2009 2 12 2009 2 19 2009 2 26 2009 3 5 2009 3 12 2009 Date By Geoffrey C Bohling Wei Jin and James J Butler Jr Kansas Geological Survey Open File Report 2011 10 August 2011 GEOHYDROLOGY KANSAS GEOLOGICAL SURVEY The University of Kansas The University of Kansas Lawrence KS 66047 785 864 3965 www kgs ku edu 59 60 Kansas Geological Survey Barometric Response Function So
68. however are needed before more conclusive statements can be made The focus of project activities in 2012 will be on the continuation of the detailed analyses of hydrographs from the project wells expansion of the monitoring in the vicinity of the Scott County index well cooperation with GMD4 on the interpretation of water level data from monitoring wells in the Sheridan 6 subunit further interpretation of geochemical results of analyses of water samples from the vicinity of the index wells and an assessment of the contribution of the Dakota aquifer to pumping withdrawals in the vicinity of the Haskell County index well iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements narren nea aiiiteatte an cab eigen Ai hein eae A eae A i Exec tiye MINIS CY sennen n a a ya ndedee a cena sates E A ii AD AD LE COU Is essa aia ae a a a a a al E E iv List OF Figure Seien Gaa A E A A A R aguan v Fistof Tables ocine erae e RE AE R A casa anes vi 1 Introduction and Background ssnsssesseeseesessseesseseesseessesersseesseseessressessessees 1 2 Setting and Experimental Desi Oth aii cavsisvadescgecacesosscbacdiesceanssaateiss easacecvsesancses 2 3 Overview of Index Well Sites and Monitoring Data 0 cee eeeeeeeeeteees 5 3 1 Haskell County nenas annen ina oak a aaa 6 3 1 1 Hydrograph and General Observations cceccceesceeseesteeeteeees 6 3 1 2 Measurement COMparisonS s ssssseesseeseeseesseesresresseeseeserssesee 10 3 2 Scott COUMDY sscz
69. icients and a plot of ETRF values with the corresponding error bars This new BRF worksheet is yours to do with what you will rename it move or copy it etc It contains no links via formulas to the original data sheet or to the Visual Basic code and will not break if you move it Nor does the BRF worksheet contain any VB code of its own so if you copied or moved it to a new workbook you would not be adding any macros to that workbook leading to a need to enable macros when you open that workbook All the VB code is associated only with the Input_Template worksheet or copies thereof However if you want to use the BRF contained in this worksheet later to correct other water levels then you should not alter the contents of this worksheet When you correct water levels using a previously calculated BRF the WLC code will expect to find the right information in appropriate cells in the BRF worksheet The corrected water levels will also be written out to a new worksheet which will be named WLC n where n is 1 plus the number of worksheets in the current workbook whose names start with WLC This worksheet will include a plot showing the original and corrected water levels along with the BP values on the secondary Y axis This corrected water levels worksheet is also yours to do with what you will Unlike the BRF worksheet there is no need to be concerned about altering the contents of the WLC worksheet since it will not be acces
70. id using data records showing abrupt or short term changes in water level caused by other factors such as onset or cessation of pumping since these changes could adversely impact the estimation of the BRF and or ETRF coefficients see discussion following equation 1 in Butler et al 2011 You may apply the estimated BRF to filter out the influence of barometric pressure variations from more complicated data records including those impacted by changes in pumping as long as the record you are correcting shares the same barometric response characteristics as those exhibited by the data used to compute the BRF 72 Water Level and Barometric Pressure Units The cells for specifying the measurement units of WL and BP cells B6 and B7 of the Input_Template worksheet are implemented as drop down pick lists using Excel s Validation option on the Data menu Given the number of possible units that can be used for WL and BP and the challenge of anticipating what combinations are most probable for this application the software finesses the issue by converting WL to feet and BP to equivalent feet of water performing all calculations in those units and then transforming back to the original units Currently the list of WL units in cell B6 comes from cells M5 and M6 which contain feet and meters Cells N5 and N6 contain the multipliers needed to convert each of these units to feet namely 1 and 3 281 The code will use the multiplie
71. in a half mile of the index well The 2010 11 recovery started at the end of August with approximately 10 days of pumping in mid September This pumping period was followed by a quick recovery of almost a foot followed by almost one month of negligible water level change before a nearly linear recovery commenced in mid November Pumping started in mid March with a couple of brief breaks in April and early May Moderate rain on April 15 substantial precipitation during April 26 27 and moderate rain on May 12 2011 may be related to these breaks After a sudden drop of over 0 75 ft within 24 hours on June 24 25 arelatively steady rate of drawdown was maintained until the end of the pumping season on September 1 2011 The 2011 12 recovery season was still ongoing at the time of this report Each year the minimum recorded water level elevation declined from the previous year The lowest water level observed by far was in 2011 the minimum 2011 water level elevation was 1 4 ft lower than in 2010 1 7 ft lower than in 2009 and 2 5 ft lower than in 2008 Water use data for 2011 will be available later in 2012 Water use within the 2 mile radius surrounding the index well was highest during 2008 and approximately 1000 ac ft less during 2007 2009 and 2010 The year to year declines in the maximum recovered water level were 1 3 ft 0 4 ft and 0 7 ft between the 2007 08 and 2008 09 the 2008 09 and 2009 10 and the 2009 10 and 2010 11 recovery seas
72. inary injection recharge well Kruseman and de Ridder 1990 In this case the absolute magnitude of the rate of water level change in both wells will be equal once the recharge cone has reached the aquifer boundaries in all directions producing the rapid stabilization of water levels In an unbounded aquifer however drawdown is logarithmic in time leading to an asymptotic approach to recovery over a much longer time period Kruseman and de Ridder 1990 The lateral extent of the sands and gravels can be estimated from the slope As At where s is drawdown and f is time since pumping began of the straight line of Figure 10b using a general relationship that has its origins in an analytical solution presented by Muskat 1937 for drawdown in a circular closed basin aquifer Streltsova 1988 As At Ql S As 1 where Q is the pumping rate L T S is the specific yield of the unconfined aquifer and A is the aquifer area Ey Equation 1 can be rearranged to solve for A Given the slope from the Figure 10b caption a pumping rate of 713 gpm and a specific yield estimate of 0 2 determined from the Cooper Jacob analysis of the drawdown in Figure 10a an area of 12 9x10 ft is calculated for the bounded aquifer for an ideal circular aquifer this results in a radius of 23 2 025 ft Although the configuration of the sands and gravels is unknown the key finding is that these materials are limited in lateral extent The area
73. ing selection from the units listed in cells P5 P10 See information about units on page 11 Earth Tide Units cell B8 The units of the earth tide ET values This information is not used if the number of ET lags is set to 1 If ET data are employed the code will accept any units that you type into cell B8 and the ET response coefficients will end up having units of feet per earth tide unit whatever that unit may be Sample Interval cell B9 The sample interval for the measurements The BRF and WLC computations assume that the measurements are regularly sampled at the sample interval and ignore the actual measurement time values listed in column A except when selecting the data subsets to use for BRF and WLC computations as described below Assuming that these measurement time values are Excel date time values then a convenient way to specify the sample interval is to set cell B9 equal to the difference between the first two measurement times that is cell A21 minus cell A20 This difference will yield a numeric value which is in days e g 0 4167 days if the measurements are one hour apart 68 Sample Interval Units cell B10 Or in other words the units of time If the sample interval is specified as described above difference between cells A21 and A20 with those cells containing Excel date time values then the sample interval will be in days Number of BP Lags cell B11 The number of lagged values of BP to use in the a
74. ions based on data used in the production of this document or decisions based thereon This report is intended to make results of research available at the earliest possible date but is not intended to constitute formal publication Acknowledgments We are grateful for the support assistance and cooperation of the staff of the Kansas Water Office the Kansas Department of Agriculture Division of Water Resources the managers and staff of Groundwater Management Districts 1 3 and 4 and especially for the cooperation of Jarvis Garetson the Garetson Brothers KBUF Inc and Steve and Marilyn Friesen in making their properties available for installation of the wells Mark Schoneweis assisted with graphics ShyAnne Mailen assisted with final formatting Susan Stover of the Kansas Water Office provided instructive comments on the draft of this report This project is funded by the State of Kansas Water Plan Fund Executive Summary The index well program is directed at developing improved approaches for measuring and interpreting hydrologic responses at the local section to township scale in the High Plains aquifer HPA in western Kansas The study is supported by the Kansas Water Office K WO with Water Plan funding as a result of KWO s interest in and responsibility for long term planning of ground water resources in western Kansas The Kansas Department of Agriculture Division of Water Resources DWR is providing assistance as are Gro
75. lighted in red Paste your data below these headings starting in row 20 ET not used if Nui Time WL ft BP feet ET 10 28 08 4 00 PM 2575 699 10 28 08 5 00 PM 2575 714 10 26 08 6 00 PM 2575 722 10 28 08 7 00 PM 2575 733 30 76539 10 28 08 8 00 PM 2575 734 30 7519 10 28 08 9 00 PM 2575 735 30 74828 10 28 08 10 00 PM 2575 736 30 73604 10 28 08 11 00 PM 2575 739 30 72868 10 29 08 12 00 AM 2575 752 30 71893 The red highlighting is a change to the formatting of the cells and will not go away unless you change the formatting by some mechanism such as explicitly changing the format or pasting in new values with formats included However the Fill Gaps code will also set or re set the font color for non empty cells to black The reasoning for this behavior is that if we pasted in a new data record and then ran Fill Gaps the black and red font colors would then correctly indicate the measured and interpolated values in this new record even if we hadn t bothered to undo the red formatting of the interpolated cells in the previous record However a side effect of this behavior is that the code also eliminates the highlighting of interpolated cells if we run it again on a record that contains interpolated values That is if we ran Fill Gaps again with the worksheet in the state shown above then the two interpolated WL values would be taken as present not missing and their font would be set to black The resulting dialog box would
76. ly free of the influence of pumping The longest period of undisturbed recovery was between December 24 2010 and February 15 2011 A pumping event of approximately one day in duration has occurred approximately one month after the end of the pumping season in every year since monitoring began Also similar to previous years the pumping season started earlier in the area of the Haskell site compared with the Scott and Thomas sites with a break during the month of April The early start of pumping is likely due to a combination of winter wheat irrigation and pre irrigation of other crops whereas the break in pumping could be caused by decreased water use during planting of summer crops or the moderate rain that occurred in the area on April 15 and 27 2011 daily radar precipitation images of the National Weather Service http water weather gov precip The 2011 12 recovery season began on August 29 2011 and was still ongoing at the time of this report Each year the minimum recorded water level elevation declined from the previous year The lowest water level observed by far was in 2011 the minimum 2011 water level elevation was 7 9 ft lower than in 2010 14 8 14 9 ft lower than in 2008 or 2009 and 16 2 ft lower than in 2007 Water use data for 2011 will be available later in 2012 In 2010 water use within the 2 mile radius surrounding the index well was 959 ac ft less than in 2008 the highest use year during the monitoring period and 209
77. nalysis This means the number of values preceding the current WL measurement A lag of zero means the BP measurement at the same time as the current WL measurement so the number of BP values used in the analysis is the number of BP lags plus 1 You could set the number of BP lags to 0 to use just the zero lag BP value meaning there would still be something to compute To exclude BP values from the analysis you should set the number of BP lags to 1 You would do this only if you wanted to analyze responses to earth tides alone Number of ET Lags cell B12 Same as above except for ET values instead of BP values If the number of ET lags is set to 1 then ET values column D are not required and will be ignored if they are present BRF Start Date and BRF End Date cells B13 and B14 The BRF will be computed based on a subset of the data measured between the two date time values specified in cells B13 and B14 The selection includes these two end points assuming they correspond to actual measurement times in the data record If you have set the number of BP lags to 1 only analyzing responses to earth tides the start and end dates will be for the ETRF calculation See further information on selection of start and end dates in Guidelines for Data Selection on page 10 Correction Start Date and Correction End Date cells B15 and B16 The WLC process will be applied to the subset of data between the two date time values specified in cells
78. nclusion of those tests was that the tool was not reaching sensing beyond the borehole annulus The tool was modified in 2011 to allow a greater sensing radius The modified tool was tested at the Thomas index well in November 2011 Surface NMR soundings were also obtained in the vicinity of the Thomas index well at that time using a system developed by Vista Clara The analysis of the measurements from both the logging tool and the surface soundings is ongoing 6 3 Kansas Water Resources Institute Grant The KU Geology and Geography departments and the KGS were jointly awarded a 30 000 grant to investigate sources of recharge in the area of the Thomas County index well Fluid will be collected from sediment core samples and physical chemical and isotopic determinations will be made on the fluid to provide additional insights into recharge in the area of the index well 53 7 Summary of 2011 Accomplishments and Plans for 2012 7 1 7 2 2011 Accomplishments Continued collection and processing of data Telemetered data from the three index wells have continued to be served on the web and downloads have been used for analysis and presentation DWR data collection has also continued at the Haskell site Data collection and analysis from the Thomas expansion wells have continued Real time viewing of the Thomas index well hydrograph now available from the GMD4 website Initiated detailed analysis of hydrographs at all three index well
79. nflow is the ultimate limitation on the long term sustainability of the resource 24 HS 20 Pumping Well HS 8 Obs Well Summer 2007 0 hy 0 5 N Radial Flow Signature a N Aawa Drawdown at HS 8 ft A a Bounded Aquifer Deviation a oa na 6 5 7 T T T 0 01 0 1 1 10 Time Since Pumping Began d Figure 10a Drawdown versus the logarithm of time since pumping began for the summer 2007 irrigation season drawdown and pumping time are from point A on Figure 9 Note that the transmissivity and specific yield of the aquifer in the vicinity of the well pair can be estimated from the slope and x intercept respectively of the dashed straight line HS 20 Pumping Well HS 8 Obs Well Summer 2007 Pumping r 3 Closed Basin Signature 0 10 20 30 40 50 Time Since Pumping Began d Figure 10b Drawdown versus the time since pumping began for the summer 2007 irrigation season drawdown and pumping time are from point A on Figure 9 slope is approximately 0 053 ft d 25 Wells in confined interval Increasingly over time more wells are being drilled into the thin but productive confined sand interval at the Haskell site During 2001 2011 eleven irrigation wells were completed within the 9 square mile area surrounding the index well in either the confined interval six wells the unconfined and confined intervals one well or both intervals and sandstones of the underlying Dakota aquifer four wells Five of
80. number of nearby wells screened in one or both aquifer zones and these wells are being utilized by this project The Haskell County site is in an area of greater saturated thickness than the other sites but with greater lateral variation and a more rapid rate of water level decline The water use in the vicinity of the Haskell site is much greater than that at either the Scott or Thomas sites The Scott and Thomas sites are both located in areas where the saturated thickness is generally 100 ft or less with areas of less than 50 ft nearby Since 50 100 ft of saturated thickness is required to sustain high volume irrigation pumping under most aquifer and water use conditions Hecox et al 2002 and both areas have shown long term declines in water level these sites are vulnerable to resource exhaustion The Scott County site has the only well that directly monitors the level of the northern portion of the Scott Finney depression where the aquifer is the major water supply for Scott City In addition Scott County has also recently been the location of a project that uses analyses of drillers logs to determine and map the intervals of the aquifer that readily yield water Practical Saturated Thickness Plus PST Project This information is useful for relating aquifer lithology to well response characteristics The Thomas County site has been the subject of previous water budget analyses and is of additional interest because of 1 the presence of s
81. ogen and oxygen that standard is known as standard mean ocean water collected and stored at International Atomic Energy Agency offices in Vienna VSMOW Two processes potentially affect the stable isotope ratios of recharge to the High Plains aquifer precipitation and evaporation Aquifers with water that has recharged directly from precipitation have on average a 5 H vs 5 O relationship of H 8 5 O 10 which is an average of annual worldwide precipitation Global Meteoric Water Line GMWL Craig 1961 Locally there can be minor variations positive and negative in both the slope and intercept of this line Although such relationships have not been prepared for precipitation in western Kansas a Local Meteoric Water Line LMWL has been established for the Pawnee Grasslands of northeastern Colorado Figure 27 Harvey 2005 When water evaporates the slope of the line drops to between 3 and 6 as the lighter isotopes preferentially evaporate enriching the remaining fluid with the heavier isotopes Irrigation return water typically has an evaporated isotopic signature e g Simpson et al 1992 Komor and Emerson 1994 Harvey and Sibray 2001 If this water recharges the aquifer isotopic analysis of water in the aquifer can reveal the influx of irrigation return flow or mixing between the evaporation affected return water and native aquifer water that recharged under more typical conditions Table 10 Stable isotope results from th
82. ons respectively The expectation based on the decline in the minimum recorded water level elevation in 2011 is that the decline in the maximum recovered water level between the 2010 11 and 2011 12 recovery seasons will exceed these previous declines 12 Scott Co Index Well Hourly Water Level Measurements Periodic Electric Tape Measurements 18S 33W 01AAA Annual Program Measurements 2837 2836 N fee o gt Sz N oe wo gt N oe oO N Elevation of Water Level ft AMSL o o wo wo oO Figure 5 Scott County index well hydrograph total data run to 2 22 12 A water level elevation of 2829 ft corresponds to a depth to water of 138 15 ft below land surface Isf the top of the screen is 215 ft below Isf and the bottom of the aquifer is 223 ft below Isf 13 Table 4 General characteristics of the Scott index well hydrograph and local water use data 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Minimum Water Feet lt 2833 4 2832 0 2831 2 2830 9 2829 5 Level Elevation Date 8 21 07 9 5 08 8 30 09 8 24 10 8 26 11 and and 9 18 10 8 29 11 Maximum Feet 2835 9 2834 6 2834 2 2833 5 NA Observed Recovery Date N 3 4 08 2 17 09 3 26 10 3 11 11 Elevation and Mall al ba Apparent Water Feet Apparent Recovery Feet 3 0 2 6 Level Change from NA 1 3 0 4 0 7 Previous Year Recovery Season Start lt 8 21 07 9 13 08 8 30 09 8 29 10 End 3 11 0
83. or specify a different one by typing in a different folder name or using the browse button Then click the Start button to extract the files to the specified folder The Tsoft user s manual Tsman pdf is available through the Download TSoft manual link near the bottom of the TSoft web page listed above The URL for the manual is http seismologie oma be TSOFT Tsman pdf It would make sense to save this file in the same folder as the software e g C Tsoft The computation of theoretical earth tides is discussed in the manual s fourth chapter entitled Synthetic tides The remainder of this appendix presents the essential steps for computing theoretical earth tides at a desired location Please refer to the TSoft manual for further information 76 To start TSoft navigate to the folder where you installed it C Tsoft if you accepted the default location and double click on the icon for the file tsoft exe Depending on how you have Windows configured you may not see the exe extension Nevertheless the file s icon should look something like this Once TSoft is running the first step is to add the location at which you want to compute earth tides to TSoft s location database To do this go to TSoft s Tides menu then select Open location database from the Synthetic tides submenu File Edit Show Calculate Filters Correctors Sismology E38 Script Help Synthetic tides gt Open location database
84. osen to open Tsoft_c exe which is a Binary File from http seismologie oma be Would you like to save this File and then either save the file in the default location e g your desktop or a downloads folder or prompt for a location After the file has been saved navigate to that location in Windows and double click on the file Tsoft_c exe to extract install the software Most likely Windows will show you a security warning asking for confirmation that you really want to run the extractor To do so click the appropriate button e g Run or OK on the warning dialog box 75 Open File Security Warning The publisher could not be verified Are you sure you want to run this software m Name Tsoft_c exe Publisher Unknown Publisher Type Application From C Documents and Settings TEMP Desktop Always ask before opening this file publisher You should only run software from publishers you trust x This file does not have a valid digital signature that verifies its How can decide what software to run You will then be prompted to specify a folder to which the software and associated data files should be extracted EasyZip Self Extractor al myx Extract to EANET ba a Close OUTPUT TXT About POTENT TSD Existing files Confirm overwrite Don t overwrite C Overwrite Created with EasyZip http members xoom com ipsoft You can either accept the default folder C Tsoft
85. r of an improperly sealed well either the index well or a nearby well The low tritium activity is not surprising given that each of the index wells is screened at the base of the aquifer A similar result was found in three of the four irrigation wells sampled near the Thomas County index well However a small but significant amount of H activity was observed in the northernmost irrigation well an indication that there may be areas of focused downward recharge to the HPA in the vicinity The quantity of focused recharge would not need to be substantial because a relatively high concentration of tritium in a small amount of recharge water could affect a large volume of aquifer water after mixing 51 This is in contrast to the stable isotope data for water which is representative of the volume of water rather than a particular solute The tritium concentration in this case can be considered as a solute even though it is part of the water Carbon 14 C can provide an estimate of ground water age once dissolution and precipitation of carbonates and exsolution of dissolved CO are taken into account Several models have been proposed to account for different processes affecting dissolved carbonate and provide a means for correction of measured C activity in ground water samples e g Fontes and Garnier 1979 Although some additional information is needed to determine exactly which correction is most appropriate for the HPA or even
86. r 2008 Summer 2009 a Summer 2010 Boundary Deviation Summer 2011 N on 0 01 0 1 1 10 100 Time Since Pumping Began d Figure 13 Drawdown in the Scott County index well versus the logarithm of time since pumping began for pumping seasons beginning at points A 2008 B 2009 C 2010 and D 2011 on Figure 5 Thomas County Figure 14 is a NW SE lithologic cross section of the unconsolidated sequence at the Thomas site The hydrostratigraphy of the site consists of an interbedded mix of coarse gravels through clays As with the Scott County well changes in water levels in the Thomas County index well whether in response to pumping or fluctuations in barometric pressure indicate that the sands in which the well is screened are unconfined Given that 31 the well is screened at the bottom of the unconsolidated saturated interval we can again assume that this interval acts as an unconfined aquifer THOMAS COUNTY NW SE 3150 l 3100 3000 4 2950 l 3050 i li 7 7 PRE a J 2900 z Figure 14 Lithologic cross section for the Thomas County site The 2007 level represents the measured January 2007 water level in a nearby annual well See Figure 8 for legend Figure 7 is the hydrograph of the index well for the entire monitoring period Six characteristics are worth noting 1 the maximum drawdown during the pumping season is only 4 7 ft yr a
87. r corresponding to the selected units to convert water levels to feet Similarly the allowed BP units are listed in cells P5 to P10 with the multipliers required to convert them to equivalent feet of water listed in cells Q5 to Q10 The code will use the appropriate multiplier to convert BP to feet of water lt 0 00 00 0 E M N is E Q R S WL Units Equiv feet BP Units Equiv feet of water feet 1 000 feet 1 000 meters 3 261 psi 2 311 in Hg 1 135 mm Hg 0 04466 bars 33 51 kPa 0 3351 Additional options could be added to these lists by adding the label for the units to the list in column M or P and adding the multiplier for conversion to feet to the adjacent cell in column N or Q To add the new units to the drop down list of options select either cell B6 or B7 then select Validation from the Data menu and expand the list of cells serving as the Source for the list For example to add meters to the list of allowable BP units you could type meters in cell P11 and 3 281 in cell Q11 and then use the Data Validation dialog box to change the Source for the list in cell B7 to include cell P11 73 DiGm literal Settings Input Message Error Alert Validation criteria Allow List C Ignore blank In cell dropdown Source P 5 P 11 C Apply these changes to all other cells with the same settings References Butler J J Jr W Jin G A Mohammed and E C Reboulet 2011
88. rate was detectable at all sites but was highest in the four irrigation wells Although concentrations at the index wells could be viewed as background concentrations nitrate in three of the four irrigation wells is generally greater than expected for background This could be a result of the difference in screened intervals between the index and irrigation wells well construction or an indication of more modern recharge to the HPA in Thomas County A general correlation is also observed between nitrate and chloride concentrations Table 9 Selected chemical results samples collected in June and September 2011 Sample Ca Mg Na SiOz HCO 3 Cl SO it T 3H a pert A ka 9 EJ Ea ey ea E EDA 4 20 275 lt 0 8 Irr 09S 33W 32A onn 472 2 15 0 0 28 3 3 24 5 5 149 9 24 3 3 5 56 301 lt 0 8 Tea TST NA P paa i 0 PS e A 32DBC 9 1 11 41 4 13 0 29 1 5 2 24 0 229 8 3 17 7 2 83 lt 0 8 Irr 0O9S 32W 29B 9 1 11 43 4 15 2 29 8 5 5 24 3 14 6 21 1 4 90 291 1 1 49 Stable isotope ratio H and O data Table 10 provide insights into processes affecting HPA water as water molecules composed of the different masses move through the atmosphere and near surface environment at different rates Isotope ratios are measured compared with a standard and reported as parts per thousand o using the 5 notation where dsample RatiOsample RatiOstandard RatiOstandard 1000 For both hydr
89. rs to be a significant amount of vertical inflow into the unconfined aquifer at the Thomas County site Thomas Index Well Summer 2010 Pumping Season 0 0 5 a 1 f D 1 5 z a 2 O C 3 25 0 Cc 5 3 O fe 3 o amp 3 5 QO o 4 a 4 5 Closed Basin T i T T T T T T r T T T i 1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time Since Pumping Began d Figure 17 Drawdown in the Thomas County index well versus the time since pumping began for the summer 2010 pumping period beginning at point B on Figure 7 R marks the beginning of the recovery period cessation of widespread pumping for 2010 35 The possibility of vertical inflow can be explored further by examining the recovery data One useful approach for assessing behavior during the recovery period which was developed for this project is to superimpose recovery data from different years This is done by setting the time and water level elevation at the start of the recovery period to zero for each year Figure 18 shows the results for the complete 2008 09 and 2009 10 recovery seasons and the still ongoing 2011 12 recovery The 2008 09 and 2009 10 recovery seasons were chosen because the 2008 irrigation season was nearly twice as long with almost 50 more pumping than the 2009 irrigation season Table 6 Although the 2011 water use is yet to be determined the 2011 pumping period was over 50 days longer than that in 2008 and large water level declines were observed during the 2011 pumping s
90. s Pumping 4 221 hrs Recovery 4 47 hrs Pumping 3 216 hrs Recovery 2 194 hrs Pumping 2 47 hrs Recovery 1 531 hrs Pumping 1 211 hrs Recovery 6 3603 hrs Recovery 5 652 hrs D in on on Drawdown at SD 8S29W03CBA ft 3 5 2 5 1 5 0 5 1 10 100 1000 1000 100 10 1 Time Since Pumping Began hrs tp t t Figure 25 Pumping and recovery analysis for different periods in the Sheridan County well In contrast to the Sheridan well the well record from northwestern Thomas County is more limited in duration Figure 26 However it is apparent that barometric pressure fluctuations also affect water levels in this area as would be expected from the greater than 165 ft depth to water Total variation in water level over the course of the one complete pumping season that was monitored is relatively small 2 ft undoubtedly due to the unconfined nature of the aquifer distance to the nearest pumping well is unknown The water levels appear to follow a nearly linear recovery pattern indicating that inflow not induced by pumping is likely affecting the aquifer in the vicinity of this well Thus the data indicate that it would be worthwhile to collect additional information from this well 47 166 TH 06S 35W 26 ACB 166 5 167 167 5 S c A 168 no 5 gt 1685 a x g 2 169 169 5 170 Transducer Steel Tape 170 5 6 1 04 12 1 04 6 1 05 12 1 05 6 1 06 12 1 06 6 1
91. s 11 days longer than the 2008 09 recovery at the time of the annual water level measurements the total duration of recovery was within one week of four months in both cases It is possible that the general rise in water level across Thomas County in Figure 19 is simply a product of the large difference in durations of the previous pumping seasons However the hydrograph from the Thomas County index well indicates otherwise a demonstration of the value of the index wells for interpretation of the results of the annual water level measurement program Note that given the depth to water gt 210 ft at the Thomas County index well and that the same maximum water level as in 2009 would have been observed at the Thomas index well in 2008 and 2011 if the recovery periods had been longer vertical infiltration of 2009 precipitation is not responsible for the rise in water level across Thomas County in Figure 19 Although 2009 was a wet year in the GMD4 region the reported water usage in 2009 1917 af was still 68 of that in 2008 2825 af Further investigation of the amount and source of the vertical inflow will be pursued in the sixth year of this project 37 Thomas County Index Well Recovery Comparison 2008 09 Recovery 2009 10 Recovery 2011 12 Recovery Water Level Position ft above start of recovery 45 0 45 90 135 180 225 270 Time days since start of recovery Figure 18a Water
92. s over time interval 0800 1600 not corrected for barometric pressure d Back extrapolated quadratic best fit from barometrically corrected values 1 8 2009 2 18 2009 Average of values over time interval 0800 1600 corrected for barometric pressure using the KGS barometric pressure correction program 15 3 3 Thomas County Index Well WIMAS PD Monitored Transducer IND Monitored Annual o IRR Wizard Wells ret WWCS5 Wells Figure 6 Thomas County site showing the index well nearby wells that have been equipped with transducers surrounding annual program wells and points of diversion in the area Figure 6 is an aerial overview of the Thomas County site at a scale that shows the index well the additional wells in which transducers have been placed labeled Monitored Transducer the surrounding network of annual program wells and the wells with water rights within the area 16 3 3 1 Hydrograph and General Observations The complete hydrograph for the Thomas index well is shown in Figure 7 and its general characteristics are summarized in Table 6 The unconfined nature of the aquifer zone in which the index well is screened is illustrated by the relatively small change and rate of change in water level during each pumping and recovery season despite 10 or more high capacity pumping wells within a mile of the index well Real time viewing of the Thomas index well hydrograph is now also possible through the GMD4 websi
93. s result of the unconfined nature of the aquifer and the distance to the closest high capacity well 2 there is a thick noise band in the water level data that is a product of water level responses to fluctuations in barometric pressure 3 the recovery period is much longer e g ended in late June in both 2009 and 2010 than at the Scott ended early April both years or Haskell ended early February 2009 and early March 2010 sites 4 water levels are still recovering from the previous irrigation season when pumping begins for the following year and there is no indication that the water levels are nearing stabilization at the onset of pumping 5 other than in 2011 both the minimum 32 and maximum observed water levels have fluctuated over a range that is less than 1 5 ft since the summer of 2007 and 6 most noteworthy unlike the Scott index well or any of the monitored wells at the Haskell site an increase in the maximum observed water level between 2009 and 2010 occurred during the monitoring period The last three characteristics indicate that there is likely an additional source of inflow into the unconfined sands at the Thomas County index well As at the other two sites conditions in the aquifer at the Thomas County site can be explored in more detail using traditional methods for interpretation of pumping tests From the Thomas County hydrograph it appears that an isolated pumping event occurred at the point marked A on Fi
94. sed again by the VB code The listing of corrected WL values will not start until the number of measurements is equal to the number of BP lags plus 1 This is because this number of previous BP values has to be accumulated before the correction can be applied Correcting Water Levels with selected BRF It is possible that you will want to correct a series of WL measurements using a BRF computed using some other series of measurements You can accomplish this using the Correct WL with Selected BRF button The correction will be applied to the measurements in the Input_Template worksheet or copy thereof but the BRF 71 coefficients will be read from the worksheet whose name appears in cell J14 following the Selected BRF label Whenever you compute a new BRF the code will put the name of the newly generated BRF worksheet into cell J14 on the Input_Template worksheet However you can replace this with the name of any other BRF worksheet by typing the name of that worksheet into cell J14 The BRF worksheet needs to reside in the active workbook but this could be accomplished by copying the BRF worksheet from some other workbook Guidelines for Data Selection When you compute a BRF you should do so based on a reasonably stationary data record that clearly exhibits water level responses to barometric pressure variations possibly superimposed on a long term trend The same proviso also applies to the estimation of an ETRF You should avo
95. sites Initial results of considerable practical significance were obtained for the Haskell and Thomas sites Continued comparison of transducer data with the results of the annual water level network Publication of open file report on spreadsheet to remove barometric pressure influences from water level data report published on the web and the spreadsheet downloadable from the KGS web site Water samples collected from and analyzed for all three index wells and for four irrigation wells near the Thomas County index well Preliminary interpretation of geochemical results to assess age s and source s of ground water in the vicinity of each sampled well Presentations on the index well program given to the KWO DWR GMD boards and managers Smoky Hills Audubon Society the Feedgrains Advisory Committee of the Kansas Farm Bureau the Water and the Future of Kansas Conference and the American Institute of Hydrology Annual Meeting in Topeka among others Planned Activities 2012 Recovery and pumping assessment for 2011 and 2012 periods Continue detailed analysis of hydrographs from all three index well sites and any other data sets that we can find Monitor and analyze water levels at two additional wells in the vicinity of the Scott County index well Continue interpretation of geochemical results to assess age s and source s of ground water in the vicinity of each index well Collection and analysis of water samples from irrigation
96. so that it can be used on its own without the Excel front end Using it involves creating a set of plain text input files a parameter file and input data files and then running the program in a DOS command window The details of this process will be explained in a separate report The Visual Basic code attached to the Input_Template worksheet automates the process of generating the input files and reading the output files The Excel workbook and included Visual Basic code has been created in Excel 2003 It should also work in more recent versions of Excel Macro Security To be able to run the Visual Basic code included in KGS_BRF xls you may need to alter Excel s macro security level from its current setting In Excel 2003 you set the macro security level by selecting Options from the Tools menu then selecting the Security tab on the Options dialog box and then clicking the Macro Security button on that tab On the resulting dialog box you should set the security level to Medium Security i Trusted Publishers very High Only macros installed in trusted locations will be allowed to run All other signed and unsigned macros are disabled O High Only signed macros from trusted sources will be allowed to run Unsigned macros are automatically disabled Medium You can choose whether or not to run potentially unsafe macros Low not recommended You are not protected From potentially unsafe macros Use this s
97. soon provide additional insights into sources of recharge to the HPA in Thomas and Haskell counties see Section 6 z N 8 X ASCIW Pe TH IW TH Irr Wells 12 11 10 9 8 7 5180 o VSMOW Figure 27 Relationship between 5 O vs H for the three index wells and for the four irrigation wells near the Thomas County index well Craig s 1961 Global Meteoric Waterline GMWL and a Local Meteoric Waterline LMWL for northeastern Colorado Harvey 2005 are shown for reference Tritium H is an environmental tracer that was introduced to the atmosphere in large quantities during nuclear bomb testing in the 1950s and 1960s and has a half life of just over 12 4 years Aquifer recharge originating from precipitation in the 1950s had greatly elevated H activity Although much of the original pulse has dissipated in the atmosphere and in most ground water systems through decay and dispersion trace amounts of H may still be measured Furthermore small natural and anthropogenic sources of tritium still exist in the atmosphere today Thus sampling ground water for H still provides a reasonable indicator of modern lt 50 years precipitation The H results largely indicate the water from the index wells did not recharge within the last 50 years Table 9 The trace activity of tritium in the Haskell well water was barely over the analytical threshold 0 8 T U and could be an analytical artifact or an indicato
98. t of human activity i e nearby pumping rather than the result of the juxtaposition of units of vastly differing permeability Although the turning on and off of multiple pumping wells can be observed in the hydrograph from the Thomas index well Figure 7 the consistency of the water level response to a single short term pumping event Figure 15 which was likely produced by pumping at a single well and to the entire irrigation season Figure 17 which is produced by pumping at multiple wells indicates that the sand and gravel units 34 in which the Thomas index well is screened are likely laterally bounded by units of relatively low permeability However unlike the unconfined interval at the Haskell site the common pool in this case appears to have multiple members pumping wells Consideration of a single pumping event or the entire irrigation season reveals that the aquifer acts as a closed basin system Thus during the recovery period one would expect a very rapid recovery similar to that observed in the unconfined interval at the Haskell site e g Figure 9 However in contrast to conditions in the unconfined interval at the Haskell site water levels continue to rise until the onset of pumping for the subsequent irrigation season The inflow producing this rise is not a result of lateral flow from more distant regions because the aquifer acts as a closed basin system on the time scale of a recovery period Thus there appea
99. te www gmd4 org The 2010 2011 recovery was the shortest observed to date in the Thomas area beginning on September 6 2010 and ending on March 17 2011 Although pumping started in mid March there was a general pause through the month of April with intermittent pumping through May The pauses and intermittent interruptions in pumping are likely related to the moderate to substantial rain received on April 15 and 25 27 and May 19 and 24 25 2011 Sustained pumping commenced in early June and continued until the end of the pumping season on September 4 2011 The 2011 12 recovery season was ongoing at the time of this report Unlike the Haskell and Scott index wells the minimum recorded water level elevation at the Thomas index well has not declined every year The minimum observed water level elevation in 2011 which was the lowest recorded over the monitoring period was 2 7 ft below that of 2010 However the 2010 level was the highest recorded minimum water level elevation during the monitoring period 0 62 ft 1 33 ft and 0 26 ft above the minimum water level elevations in 2007 2008 and 2009 respectively Water use data for 2011 will be available later in 2012 Water use within the 2 mile radius surrounding the index well was similar during 2007 and 2008 and 800 1000 ac ft less during 2009 and 2010 The maximum observed water level in 2011 was over a foot below that of 2010 primarily because of the additional three months of recovery
100. te of the hydrographs for the three index wells b interpretation of hydrographs from the index wells and the wells in the expanded monitoring areas in the vicinity of two of the index wells c a discussion of the expanded monitoring that has resulted from the findings of the index well program d a discussion of the sampling and geochemical analysis of water from the three index wells and from four irrigation wells near one of the index wells and e the final version of the KGS barometric correction spreadsheet program which calculates the barometric response function for a given well and corrects the measured water levels for the impact of barometric pressure changes A particular emphasis of this report will be on the important new insights that have been obtained from the interpretation of hydrographs from the index wells and from wells in the expanded monitoring areas in the vicinity of two of the index wells 2 Setting and Experimental Design The foundation of the experimental component of the project consists of three transducer equipped wells designed and sited to function as local monitoring wells installed in late summer 2007 One of these index wells is in each of the three western GMDs with locations deliberately chosen to represent different water use and hydrogeologic conditions and to take advantage of related past or current studies Figure 1 The original experimental design envisioned use of the index wells to anchor and
101. the Haskell site the irrigation season can be viewed as a long term pumping test Although the analysis is ongoing some initial results have been obtained Figure 13 is a plot of drawdown versus the logarithm of time since pumping began for pumping periods beginning at A 2008 B 2009 C 2010 and D 2011 on Figure 5 These data are relatively noisy as a result of pumps cutting on and off but a consistent picture still emerges for all four pumping seasons An apparent period of radial flow to the pumping well lasts until nearly 20 days from the onset of pumping After that time however drawdown increases at a faster rate than would be expected for large scale radial flow to the pumping well This is an indication of low permeability boundaries impacting the drawdown Unlike the unconfined sands at Haskell County the rate of deviation from the radial flow line does not appear to continually increase so there is no 30 indication of a closed basin response at the Scott index well The deviation may be produced by the edges of the Scott Finney depression but little more can be said at this point Assessment of water level changes at the Scott index well will continue in the sixth year of this project Additional discussion of water level changes during the recovery period is provided in the following section Scott Index Well Summer 2008 to 2011 Pumping Seasons o N Drawdown at SC Index Well ft ol Summe
102. the annual water level measurement network even with additional semi annual observations does not currently produce an adequate dataset to evaluate how management decisions affect water level changes in the short term fewer than four to five years 2 because of uncertainties in both the effects of barometric pressure changes and the degree of well recovery at the time of the annual water level measurement program the data from the index wells provide the context needed for the interpretation of the results of the annual measurement program 3 interpretation of index well hydrographs during both the pumping and recovery periods enables important practical insights to be drawn concerning the origin of the pumped water and the long term viability of the aquifer in the vicinity of the index wells 4 additional measurements at nearby local township scale wells help establish the generality of the conclusions that can be obtained from interpretation of index well hydrographs 5 local hydrogeologic variations and well construction need to be assessed and considered in the interpretation of well hydrographs for the most effective use of wells of opportunity and 6 water level data collected using a pressure transducer and data logger provide a near continuous record of great practical value that can help in the assessment of the continued viability of the HPA as a source of water for large scale irrigation This report will provide a an upda
103. the length of the data record based on the measurement time data starting in cell A20 It reads down this column from row 20 until it finds a blank cell The cell above this first blank cell is the last data point in the record even if there are additional data below the blank cell The measurement times listed in column A do not actually matter to the BRF and WLC computations They are solely for informational and plotting purposes The BRF and WLC computations assume that the data are strictly regularly sampled with the sample interval given in cell B9 Time in these computations is given by the sample interval multiplied by the sample number index The code behind the Fill Gaps button however does use the measurement times and requires that they be in strictly increasing order each time is strictly greater than the previous time You should modify cells B4 B16 labels in cells A4 A16 to specify the following information Comment cell B4 This is a place for user notes regarding the data and or analysis These notes will be passed on to the output BRF and WLC worksheets Well cell B5 The well name Water Level Units cell B6 The units of the WL measurements This cell is implemented as a pick list allowing selection from the units listed in cells M5 M6 feet and meters See information about units on page 11 Barometric Pressure Units cell B7 The units of the BP measurements This cell is implemented as a pick list allow
104. the stabilization of water levels after the short recovery period indicates that negligible inflow occurs as either vertical recharge from above or upward seepage from below Wells HS 20 and HS 8 2007 08 Water Levels 2605 2600 2595 2590 2585 2580 Elevation of Water Level ft AMSL 2575 1 gt 1 0 gt 7 7 YO gt V7 0 gt 1177 0 gt 1 17 08 3 7 08 5 1 08 Figure 9 Water levels at wells HS 8 and HS 20 from early spring 2007 to late spring 2008 The flattening of the HS 20 hydrograph for a portion of the 2007 pumping season is probably due to the water level moving past the transducer the sensor appears to have been repositioned later in the summer Note that monitoring at HS 20 was interrupted in April 2008 for unknown reasons Well locations are shown on Figure 2 22 The limited lateral extent of the sands in which wells HS 8 and HS 20 are screened can be explored in more detail using traditional pumping test interpretation methods e g Streltsova 1988 Kruseman and de Ridder 1990 The near continuous pumping at HS 20 over the irrigation season can be viewed as a long term pumping test enabling water level changes at HS 8 during this period to be interpreted as pumping induced drawdown Figure 10a is a plot of the drawdown at HS 8 versus the logarithm of the time since pumping began for this analysis pumping is assumed to start at time A on Figure 9 and end at time B
105. these 11 wells were constructed during 2006 2011 Figure 8 shows a N S line of wells including the index well that are screened in the lower confined interval The sands in this interval appear to be more laterally continuous than sands in the unconfined interval as hydrographs from wells HS 1 HS 2 HS 4 HS 7 and HS 18 are similar in form to that of the index well and well HS 6 has a muted form of the same pattern see Figure 2 for well locations However well HS 21 which is at the northern end of the cross section of Figure 8 shows no response to pumping in the confined interval despite the more than 120 ft of drawdown produced by pumping in that interval indicating that the lower sand at HS 21 is not in hydraulic communication with the interval to the south over the time frame of the monitoring period The muted response at well HS 6 8 ft of drawdown versus 120 ft at the other wells indicates that the sand interval in which it is screened is in only very limited hydraulic communication with the heavily pumped interval to the north Figure 3 is the hydrograph from the index well for the entire monitoring period This hydrograph displays three noteworthy characteristics common to hydrographs from wells screened in this interval First the pumping induced drawdown exceeds 120 ft every year during the monitoring period Second water levels are still recovering from the previous irrigation season when pumping begins for the next irrigation
106. thy characteristics of these hydrographs are common to many wells screened in the unconfined interval First despite the numerous irrigation wells in the vicinity of this well pair every change in water level at HS 8 is associated with pumping at HS 20 no other pumping well appears to be affecting the water level at HS 8 Second although well HS 20 is pumped nearly continuously for the 70 day irrigation season the two wells recover in just over two weeks a small fraction of the duration of pumping at HS 20 Third after the short recovery period no further changes in water level occur at either well beyond small amplitude fluctuations produced by variations in barometric pressure These three characteristics are indicative of pure ground water mining i e all water pumped at HS 20 is being removed from storage in the sands in the vicinity of the well pair there is no significant lateral flow from more distant regions Thus the sands in 21 which the two wells are screened pinch out or are truncated by units of low permeability e g clays and silts in all directions i e these sands function as a small closed basin bathtub or compartmentalized aquifer The very short relative to the pumping period duration of recovery despite the continuing drawdown throughout the pumping period is particularly diagnostic in this regard as the time to recovery in an unbounded aquifer is typically a few multiples of the duration of pumping Moreover
107. tream channels the channel of the South Fork of the Solomon River runs east west just north of the index well that may influence recharge and 2 the proximity of the site to the edge of the productive portion of the HPA The water level responses at both the Scott and Thomas sites indicate unconfined water table aquifer conditions Percent Change in Saturated Thickness for the High Plains Aquifer aa Msphitipsburg gt me Predevelopment to Average 2007 2009 nels Sin S j EAU y Smith Gan Y e Estimated Decrease in Saturated Thickness B Increase Oto 15 1510 30 ll 30 to 45 fim 45 to 60 MM Over 60 Extent of the Saturated Portion Ca of the High Plains Aquifer nE e Ellsworth Salina i Figure 1 The Kansas portion of the High Plains aquifer with aquifer and county boundaries shown Each colored pixel represents one section 1 mi coded to show the degree of ground water depletion from the beginning of large scale development to the average of conditions in 2007 2009 The three green boxes surround the index well study sites Table 1 Characteristics of the index well sites Site 2012 2012 Bedrock Screened 2010 Water Use AF WL Saturated depth interval ft 1 mi 2 mi 5 mi elev thickness estimated ft below Isf circle circle circle ft ft below Isf H
108. tt County expansion early in the sixth year of this program with the assistance of GMD1 two additional wells of opportunity were added in the vicinity of the Scott County index well Each of these wells is equipped with a transducer The commonly adopted view of the HPA as a single unconfined aquifer also appears reasonable in the vicinity of the Scott County site Site characteristics are described and discussed in more detail in previous publications Young et al 2007 2008 Buddemeier et al 2010 but are briefly summarized below and in Table 1 The three sites are located south to north in Haskell Scott and Thomas counties The Haskell County site represents the most complex set of conditions It is located over a relatively steeply sloping section of the bedrock surface underlying the High Plains aquifer and along a gradient in both water use and water availability Although the saturated thickness is large the thickness of intervals that readily yield water to wells is much less Probably as a result well yields have deteriorated and an impairment complaint since withdrawn was filed It appears that a two aquifer system exists an unconfined upper aquifer zone and a thin but productive confined aquifer zone on top of bedrock with a thick clay layer separating the two The project well was installed to sample only the lower confined aquifer zone near the site of the impairment complaint DWR has installed transducers in a
109. tt County index well is critical for assessing the continued viability of those portions of the High Plains aquifer as a water source for irrigated agriculture Water samples have been taken and analyzed from the index wells Water samples have also been collected at four active irrigation wells in the vicinity of the Thomas index well so that the chemistry of waters drawn from a larger vertical interval of the aquifer can be assessed The results of the analyses of those samples and preliminary interpretations are given in Section 5 of this report The vertical inflow observed at the Thomas County index well does not appear to be isolated to that immediate area Figure 19 shows the interpolated change in water level based on the annual measurement program in the HPA between 2009 and 2010 The blue region in most of Thomas County indicates that water levels rose between 2009 and 2010 In a pure ground water mining situation such water level increases would only be observed if there was a large difference in the duration of the previous pumping season and the duration of recovery prior to annual measurements in successive years In this case the duration of the pumping season for 2008 was nearly twice that of 2009 The 2009 10 recovery period began 13 days earlier than the 2008 09 recovery 8 26 09 vs 9 8 08 and the 2010 annual measurement was taken two days earlier than the 2009 annual measurement 1 2 2010 vs 1 4 2009 Thus the 2009 10 recovery wa
110. undwater Management Districts GMDs 1 3 and 4 The project began with the installation of three transducer equipped wells designed and sited to function as local monitoring wells in late summer 2007 One of these index wells is installed in each of the three western GMDs with locations deliberately chosen to represent different water use and hydrogeologic conditions and to take advantage of related past or current studies A major focus of the program has been the development of criteria or methods to evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies at the sub unit e g township scale Changes in water level or the rate at which the water level is changing are considered the most direct and unequivocal measure of the impact of management strategies At the time of this report monitoring data hourly frequency from four full recovery and pumping seasons and one ongoing recovery season have been obtained at the three index wells additional water level data have been obtained from wells in the vicinity of two of the index well sites This report provides a an update of the hydrographs for the three index wells b interpretation of hydrographs from the index wells and the wells in the expanded monitoring areas in the vicinity of two of the index wells c a discussion of the expanded monitoring that has resulted from the findings of the index well program d a discussion of the sampling and geochemical analysis of water from th
111. vel measured by the index well transducer average of values over time interval 0800 1600 not corrected for barometric pressure d average of values over time interval 0800 1600 corrected for barometric pressure using KGS barometric correction program 19 4 Interpretation of Water Level Responses 4 1 Barometric Correction of Water Level Response Significant effort has been expended over the course of this project on correcting water level measurements recorded by pressure transducers in the index wells Common mechanisms beyond pumping that can affect the water level in a well include fluctuations in barometric pressure and tidal forces earth tides In previous reports earth tide effects were shown to have a negligible impact on water level measurements while the impact of changes in barometric pressures is large enough to be of practical significance at one of the index wells Thomas County Given this finding and the potential impact of barometric pressure fluctuations on the measurements from the annual water level program the KGS developed an Excel spreadsheet to remove the effect of barometric pressure fluctuations from water level measurements henceforth water level correction This spreadsheet was revised in the first half of 2011 as a result of the experience of KGS staff working with datasets from the index wells and associated wells of opportunity A KGS Open File Report Bohling et al 2011 describing the sprea
112. wn to more than 120 ft This interference enhanced drawdown continues to increase until it is large enough to induce sufficient leakage to significantly slow the rate of decline and in certain years 2009 and 2010 appears to nearly balance the pumping withdrawals in the latter portion of the irrigation season This pumping induced leakage is undoubtedly primarily responsible for the slower rate of decline for the minimum observed water level than for the maximum observed water level in the first half of the monitoring period It is possible that the similarity in these rates in the latter half of the monitoring period is an indication of dewatering of portions of the unconfined sands that had previously provided leakage to the confined interval The leaky aquifer response of the sands in the confined interval has important implications for the continued viability of those sands as a water source for irrigated 28 agriculture Pumping withdrawals from this interval appear to be heavily dependent on downward leakage from the overlying aquitard and unconfined sands However in a relatively few years the unconfined sand interval will be largely dewatered at that point the leakage will be drawn from water stored in the aquitard and possibly from the underlying Dakota shales and scattered sandstones It is unclear whether those units can yield water at a sufficient rate to meet irrigation season demands Thus it is likely that drawdown will continu
113. zed if well HS 1 had continued to pump Note that the upward trend in the extended drawdown is a product of the background upward trend in water levels shown in Figure 3 Based on the Van der Kamp extension it appears that with continued pumping at well HS 1 the entire pumped amount would have shortly been supplied by pumping induced inflow leakage into the aquifer Haskell County Index Well Fall 2007 Pumping Event Drawdown at HS Index Well ft o 0 1 1 Time Since Pumping Began d Figure 11a Drawdown in the Haskell County index well versus the logarithm of time since pumping began for the pumping event at A on Figure 3 27 Haskell County Index Well Fall 2007 Pumping Event Drawdown at HS Index Well ft 14 Measured Drawdown Van der Kamp Extension 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Time Since Pumping Began d Figure 11b Drawdown in the Haskell County index well versus the time since pumping began for the pumping event at A on Figure 3 Van der Kamp extension is an estimate of the drawdown that would have occurred if pumping had continued This leakage dominated response to pumping at a single well is consistent with the hydrograph of Figure 3 Although pumping at HS 1 produced only 13 ft of drawdown at the index well much more drawdown occurs during the irrigation season because of well interference i e cones of depression from multiple pumping wells interact with one another to increase drawdo

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