USGS Water Resources of Michigan - Source Water Assessment for Ground-Water Supplies in Karst Areas

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) is completing a Source Water Assessment Program as required by the 1996 reauthorization of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The 1996 amendments to the SDWA require states to:

Identify the areas that supply public drinking water.
Inventory contaminants and assess water susceptibility to contamination.
Inform the public of the results.

USGS is helping MDEQ to define protocols to implement this EPA-mandated program throughout Michigan. Methods will be developed to delineate areas contributing water to drinking water supplies statewide, including karst areas in the eastern Upper peninsula, Alpena county, and Presque Isle county. In these areas, a geographic information system (GIS) is being used to identify potentially vulnerable wells. The analysis identifies public supply wells located in the presence of carbonate lithology (potential for solution features to develop), overlain by less than 25 feet of glacial drift (insufficient thickness to insulate the well from effects of surface activities).

Source Water Assessment and Protection in Michigan Karst Terrane

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Michigan Source Water Assessment: Ground Water in Karst Areas (709KB)

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Reference:

Sweat, M.J. and Wolf, J.R., 1996, Combined-sewer overflow data and methods of sample collection for selected sites, Detroit, Michigan: U.S. Geological Open-File Report 96-646, 43 p., 2 diskettes.