Water Quality

The objective of this project is to develop a groundwater-flow model that can be used by Aiken County water managers to manage current and projected reported and unreported demands on groundwater resource and to ensure the highest quality of groundwater. Project Chief: Bruce Campbell Cooperator: Aiken County, Gilbert-Summit Rural Water District, City of Aiken, Breezy Hill Water and Sewer and...

The New Hope arm of Jordan Lake, located in Chatham County, North Carolina, serves as a drinking-water supply for the Towns of Cary, Apex, and Morrisville. The reservoir is listed as impaired due to nutrient over-enrichment and occasionally experiences algal blooms and fish kills. In order to evaluate effects of installing a vertical-mixing system on the New Hope arm of Jordan Lake, the U.S...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) South Atlantic Water Science Center is conducted an inventory of well records and baseline groundwater-quality sampling to better delineate areas of groundwater use and groundwater-quality characteristics prior to potential shale gas exploration in the Triassic Basins of Lee and Chatham Counties, North Carolina. The compilation of baseline groundwater-quality data...

The relations among river flow, floodplain water level, and instream dissolved-oxygen (DO) concentrations are important but poorly understood for the Roanoke River. Flooding and floodplain inundation no longer follow a natural seasonal pattern of flooding in the winter and occasionally in the fall, and lower flows throughout the remainder of the year, but are primarily governed by upstream...

The effects of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) on water quality were investigated at 54 agricultural stream sites throughout the North Carolina Coastal Plain during 2012 and 2013. Three general watershed land-use types were examined during the study, including 18 background watersheds with no active CAFOs, 18 watersheds with one or more active swine CAFOs but no poultry CAFOs, and...

The contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) umbrella covers several broad classes of contaminants that include: pharmaceuticals and personal care products, organic wastewater compounds, antimicrobials, antibiotics, animal and human hormones, as well as domestic and industrial detergents. The potential impacts of CECs on the environment, in general, and on natural surface-water and riparian...

Past stormwater monitoring has indicated that bridge deck runoff has relatively high concentrations of a variety of constituents such as nutrients, solids, pesticides, trace metals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The objective of this investigation is to quantify the downstream changes in receiving water-quality conditions during periods of observable stormwater runoff from selected...

The North Carolina Department of Transportation is planning to make transportation improvements in the Currituck Sound area by constructing a three-lane bridge from U.S. Highway 158 just south of Coinjock, North Carolina, to State Highway 12 on the Outer Banks just south of Corolla, North Carolina. From Aug 2011 to early 2018, the USGS will be collecting regular water-quality samples as well as...

Falls Lake and Jordan Lake are included in the North Carolina Division of Water Quality's 303(d) list of "impaired" waters due to violations of the State chlorophyll-a standard caused by excessive nutrient inputs. Scientific data are needed allocate resources to achieve nutrient reduction targets have been adopted for the Falls Lake and Jordan Lake watersheds for stormwater, as well as for...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has begun examination of particular aspects associated with groundwater contamination by chlorinated solvents (Tetra Tech NUS, Inc., 2004, 2005) at Site 45, Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD), Parris Island, South Carolina. The groundwater contamination plume is characterized by two major lobes, hereafter referred to the southern and northern parts of the...

This collaborative project between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the USGS was conducted as part of a larger research program being undertaken by USEPA and the U.S Department of Agriculture at several research sites throughout the United States. Goals included: 1. Obtain detailed data concerning the survival of pathogenic microorganisms from manure applied to soil under...

Data collected between 1997 and 2008 at 48 stream sites were used to characterize relations between watershed settings and stream nutrient yields throughout central and eastern North Carolina. The focus of the investigation was to identify environmental variables in watersheds that influence nutrient export for supporting the development and prioritization of management strategies for restoring...