Publications

In January 2001, State oil and gas inspectors noted bubbles of natural gas in well water during a complaint investigation near Tioga Junction, Tioga County, north-central Pa. By 2004, the gas occurrence in ground water and accumulation in homes was a safety concern; inspectors were taking action to plug abandoned gas wells and collect gas samples. The origins of the natural-gas problems...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with local and other agencies, collects data at selected lakes throughout Wisconsin. These data, accumulated over many years, provide a data base for developing an improved understanding of the water quality of lakes. To make these data available to interested parties outside the USGS, the data are published annually in this report series...

Ground-water quality in the approximately 1,000-square-mile Monterey Bay and Salinas Valley study unit was investigated from July through October 2005 as part of the California Ground-Water Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) program. The study was designed to provide a spatially unbiased assessment of raw ground-water quality, as well as a statistically consistent basis for...

Former commercial salt ponds in Alviso, California, now are operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to provide habitat for birds. The USFWS has modified the operation of the ponds to prevent exceedingly high salinity. Ponds that were formerly hydraulically isolated from South San Francisco Bay and adjacent sloughs now are managed as flow-through ponds, and some are allowed...

A numerical ground-water model was developed to simulate seasonal and long-term variations in ground-water flow in the Sierra Vista subwatershed, Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico, portions of the Upper San Pedro Basin. This model includes the simulation of details of the groundwater flow system that were not simulated by previous models, such as ground-water flow in the...

Growth and decomposition of dense blooms of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae in Upper Klamath Lake frequently cause extreme water-quality conditions that have led to critical fishery concerns for the region, including the listing of two species of endemic suckers as endangered. The Bureau of Reclamation has asked the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to examine water-quality data collected by the...

From May 13-17, 2006, central and southern New Hampshire experienced severe flooding caused by as much as 14 inches of rainfall in the region. As a result of the flood damage, a presidential disaster declaration was made on May 25, 2006, for seven counties-Rockingham, Hillsborough, Strafford, Merrimack, Belknap, Carroll, and Grafton. Following the flooding, the U.S. Geological Survey, in...

The Tongue River drains an area of about 5,400 square miles and flows northward from its headwaters in the Bighorn National Forest of northeastern Wyoming to join the Yellowstone River at Miles City, Montana. Water from the Tongue River and its tributaries is extensively used for irrigation in both Wyoming and Montana. The Tongue River watershed contains vast coal deposits that are...

Since 1992, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Mojave Water Agency (MWA), has constructed a series of regional water-table maps for intermittent years in a continuing effort to monitor groundwater conditions in the Mojave River and Morongo groundwater basins. The previously published data, which were used to construct these maps, can be accessed on the interactive...

The sustainability of monitored natural attenuation (MNA) over time depends upon (1) the presence of chemical/biochemical processes that transform wastes to innocuous byproducts, and (2) the availability of energy to drive these processes to completion. The presence or absence of contaminant-transforming chemical/biochemical processes can be determined by observing contaminant mass loss...

The U.S. Geological Survey and the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast investigated natural and engineered remediation of chlorinated volatile organic compound ground-water contamination at Solid Waste Management Unit 12 at the Naval Weapons Station Charleston, North Charleston, South Carolina. The primary contaminants of interest are tetrachloroethene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Wyoming State Engineer's Office, created a hydrogeologic database for southwestern Laramie County, Wyoming. The database contains records from 166 wells and test holes drilled during 1931-2006. Several types of information, including well construction; well or test hole locations; lithologic logs; gamma, neutron, spontaneous-potential...