Hydrology of the Princeton area, Kentucky

The Princeton area comprises about 155 square miles in western Kentucky and includes parts of Caldwell, Crittenden, and Lyon Counties. The area is in the Mississippi Plateau region of Kentucky and lies within the drainage basin of the Cumberland River and Tradewater River basins. In 1974 municipal water-supply systems utilized about 1,115,000 gal of water per day from Barkley Lake. This use is expected to nearly double by the year 2000. Rural water supplies are obtained primarily from three geologic units - the Ste. Genevieve Limestone and the upper and lower members of the St. Louis Limestone. All three units can yield sufficient water for domestic and stock purposes , but the Ste. Genevieve at Princeton has yielded as much as 150 gal/min to individual wells. The chemical quality of both surface and ground water is generally good, except that the basal part of the lower member of the St. Louis Limestone may yield water high in sulfate and hydrogen sulfide. (Woodard-USGS)