Bruce Lindsey
Groundwater Status and Trends Coordinator
National Water-Quality Program
Water Resource Assessments Branch
Earth Systems and Processes Division, Water Mission Area
U.S. Geological Survey
B.S. Agricultural Engineering, 1984, Pennsylvania State University M.S. Geoenvironmental Science, 2004, Shippensburg University
Biography
My work involves assessments of groundwater quality. I am the coordinator for national assessments of status and trends in groundwater quality in the United States for the National Water-Quality Assessment project. The objective of this study is to evaluate the quality and availability of groundwater for drinking supply, improve our understanding of where and why water quality is degraded, and assess how groundwater quality could respond to changes in hydrologic conditions and land use. Constituents of concern for this research include both natural contaminants (trace elements and radionuclides) as well as anthropogenic contaminants (nutrients, volatile organic compounds and pesticides). In addition, I have conducted studies on microbiological quality of drinking water resources, focusing on occurrence of both bacteria and viruses. I also have an interest in the effects of karst on water quality.
Science and Products
Groundwater Quality Research
Every day, millions of gallons of groundwater are pumped to supply drinking water for about 140 million people, almost one-half of the Nation’s population. Learn about the quality and availability of groundwater for drinking, where and why groundwater quality is degraded, and where groundwater quality is changing.
Chloride, Salinity, and Dissolved Solids
All natural waters contain some dissolved solids (salinity) from contact with soils, rocks, and other natural materials. Too much, though, and dissolved solids can impair water use. Unpleasant taste, high water-treatment costs, mineral accumulation in plumbing, staining, corrosion, and restricted use for irrigation are among the problems associated with elevated concentrations of dissolved...
Public Supply Wells
Are you among the more than 100 million people in the U.S. who relies on a public-supply well for your drinking water? Although the quality of finished drinking water from public water systems is regulated by the EPA, long-term protection and management of the raw groundwater tapped by public-supply wells requires an understanding of the occurrence of contaminants in this invisible, vital...
Groundwater Quality in Principal Aquifers of the Nation, 1991–2010
What’s in your groundwater? Learn about groundwater quality in the Principal Aquifers of nine regions across the United States in informative circulars filled with figures, photos, and water-quality information.
Groundwater Quality—Current Conditions and Changes Through Time
Is groundwater the source of your drinking water? The USGS is assessing the quality of groundwater used for public supply using newly collected data along with existing water-quality data. Learn more about this invisible, vital resource so many of us depend on.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are chemicals that both vaporize into air and dissolve in water. VOCs are pervasive in daily life, because they’re used in industry, agriculture, transportation, and day-to-day activities around the home. Once released into groundwater, many VOCs are persistent and can migrate to drinking-water supply wells.
USGS Online Mapper Provides a Decadal Look at Groundwater Quality
A new online interactive mapping tool provides summaries of decadal-scale changes in groundwater chemistry across the Nation.
Bacteriological quality of groundwater used for household supply
In fractured bedrock aquifers used for domestic supply conditions can exist where contaminants such as bacteria are not filtered out by the soil. Once in the fracture system, little additional filtration takes place.
The results of a synotic sampling of domestic wells in the Lower Susquehanna River basin, Pennsylvania and Maryland, showed that bacteria concentrations were higher in...
Tritium as an indicator of modern, mixed, and premodern groundwater age
Categorical classification of groundwater age is often used for the assessment and understanding of groundwater resources. This report presents a tritium-based age classification system for the conterminous United States based on tritium (3H) thresholds that vary in space and time: modern (recharged in 1953 or later), if the measured value is...
Lindsey, Bruce D.; Jurgens, Bryant C.; Belitz, Kenneth
Hydrocarbons in upland groundwater, Marcellus Shale Region, Northeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New York, USA
Water samples from 50 domestic wells located <1 km (proximal) and >1 km (distal) from shale-gas wells in upland areas of the Marcellus Shale region were analyzed for chemical, isotopic, and groundwater-age tracers. Uplands were targeted because natural mixing with brine and hydrocarbons from deep formations is less common in those areas...
McMahon, Peter B.; Lindsey, Bruce D.; Conlon, Matthew D.; Hunt, Andrew G.; Belitz, Kenneth; Jurgens, Bryant; Varela, Brian Factors affecting the occurrence of lead and manganese in untreated drinking water from Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain aquifers, eastern United States—Dissolved oxygen and pH framework for evaluating risk of elevated concentrations
Groundwater samples collected during 2012 and 2013 from public-supply wells screened in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain aquifers of the eastern and southeastern U.S. rarely contained lead or manganese concentrations that exceeded drinking-water limits, despite having corrosive characteristics. Data indicate that the...
Brown, Craig J.; Barlow, Jeannie R. B.; Cravotta, Charles A.; Lindsey, Bruce D.
Groundwater-quality and select quality-control data from the National Water-Quality Assessment Project, January through December 2015, and previously unpublished data from 2013 to 2014
Groundwater-quality data were collected from 502 wells as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment Project of the U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Program and are included in this report. Most of the wells (500) were sampled from January through December 2015, and 2 of them were sampled in 2013. The data were collected from five...
Arnold, Terri L.; Bexfield, Laura M.; Musgrove, MaryLynn; Stackelberg, Paul E.; Lindsey, Bruce D.; Kingsbury, James A.; Kulongoski, Justin T.; Belitz, Kenneth
Groundwater quality in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge crystalline-rock aquifers, eastern United States
Groundwater provides nearly 50 percent of the Nation’s drinking water. To help protect this vital resource, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project assesses groundwater quality in aquifers that are important sources of drinking water (Burow and Belitz, 2014). The Piedmont and Blue Ridge crystalline-rock...
Lindsey, Bruce D. Using groundwater age distributions to understand changes in methyl tert-butyl ether (MtBE) concentrations in ambient groundwater, northeastern United States
Temporal changes in methyl tert-butyl ether (MtBE) concentrations in groundwater were evaluated in the northeastern United States, an area of the nation with widespread low-level detections of MtBE based on a national survey of wells selected to represent ambient conditions. MtBE use in the U.S. peaked in 1999 and was largely discontinued by 2007...
Lindsey, Bruce D.; Ayotte, Joseph D.; Jurgens, Bryant C.; DeSimone, Leslie A.
Groundwater quality in the Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain aquifer system, eastern United States
Groundwater provides nearly 50 percent of the Nation’s drinking water. To help protect this vital resource, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project assesses groundwater quality in aquifers that are important sources of drinking water. The Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain aquifer system constitutes one of...
Lindsey, Bruce D.; Belitz, Kenneth
Groundwater quality in the Southeastern Coastal Plain aquifer system, southeastern United States
Groundwater provides nearly 50 percent of the Nation’s drinking water. To help protect this vital resource, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project assesses groundwater quality in aquifers that are important sources of drinking water. The Southeastern Coastal Plain aquifer system ...
Barlow, Jeannie; Lindsey, Bruce D.; Belitz, Kenneth
Groundwater quality in the Valley and Ridge and Piedmont and Blue Ridge carbonate-rock aquifers, eastern United States
Groundwater provides nearly 50 percent of the Nation’s drinking water. To help protect this vital resource, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project assesses groundwater quality in aquifers that are important sources of drinking water. The Valley and Ridge and Piedmont and Blue Ridge carbonate-...
Lindsey, Bruce D.; Belitz, Kenneth
The quality of our nation's waters: water quality in the Principal Aquifers of the Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Valley and Ridge regions, eastern United States, 1993-2009
The aquifers of the Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Valley and Ridge regions underlie an area with a population of more than 40 million people in 10 states. The suburban and rural population is large, growing rapidly, and increasingly dependent on groundwater as a source of supply, with more than 550 million gallons per day withdrawn from domestic wells...
Lindsey, Bruce D.; Zimmerman, Tammy M.; Chapman, Melinda J.; Cravotta, Charles A.; Szabo, Zoltan Pesticides in groundwater of the United States: decadal-scale changes, 1993-2011
The national occurrence of 83 pesticide compounds in groundwater of the United States and decadal-scale changes in concentrations for 35 compounds were assessed for the 20-year period from 1993–2011. Samples were collected from 1271 wells in 58 nationally distributed well networks. Networks consisted of shallow (mostly monitoring) wells in...
Toccalino, Patricia L.; Gilliom, Robert J.; Lindsey, Bruce D.; Rupert, Michael G. Factors affecting temporal variability of arsenic in groundwater used for drinking water supply in the United States
The occurrence of arsenic in groundwater is a recognized environmental hazard with worldwide importance and much effort has been focused on surveying and predicting where arsenic occurs. Temporal variability is one aspect of this environmental hazard that has until recently received less attention than other aspects. For this study, we analyzed...
Ayotte, Joseph D.; Belaval, Marcel; Olson, Scott A.; Burow, Karen R.; Flanagan, Sarah M.; Hinkle, Stephen R.; Lindsey, Bruce D.
Groundwater age-dating simplified
A new USGS report documents a simple method to classify groundwater age as premodern (recharged before 1953), modern (recharge in 1953 or later), or a mix of the two. The method—tritium-based age classification, or TBAC—requires just a single measurement of tritium, along with knowledge of sample date and location...