Water Works 40 - 1/15/04

A Tale of Two Droughts

“As I turned the pages, the author’s suspense was unbearable.” That was Oscar Wilde’s reaction to an encounter with a badly written book.

NJDEP-stalking can make you feel the same way. Will Hearing Officer Miri ever find page 2 of the “Notice of Public Hearing” for his public hearing? Will Canace the Geologist ever spot the 250-foot hill of water-logged shale looming over Walnut Creek, and realize he’s at the wrong end of the Hunterdon Plateau in more ways than one? Will Fact-Finder Jan Gheen emerge triumphant from last week’s desperate struggle with Mr. Average? Has Wilfredo gone the way of BIG Map, or is Water Works just having trouble reinserting him into our story?

Good luck, if you’re waiting for answers. Concerning Fact-Finder Gheen’s wrestling match with middle-school math, I’ll let you judge for yourself. (*) Let’s review that briefly. In 1997 and 1998 the NJDEP had already endorsed water pumping here with an impact equivalent to 1,625 people and 565 homes on just 163 acres of land, only yards from Quakertown. In each of those years, illegal pumping added a probable impact equivalent to 975 more people and 335 more homes – for a total of 2,600 people and 900 homes. (38) Wells failed in Quakertown in both years. Mr. Gheen concluded that the 1998 well failures clustered in and near Quakertown were insignificant, compared to the total of all well “replacements” that year in the entire state of New Jersey – somehow or other. (i)

He also says only 7 wells were replaced in all of Franklin Township in 1998. (ii) At least 8 wells failed and 5 were replaced in Quakertown alone by September of that year, in addition to the loss of Muller’s spring. Another 8 wells failed here, with at least 4 replaced, before the year was out. Well failures and wells that had to be replaced in Quakertown in 1997 were not included in his calculations. But there was good reason for Gheen to keep his distance from the records Franklin kept on those failing wells – they argue against him on another count. The timing of well failures here is more damning to the state’s case than the number of failures.

Gheen wants us to believe that all of 1998 and 1999 were drought periods, and that together both years comprised what he calls “the driest period in 105 years.” (iii) What he does not tell us is that 44 inches of rain fell here in 1998, more than 95% of the normal yearly amount. He also does not tell us that well water levels measured here reached record highs in April of 1998 and that monthly rainfall totals that year were consistently above average through June.

For anyone raising crops, the dry spell that began in July, 1998 meant the “inch a week” of rain needed to grow those crops suddenly disappeared, and only irrigation could avoid a total loss. (37) Irrigation pumping would have “de-watered” the upper reaches of our aquifer – the water source for shallower wells – because of the deeper and wider “cones of depression” high-capacity pumping creates. (30) That would have reduced the “hydraulic head” and the flow of water available to shallower wells, making failures more likely. (31) But that chain of events would occur only if the amount of water pumped from our aquifer exceeded the aquifer’s production capacity.

Farmers here should have been the only ones affected by the dry months from July through September of 1998. Remember, our aquifer only refills between October and the following April. (32) Any drought that began after the record-high recharge levels of April, 1998 and before October, 1998 could not have affected household wells during that period all by itself. It’s impossible, unless our aquifer was overdrawn first. The only casualties of the summer’s drought should have been farmers’ crops. The drought would have had to continue into the spring of 1999 before its impact spread to domestic wells.

Wells here should not have failed as early as July and August of 1998 unless our water supply had been over-pumped. Wells did fail then – that’s a fact. It’s also a fact that after the rains continued to fail in the recharge season that followed – through April, 1999 – the NJDEP increased the largest water allocation near Quakertown by 60% in July of 1999, raising it to the equivalent of 2,600 people in 900 homes (*) without an evaluation of the impact on our aquifer. (13)

Mr. Gheen’s analysis does establish one fact beyond doubt. When his NJDEP endorsed that increase, after a failed recharge season and in the midst of a continuing drought, Quakertown had by then endured a full year of its “driest period in 105 years.”

Ron Gutkowski