Water Works 52 - 8/16/04

The Lost Episodes

As you may have concluded by now, Water Works and Fellow Correspondent have again imposed a lock-down, along our stretch of the battle line, on all disclosures that might provide tactical advice to the State Street Gang. (Episode 35, for you newcomers and Short-Coursers.) All further lesson plans are suspended while we await the NJDEP’s next move. They’re likely to stay suspended once the lawyers start suing, but don’t cheer yet. I’ve left enough of this story untold to provide a few more of these talks of ours, before you’re rid of me for good.

“When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully,” said Dr. Johnson. Ishmael’s substitute for pistol and ball was to chase whales. With no gallows or pistol or whale-ship handy, and since I avoid strong drink except in the recharge season, when grim reality lands a harder punch than Water Works can take, this time of year, there’s one remedy that never fails – the compost heap. No, you’re still listening to a Republican. It’s something I inherited from the former owner of my place and found useful. Turning it is a good workout for both body and mind. I do some of my best thinking with a pitchfork in my hands.

With that chore done, I had a bigger one left – to sort out what I can no longer tell you (and the NJDEP) from what I have only begun to tell you. Otherwise, I’ll have to endure some of my best friends reminding me – forever, probably – of every last piece of business I leave unfinished. This is Franklin Township after all. These things take time, even with a compost heap, which is why you haven’t heard from me for a while.

So, the precise times when Muller’s spring ran and when it ran dry are now classified information. (34) But what happened at Trout’s pond, near the spring, is too good a story to stay a local legend. (23, 10) It’s not every day you see an almost bone-dry water hole magically refill itself, without the aid of any rain for weeks, a symptom of what Fellow Correspondent calls aquifer “drawdown” and “recovery” problems. (12, 19) Near Trout’s pond, Muller’s spring, our vanishing wetlands (47) and most of Quakertown’s failed wells (40), an especially rich hydraulic “subcrop” – a bedding plane (31) – angles its way up to the bedrock’s surface. Clusters of large irrigation wells next to the village tap it. (7, 17) “Preferential transmission of water along bedding planes is typical for this formation,” says Fellow Correspondent. (10, 30, 31) Add some vertical leakage (48) and even you Short Course readers should understand what all that means, and what Fellow’s other remarks mean (19, 16), and what Wilfredo means. (41) Try it and see for yourself.

What I once called “Exhibit A,” the interconnection and combined impact of the wells at Garden State Growers and the wells at Quaker Valley Farms (22), will also stay off-radar until duty calls. We will note just one last thing. Concerning the impact of the combined 96 million gallons of water pumped from those two clusters of wells each year, only 1,500 feet apart, and the added impact of pumping another 53 million gallons of water from one of them, the NJDEP’s report on critical tests conducted at Quaker Valley says: “Unfortunately, data from the pumping of the other irrigation wells at Garden State Growers could not be collected.” (i)

The quote has the same meaning in or out of context. The document is available for public review in the files of the NJDEP. If you are curious about how things turned out that way, I recommend our links, your reasoning skills and a little imagination.

You have met the author of that report: Robert Canace, Hydrogeology Section Chief of the NJDEP’s Geologic Survey. (13) We have been reviewing his work for the past few episodes. (49-51) On behalf of the state, he was the fellow who doubled the size of the Lockatong basin, put as unlikely a stream as you could find in place of Lockatong Creek (26), and then measured the impacts of water pumped from the first 2 miles of the Lockatong headwaters against a 15-mile watershed.

What may surprise you is – he’s also the fellow who worked with Franklin Township on our zoning in 1996 and 1997, who once stood with Franklin’s Planning Board and defended the Lockatong aquifer recharge rate his more recent work ignored. (48, 50) That rate, multiplied by the right size drainage basin, tells us the entire watershed has been pumped to its limit from its headwaters alone. You draw your own conclusions about what all that means too.

Finally, while we’re talking about character development in this story, let’s attend to a character we met only briefly, back at Muller’s spring – Concerned Citizen. (34) She should not be confused with the “Concerned Citizens” who joined us later. (48) I wasn’t expecting them when I introduced her. Concerned was intended as a stand-in for several friends of mine here in Quakertown. She’s as real as Canace the Geologist. As our last bit of story-keeping, we will leave her sitting there by the spring – her well-driller’s receipt in hand – wondering which part of “environmental protection” her state’s Department of Environmental Protection misunderstood.

Ron Gutkowski