Hydrogeology - What You Want to Know About WaterSPEECH thanks Thurston County Hydrogeologist Nadine Romero for speaking at the SPEECH 24th Annual Meeting at LOTT Clean Water Alliance on March 24. Romero responded to written audience questions after her presentation on local water issues. Due to time constraints, Romero was unable to respond to all questions at the event. Below, Romero has answered a few questions and will continue to answer questions in future issues of the South Sound Green Pages. Are other Puget Sound counties investing in hydro- and geo- studies as much as Thurston County? If so, are they finding similar conditions? If not, why do they differ? Do you see the state seeing the value of hydrogeology and increasing the number of hydrogeologists? The landscape has become increasingly more complex. Many types of specialists are needed now to write/review permits, codes and conduct emergency response and mitigation. I tell my engineering students that 30 years ago, one could purchase available land and just develop it. The available landscape that is left is one that is hydrologically complicated or in some type of critical area. Counties can no longer function without specialty scientists on staff. While some counties may contract out for special projects, day-to-day help in hydraulic analysis, computations and assessments is critical - and particularly with climate change! These past two months alone I had an additional 200 hours of hydraulic and geologic computations to run for emergencies - ranging from landslide assessments due to saturated earth to calculation of flow under bridges. Our planet is changing. Those counties ready for change have experts on hand that can guide them and have been collecting important base-line hydrologic data - our insurance policy when local government has to deal with climate impacts. Furthermore, those counties who can numerically model their growth scenarios using multi-science areas of geology, hydrology, climate, geography and water quality will know how to problem solve and plan wisely. Can you explain how saline groundwater can be more than freshwater groundwater (.90% vs. .77%)? The planet pumps out "saline" water through subduction zones and plate tectonics. Fresh water systems are the "skin" above the saline volumes. Fresh water is evaporated from sea-water and moves in the atmosphere where it either falls on land or sea. The longest residence times for fresh water is either locked up in glacial ice or in ground water systems. These represent only 2.7% of all the fresh water on earth, however. Some areas are so desperate for water they convert sea-water to fresh water in a costly effort that removes the salt. The higher levels of water in streams: How much of that is due to more rain vs. more urban development/pavement? In a system without development, would we see a similar rise in levels? Are levels also higher for streams in basins without development? Yes, it is possible to see in our date collection from stream gaging stations, large spikes in data that fall rapidly back to normal -we characterize these as "flashy" streams. Urban streams with more impervious surface area add to 'flashy' stream behavior where ground water isn't recharged. Rather, the water that falls to the land surface runs across paved surface straight into the stream. Please describe the difference between the Chehalis and Deschutes River drainage systems? Why does the Chehalis get more events than the Deschutes? Both have destructive logging. One of the biggest differences is simply "area" of the basins. The mighty Chehalis River represents what we call a 'behemoth' basin size - 2700 square miles. The Deschutes is about 162 square miles. Water levels are increasing over the past five hydraulic years. That's good for water quantity but doesn't it mean more flooding and property damage? Yes, we found that during the last five to seven water years, ground water systems have doubled to tripled in many parts of the county - the area under our computed hydrographs has doubled to tripled. We educate our community and local officials that this can lead to many types of duress - landslides, smaller slope failures, elevated lake levels, nutrient spikes in lakes and ground water (including spikes in nitrates from septic fields), high ground water area hazards, erosion of footings, etc. Have you been confronted by climate change deniers and what do you say to them? Yes. But, my job is actually pretty easy as a 30-year veteran hydrogeologist. Here's why: we collect enormous volumes of hydrologic data from our stream gaging stations, precipitation networks and ground water monitoring systems. I spend up to 600 hours per year computing and analyzing the raw records and conducting hydraulic analysis using established scientific methods. I make every effort to present our findings to other planetary scientists and the science community, as well as the general public and administrators. I simply present what we find from our ambient data collection systems. And in our "window" of analysis we see 'extreme event' changes for the last 60 year record. Climate deniers say that, "well, that is only for the last 60 years of record." I tell them, "well, that may be true - but, I have to work in the reality of today with real first-hand emergencies as the outcome of those extreme events we've tracked." I don't just leave the debate at this point, however. I know as a veteran scientist we have a deeply troubling atmosphere that may be driving some hydrologic extremes right now. I offer skeptics more exploration with, "take a look at the NASA website for carbon dioxide maps of earth's atmosphere, today" and then go look up an old text book from 40 years ago and compare the carbon dioxide levels. What volcano did that? I ask them, 'Do you think it is possible that carbon dioxide built up from our own use of fossil fuels?'" I keep it simple and basic. Mainly I want them to know what we found in our local space (using primary data) and think more deeply about the greater one (and how seven billion people may impact that). I enjoy teaching engineering students physical geology. Young engineers are faced with an enormous need to innovate in energy, building design and materials. Innovate. Innovate. Innovate. Recognize that the old way of running around on the planet isn't working. But, maybe the really old way of running around on the planet is.
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