Plan for assessment of the occurrence, status, and distribution of volatile organic compounds in aquifers of the United States

Abstract

The mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is to assess the quantity and quality of the earth resources of the Nation and to provide information that will assist resource managers and policymakers at Federal, State, and local levels in making sound decisions. Assessment of water-quality conditions and trends is an important part of this overall mission. One of the greatest challenges faced by waterresources scientists is acquiring reliable information that will guide the use and protection of the Nation's water resources. That challenge is being addressed by Federal, State, interstate, and local water-resource agencies and by many academic institutions. These organizations are collecting water-quality data for a host of purposes that include: compliance with permits and water-supply standards; development of remediation plans for specific contamination problems; operational decisions on industrial, wastewater, or watersupply facilities; and research on factors that affect water quality. An additional need for water-quality information is to provide a basis on which regionaland national-level policy decisions can be based. Wise decisions must be based on sound information. As a society we need to know whether certain types of water-quality problems are isolated or ubiquitous, whether there are significant differences in conditions among regions, whether the conditions are changing over time, and why these conditions change from place to place and over time. The information can be used to help determine the efficacy of existing waterquality policies and to help analysts determine the need for and likely consequences of new policies. To address these needs, the U.S. Congress appropriated funds in 1986 for the USGS to begin a pilot program in seven project areas to develop and refine the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program. In 1991, the USGS began full implementation of the program. The NAWQA Program builds upon an existing base of water-quality studies of the USGS, as well as those of other Federal, State, and local agencies. The objectives of the NAWQA Program are to: Describe current water-quality conditions for a large part of the Nation's freshwater streams, rivers, and aquifers. Describe how water quality is changing over time. Improve understanding of the primary natural and human factors that affect water-quality conditions. This information will help support the development and evaluation of management, regulatory, and monitoring decisions by other Federal, State, and local agencies to protect, use, and enhance water resources. The goals of the NAWQA Program are being achieved through ongoing and proposed investigations of 60 of the Nation's most important river basins and aquifer systems, which are referred to as Study Units. These Study Units are distributed throughout the Nation and cover a diversity of hydrogeologic settings. More than two-thirds of the Nation's freshwater use occurs within the 60 Study Units and more than two-thirds of the people served by public watersupply systems ...

Quality of Shallow Groundwater and Drinking Water in the Mississippi Embayment-Texas Coastal Uplands Aquifer System and the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer, South-Central United States, 1994-2004

“…Volatile organic compounds are highly soluble, mobile, and persistent in groundwater, and many are suspected carcinogens (Lapham and Tadayon, 1996). Commonly used products, such as gasoline, refrigerants, paints, solvents, and plastics, contain VOCs.…”

A plan for assessing the occurrence and distribution of methyl tert-butyl ether and other volatile organic compounds in drinking water and ambient ground water in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States

“…The ambient ground-water assessment will focus on water quality and ancillary data for domestic or other supply and monitoring wells in aquifers used for water supplies collected for NAWQA studies, other USGS studies, and State, county, or local sampling programs. Both assessments will complement other planned or ongoing studies, including a national assessment of the occurrence and distribution of VOCs in ground water (Lapham and Tadayon, 1996) and studies focused on the effects of urban land use on shallow ground water and streams (Lopes and Price, 1997).…”

“…Frequently, these data were purposely collected or screened to identify sites which have the necessary ancillary data to support a more complete analysis of cause and effect factors associated with water-quality conditions. Data collected by the pilot, 1991, and 1994 study units will be assembled with data previously identified for inclusion in the NAWQA National VOC ground-water retrospective data base (Lapham and Tadayon, 1996). Additional data will be sought from USGS District offices and State monitoring agencies to provide more complete areal and temporal coverage in the study area.…”

“…The well-network design criteria outlined by Lapham and Tadayon (1996) will be used to screen available data sets. Data that conform best to network criteria have been collected mostly by the USGS for NAWQA study-unit survey ground-water networks and for other USGS sampling efforts.…”

Occurrence and Potential Human-Health Relevance of Volatile Organic Compounds in Drinking Water from Domestic Wells in the United States

“…Retrospective data that met NAWQA design characteristics and data-collection procedures (Lapham and Tadayon 1996) provided information for an additional 517 domestic wells sampled during 1985–1995.…”