Nonpoint source arsenic contamination of soil and groundwater from legacy pesticides.

Arsenic (As) contamination in wells is common throughout the northeastern United States. It is well documented that lead-arsenate (PbHAsO ) pesticides were widely used on fruit tree orchards from the 1890s to 1950s. This study evaluates the potential for As contamination of groundwater from former orchards in Connecticut, where there were over 47,000 orchards in 1935.

Application of first order kinetics to characterize MTBE natural attenuation in groundwater.

Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) was a gasoline oxygenate that became widely used in reformulated gasoline as a means to reduce air pollution in the 1990s. Unfortunately, many of the underground storage tanks containing reformulated gasoline experienced subsurface releases which soon became a health concern given the increase in public and private water supplies containing MTBE. Many states responded to this by banning the use of MTBE as an additive, including Connecticut.

Using domestic well records to determine fractured bedrock watersheds and recharge rates.

This study presents an approach for delineating groundwater basins and estimating rates of recharge to fractured crystalline bedrock. It entailed the use of completion report data (boring logs) from 2500 domestic wells in bedrock from the Coventry Quadrangle, which is located in northeastern Connecticut and characterized by metamorphic gneiss and schist. Completion report data were digitized and imported into ArcGIS(®) for data analysis.