A RESOURCE EVALUATION PROGRAM FOR THE PIEDMONT AND BLUE RIDGE PROVINCES OF NORTH CAROLINA USING HYDROGEOLOGIC RESEARCH STATIONS

The mission statement of the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Division of Water Quality, Groundwater Section is to "promote the stewardship of North Carolina's groundwater resources for the protection of human health and the environment by preventing pollution, managing and restoring degraded ground water, and protecting the resource." This mission requires a thorough understanding of the hydrogeologic conditions in all regions of North Carolina. Previous hydrogeologic investigations by the Groundwater Section focused mainly on the Coastal Plain region, with very little work being done in the piedmont and mountain regions. Therefore, the Groundwater Section has recently entered into a cooperative resource evaluation program with the U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division (USGS) to conduct groundwater investigations within the complex hydrogeologic terranes of the North Carolina Piedmont and Blue Ridge physiographic provinces.

An essential element of this study is the installation of hydrogeologic research stations at locations that are representative of larger geographic areas or hydrogeologic terranes. The basic elements of each hydrogeologic research station will be: 1) the construction of groundwater monitoring wells; 2) obtaining continuous wire-line core samples of the regolith and bedrock; 3) aquifer testing to determine groundwater hydrology; 4) geochemical testing of the soil, bedrock, and groundwater; and 5) downhole geophysics. Various supplemental studies will be performed using specialized analytical techniques.

Research station sites selected to date include the Davidson College Lake Campus in Iredell County, the National Training Center for Land-Based Technology and Watershed Protection at the North Carolina State University (NCSU) research farm in Wake County, the NCSU Upper Piedmont Agricultural Research Station in Rockingham County; the Bent Creek Demonstration Forest in Buncombe County; and the NCSU Mountain Horticultural Crops Research Station in Henderson County.