INTERACTION OF GROUND WATER AND SURFACE WATER AFFECTED BY ROAD SALTING IN A PEAT BOG AND ADJACENT SAND AQUIFER, ROME SAND PLANS, ROME, NEW YORK

We are studying the interaction between ground water and surface water in well-sorted outwash sand and peat in the Rome Sand Plains. The Rome Sand Plains are located near Rome, New York, and consist of parabolic dunes and adjacent peat bogs formed in sediments deposited in Glacial Lake Iroquois near the end of the Wisconsin Glaciation. Using hand augering and minipiezometers, we are studying the stratigraphy, measuring horizontal and vertical head gradients, and sampling water in the two aquifers. A road that has salt applied to it after snowstorms crosses the study area. We are using chloride as a tracer to study the movement of surface water into the sand and peat aquifers.

The stratigraphy of the bog area is one to two m of peat overlying a leached gray sand layer over a partially cemented highly Fe-oxide enriched red sand over uncemented sand. Areas outside the wetland show highly permeable dune sand with no cemented Fe-oxide layer. Vertical head gradients have been consistently downward and vary temporally with water level fluctuations in the bog. Horizontal head gradients in shallow wells show local radial flow from the bog into the sand. Deeper wells in the sand show a horizontal gradient consistent with the regional ground-water flow direction. Our preliminary results indicate that road salt appears to travel away from the road in an upgradient direction from a temporary mounding of the water table near the road during snowmelt events.