SO YOU MEASURED CHEMICAL PARAMETERS IN A WELL FIELD AND SO WHAT?

Indiana Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) is located adjacent to one of three rivers passing through Fort Wayne, Indiana. A well field (containing 20 wells) was established in a wetland along a small creek that flows into the St. Joseph River, one of the three rivers in Fort Wayne. Fifteen of these wells are being monitored biweekly to track the effect precipitation has on some parameters and also to find any correlation between the concentration of the parameters. The parameters being tested for are sulfate, phosphorous, iron, nitrates, and chlorine. Preliminary results show that the concentrations of phosphates (0.00-7.38) and iron (0.00-14.88) increased following a period of more than seven hot days with no rain. However those same two parameters also increased in most of the wells, following a ten day period with daily precipitation. It is thought that perhaps the period of rain initially caused the increase in concentration but that the peak occurred in the two week period between samplings. The large geese population on campus could have lead to the increase in phosphates levels. More results will be presented as more frequent sampling may help in our understanding of the effect of precipitation in the movement of parameters in our shallow wells.