Design and Implementation of a Groundwater Monitoring System for Faskin Ranch, Hudspeth County, Texas

I designed and installed two databases that will be used for the monitoring data from the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Facility. The databases were designed to meet two criteria: 1) easy access to data and the references from which they had been collected and 2) easy input of monitoring data from wells on and off the facility site for comparison of background levels. I also designed a protocol data sheet to be coupled with the hydrologic monitoring database. Data from these sheets can be easily recorded and subsequently inputted into the database for comparison of data, such as water levels, in order to show trends in the data as a result of operation of the waste site. Additionally, I constructed maps of the low-level facility area and the areas surrounding the site. These maps included: an area base map, and maps of the potentiometric surface, ground-water flow paths, chemical facies, and total dissolved solids concentrations. These maps can be used as background references for water levels, dominant chemical facies, and total dissolved solids concentrations, and later refined to portray any changes in these values. Finally, I was also involved with assessing how the Panhandle Groundwater District #3 assigns water level depletions to properties and developing a more rigorous method for doing this. This involved examining hydrographs from several counties in the Panhandle to determine large fluctuations in water levels from wells and the relationship between the assigned depletions and the actual measured and average levels that have been measured and assigned by the PGWD #3.