Sourcewater Assessment Plans

OAI has completed Sourcewater Assessment Plans* for public water systems in the following Alabama Counties:

*includes Wellhead Protection Projects

Beginning with the public comment period on the proposed wellhead protection regulations through the present day regulations governing sourcewater protection, OAI's Dan O'Donnell has been at the forefront of shaping and meeting the codified regulations. He saw these regulations not just as another regulatory burden passed on to water systems but rather as an opportunity to define the hydrogeology of the system's groundwater resource. Understanding the hydrogeology of the system's groundwater resource allowed the system to properly allocate time, effort and financial resources toward protecting the resource (a sourcewater issue) and, equally important, to use the hydrogeology to efficiently develop additional water supply to meet demand.

OAI's wellhead and sourcewater protection efforts focused heavily on understanding the aquifer through site-specific cross sections rather than regional generalizations. For those systems's that selected this approach, the dividends were tremendous as they began the process of developing their next well. Using the hydrogeology developed under the wellhead/sourcewater projects, OAI moved to eliminate dry holes, test wells and observation wells on new well projects, worked to reduce piping runs and treatment costs by taking advantage of favorable aquifer hydraulics that allowed multiple aquifer or well development at the same sites and, in some cases, a reduction in or elimination of land purchase costs for the new wellsites. Each of these reductions came with significant savings to the system through a reduction in exploration costs, well in excess of they money spent on the wellhead/sourcewater assessment effort.

If your system is in need of sourcewater assessment services, you have two options. One, treat it a just another regulation with little or no direct benefit to you or 2) call OAI and learn how you can use this effort to not only meet the regulatory requirement but, more importantly, help your system develop your water supply in a more efficient manner now and down the road.