Members ATtendance

VISITORS:  John Bush, UI Professor Geological Sciences.

 

1)      Call to Order and Approval of August 21, 2003 Minutes
Jay Becker, PBAC Chair, called the meeting to order at 2:33 PM.  The corrected minutes of the August 21, 2003 meeting were approved by consensus.

2)      Review of PBAC Goals for next 7 Years (handout)
Kirkland briefly went over the goals outlined in the handout.  In order to stabilize the Grande Ronde aquifer system by 2020, Kirkland feels a decision about what projects will be used to accomplish the stabilization should be made about 2010 to allow time for funding and construction and then several years of operation to reverse the downward trend in water levels.  In order to be able to make a confident decision on the most effective projects needed in 2010, a lot will need to be accomplished in the next seven years.  The research and preparation for pilot projects being funded in FY 2004 is a good start.  Kirkland requested the Committee review the outline and raise questions and make suggestions where appropriate so he, the chair and the committee could be in agreement about where to focus funds, efforts and requests.
While discussing the annual drop in Grande Ronde aquifer system (GRAS) water levels in the Moscow-Pullman area, Emily Adams pointed out that water levels in the Glenwood Springs well had dropped only 6 feet in historical times.  Bush pointed out that there appeared to be a barrier between Glennwood Springs and Colfax.  Otherwise there should be flowing springs in the Colfax area.  This led to an interesting discussion of the slope of the Grande Ronde basalt flows from the Moscow-Pullman area toward Colfax and some interesting insights by John Bush about changes in the flows within the Grande Ronde over the greater Palouse Basin areas and the Columbia Basin.  Although the Grande Ronde basalts extend over the entire Columbia Basin, the flow sequences are different in different areas including the Colfax, Pullman and Moscow areas.  Emily also stated that shallow wells on the hills near Colfax have very little iron in them.

 

3)      Approval of Contracts for FY2004
Kirkland and Becker are revising a simplified contract agreement used by UI Facilities Management.  They will have a draft completed before the next meeting.

 

4)      Student Help in getting Caught Up
Kirkland said he had two students contact him about working with PBAC.  One is interested in working on a specific project that he can get class credit for; the other is interested in work on an environmental topic.

5)      Continued Discussion of PBAC’s Water Use Accounting System
The discussion of the one percent annual limit for pumping increases and changing the accounting system to create an incentive to reduce pumpage from the Grande Ronde aquifer system (GRAS), which was started at the August meeting, was resumed.  The paradigm being followed by PBAC, from a USGS report, said that if pumping were stabilized, then Grande Ronde aquifer system water levels would also stabilize.  At the previous meeting PBAC entities agreed that the initial purpose for the one percent limit on annual pumping, which was to lead to stabilization of Grande Ronde aquifer system water levels, was no longer valid since recharge to the Grande Aquifer System is known to be much less than previously proposed and apparently much less than pumping.  Second, entities agreed that the primary goal of stabilizing the Grande Ronde aquifer system water levels is still valid and that conservation efforts, to stay under the one percent annual pumping increase limit, should continue in order to minimizing the amount of pumping from the Grande Ronde aquifer system.  Third, everyone seemed to be in agreement that all benefited when deep aquifer (GRAS) pumping is reduce by conservation or replacement with recycled water or shallow aquifer water.  Art Garro suggested that the accounting be changed to emphasize pumping from the Grande Ronde aquifer system from this time forward.  Based on the favorable response to this suggestion Kirkland said he would put together new figures reflecting this change in the water use accounting.

 

6)      Naylor Farm Update 
Mark Workman reported on his discussion with Brent Thomson of Naylor Farm LLC.   Brent said 3 test holes were drilled, examining the location and quality of the clay under the farm and looking for water.  The deepest hole went to granite basement at 468 feet.  The hole consisted of approximately 200 feet of clay, sand and gravel over about 100 feet of Wanapum basalt with more sediment deposits below this to the granite.  No Grande Ronde basalts were encountered.  Brent said they encountered a lot of water in the top 200 feet and had a static water level at 10 feet below the surface.  Thomson thought the water supply was good but no pump tests were undertaken. 
The geologist working with Naylor thinks there is a rock ridge divide running approximately along D Street in Moscow that separates the water to the north from the Moscow pumping area.  No further information was given as to the basis for this conclusion.
The drilling indicated a 20 feet thick lense of high quality clay, possibly of ceramic quality, but it is relatively deep.  The upper sediments were considered to be river deposits while the lower sediments were believed to be lake deposits.
Thomson asked Workman if he could get a copy of the new WSU well log.  Rob Corcoran of WSU said the Naylor group could eventually get it from Washington DOE after WSU filed the mandatory well log.  A discussion then followed of the possibility of exchanging the WSU well log for logs of the Naylor test wells.  Corcoran said he would check on the possibility of exempting a copy from the normal request process. 

7)      WSU Well # 8 Pump Test - Rob Corcoran reported that the constant head pump test ran for 14 hours at 2500 gallons per minutes.  This resulted in a 100 foot drawdown.  The preliminary results from monitoring the pump test impact on other wells have been a bit disappointing.  The logger in the WSU test well failed to record during the test and preliminary results from several other loggers are inconclusive due to interference from other pumping wells during this dry spell.  No obvious impact was observed at the Washington DOE monitoring well.  There appears to be some sort of barrier between WSU well # 8 and the DOE well.

8)      Tom Scallorn reported he would be making a presentation at the American Water Works Association Meeting in Portland in October.  The presentation is on accounting for water pumped in the various end uses.

9)      Kirkland requested permission to go to Groundwater Foundation Annual Conference on “Who Gets the Last Drop?” in Las Vegas on November 12-15, 2003.  After some discussion of the potential benefits and costs it was moved by Busch and seconded by Rogers and passed unanimously to grant permission to Kirkland to go to the conference.

 

10)  NEXT MEETING DATE

The meeting was adjourned by consensus.

Respectfully Submitted,

Larry Kirkland

Note: these minutes are submitted in draft form and have not yet been approved by the Committee.