Well Monitoring
The Columbia Basin Sustainable Water Coalition is working with contractors to provide well monitoring for interested stakeholders as funding is available. The Coalition plans to use this information to better understand the groundwater conditions in our area and assess how effective the ongoing efforts are to address the declining aquifer.
_JPG.jpg)
CBCD Groundwater Monitoring Program
The Columbia Basin Conservation District (CBCD) is implementing a groundwater monitoring program to track groundwater levels across the Columbia Basin and evaluate the effectiveness of the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program (OGWRP). Currently, CBCD is monitoring groundwater levels in five wells located throughout Grant and Adams counties.
Data collected through this program will be made publicly available through a free, interactive web-based application, allowing users to explore both current and historical groundwater levels across the region. While the program is still in its early stages and long-term trend data will take time to develop, this effort represents an important step toward improving groundwater transparency and resource management in the Columbia Basin.
CBCD is actively seeking additional wells to expand the monitoring network. Landowners interested in participating are encouraged to contact Britton Baker at the Columbia Basin Conservation District at 509-765-9618.
WSU Groundwater Monitoring Program
Washington State University (WSU) is looking for landowners with groundwater wells to participate in a groundwater monitoring program in partnership with Washington State University. Collecting observations about groundwater levels is critical to understand how our aquifer is responding to OGWRP implementation and to track the continued accessibility of groundwater for all water users in Eastern Washington.
Collected data will be incorporated into the Columbia Basin Groundwater Web App. The data will also be used in research to:
-
Understand how water processes at the land surface move through to groundwater
-
Evaluate the impact of different kinds of drought on groundwater availability
-
Calibrate a monthly groundwater flow model in the Columbia Plateau to evaluate future groundwater availability
-
Quantify the vulnerability of groundwater on a monthly to seasonal time scale
The voluntary monitoring sites will include sensors to monitor groundwater levels, soil moisture, soil water potential, and
weather. Water level measurements can occur as manual depth to water measurements with an electronic tape (Figure 1;
the stainless steel weighted probe is typically around 0.63-inch outside diameter) or by deployed pressure transducer for long-term monitoring (Figure 2; the transducer is typically around 0.86-inch outside diameter). All equipment, data collection, and data processing costs are covered by the monitoring program.
Any data collected in the project will be quality controlled and aggregated to larger spatial areas so results at exact locations will not be publicly available. We will work with landowners to determine if and how they want the data collected from their property to be made available.
Please contact Dr. Sasha McLarty (phone: 509-335-1691, email: sasha.richey@wsu.edu) or complete this form if you are
interested in establishing a monitoring site on your land or learning more about the monitoring program.
