Jeffrey A Green

Springshed Mapping in Support of Watershed Management

Fillmore County has been the focal point of dye tracing efforts in Minnesota for several decades. In 1995, a 1:100,000, county-scale springshed map was published. At the county scale, we primarily delineated springsheds greater than 500 hectares. After that project was completed, dye-tracing efforts continued and focused on the South Branch Root River (SBRR) springshed in the western part of the county. At the scale of the SBRR springshed (about 20% of the county), we expanded the boundaries of the large springsheds but also located and refined the boundaries of springsheds that are less than 200 hectares. We found one previously unmapped small springshed (Meyers springshed), documented complex flow boundaries between a large springshed (11. Canfield) and an adjacent small springshed (26. Rainy), and expanded the boundaries of four other springsheds. The small springsheds present a new opportunity for karst watershed research, monitoring and management. The small springsheds are often dominated by one or a few land uses, which permit simpler, more evident identification of the causes of water quality degradation.

Conduit Flow in the Cambrian Lone Rock Formation, Southeast Minnesota, U.S.A.

dominated units generally have bedding-parallel and vertically oriented apertures less than a few centimeters. The process by which the bedding-parallel secondary pore networks form remains obscure; some appear to be mechanically developed. However, interstitial carbonate cement within these units leads to the possibility of dissolution being a minor factor in the formation’s groundwater flow characteristics. These dye traces were conducted at three different sites across a twenty-three kilometer distance and are evidence that the siliciclastic Lone Rock Formation has a conduit-flow component similar to that found in carbonate karst aquifers.

Deep Time Origins of Sinkhole Collapse Failures in Sewage Lagoons in Southeast Minnesota

1850s and 1930s filled many of the conduit systems with soil. Over eighty years of soil conservation efforts have significantly reduced the flux of mobilized soil into the conduits. Those conduits are currently flushing much of those stored soils out of their spring outlets. Finally, the increased frequency and intensity of major storm events is reactivating conduit segments that have been clogged and inactive for millions of years.

Dye Trace Study of a New Septic System in Door County, Wisconsin

A professionally designed, installed and inspected conforming waste water treatment system and a conforming water supply well were installed at a new restaurant in rural Door County, Wisconsin. In the two weeks following the opening of the restaurant, over 250 people became ill with viral gastroenteritis. Testing of the new, conforming well at the restaurant found contamination with a viral agent causing the illnesses. Stool samples of ill individuals had positive test results for norovirus, campylobacter and salmonella. Following the installation of a multi-stage water treatment system on the well, the restaurant re-opened and no further illness has occurred. The raw water from the well continues to show evidence of human waste contamination. A dual dye trace was conducted to identify possible rapid connections between the waste water treatment system and the water supply well. Dye injected in the dosing chamber that feeds the system drain field began to appear in the water supply well after fifteen days. The appearance of this dye is a measure of the flow through time from the dosing chamber to the water supply well. A second dye injected into a toilet in one of the restaurants restrooms began to appear in the water supply well after six days. The rapid appearance of this latter dye indicates a leak in the plumbing system before the effluent reaches the dosing chamber. Both dyes reached off site private wells about one-half mile down gradient in about three months and document a natural gradient groundwater flow velocity of about three kilometers per year. These results in a new conforming rural waste water disposal system call into question the efficacy of the current construction standards, guidelines and siting practices for large on-site waste water disposal treatment systems in karst.

Coupling Dye Tracing, Water Chemistry, and Passive Geophysics to Characterize a Siliciclastic Pseudokarst Aquifer, Southeast Minnesota, USA

with other trace velocities measured within siliciclastic units in southeastern Minnesota. Water samples collected at the sinking streams, springs, and a domestic well in the project area show elevated nitrate and chloride concentrations indicating anthropogenic impacts likely related to application of fertilizers and road salt. Passive geophysical data were collected at the sinking stream locations and at transects within two valleys to characterize depth to bedrock. At the sinking stream above mapped Jordan Sandstone, the depth to bedrock was determined to be 6.4 meters. The depth at the location mapped above the St. Lawrence Formation was determined to be 5.2 meters. These data suggest colluvium and alluvium layers are thicker than what was previously conceptually modeled in this setting. The results of these dye traces are consistent with others in southeast Minnesota showing that the siliciclastic St. Lawrence and Lone Rock Formations have conduit-flow properties similar to those found in carbonate karst aquifers.

Electronic Access to Minnesota Springs, Karst Features & Groundwater Tracing Information

Poster presentation highlighting history, availability and tools for three statewide GIS resources: Minnesota Karst Feature Database (KFD), the Minnesota Groundwater Tracing Database (MGTD), and the Minnesota Spring Inventory (MSI). Collectively, this information is a significant asset for use in water resource planning and management in the State of Minnesota.

Groundwater Tracing in Orion, Marion and Eyota Townships of Olmsted County, Minnesota

A collaborative partnership between the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, University of Minnesota and Olmsted County Soil Water Conservation District.

Creation of a Map of Paleozoic Bedrock Springsheds in Southeast Minnesota

hundreds-of-meters to kilometers-per-day range in all of the bedrock aquifers tested. The width and duration of tails of breakthrough curves in these conduit flow systems vary with the bedrock aquifers. The Galena Group has Full Widths at Half Maximums (FWHMs) of a few hours and tails that are down to background in a few days. The Prairie du Chien Group also has FWHMs of hours but has tails that continue for weeks. The St. Lawrence and Lone Rock Formations have FWHMs of months to years.

History and Future of the Minnesota Karst Feature Database

Since the 1990s the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources have maintained a karst features database that is used to conduct research on karst processes and inventory karst features. Originally designed as a tabular database only, the karst features database developed into a spatial database in 2002 with tabular data stored in Microsoft Access and a spatial component managed in ESRI ArcView. In 2012 the database was converted to a single, relational database platform, PostgreSQL, with both tabular and spatial components edited in ESRI ArcMap. Custom editing forms are written in Visual Basic and are accessed in ArcMap sessions by ESRI add-ins. The current database infrastructure allows for remote editing. Read-only versions of the data are available in GIS/spatial format for public use via web services. Future development plans include links to water chemistry data, water level measurements, and other ancillary data; along with the addition of vectors to represent dye traces and polygons for larger karst features. Introduction Karst is recognized as a term describing both distinct landscapes—karst terrains—and distinctive hydrology related to the movement of water in soluble bedrock – karst processes. The construction of a karst features database that adequately documents both karst terrains and karst processes for researchers, regulators, and planners is a formidable task. How do uses and potential abuses impact database design and content? What should be in such a database? How does data get in, or out? While the Minnesota Karst Features Database (KFD) has been primarily research oriented, these broader questions have guided past and current database development and will continue to guide development going forward. This paper documents the history and future of the KFD, with the goal of providing the reader a better understanding of how it came to be and where it is going. History and Methods The Minnesota Speleological Survey created the database in the early 1970s as a sinkhole inventory. Sinkhole locations were collected on 4-by-6 inch index cards with unique identifiers, and plotted on 1:24,000-scale USGS 7.5-minute topographic maps (Alexander, 2015). About one hundred sinkholes were mapped in this manner, and this process continued into the early 1980s. Many sinkholes in Minnesota, especially those several meters or less in diameter, are ephemeral features that appear in fields and are filled, if possible, to minimize disruption of agricultural practices. As personal computers and spreadsheet software became available in the 1980s the evolution towards fully functional geographic information systems (GIS) manTipping, Robert G. University of Minnesota, Minnesota Geological Survey, 2609 Territorial Road, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55114, USA, tippi001@umn.edu Rantala, Mathew University of Minnesota, Minnesota Geological Survey, 2609 Territorial Road, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55114, USA, mjrantal@umn.edu Alexander, E. Calvin Jr. University of Minnesota, Department of Earth Sciences, 310 Pillsbury Drive SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55455, USA, alexa001@umn.edu Gao, Yongli Center for Water Research, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas, San Antonio Department of Geological Sciences, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, Texas 78249, USA, yongli.gao@utsa.edu Green, Jeffrey A. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Ecological and Water Resources, Rochester Office, 3555 9th Street NW, Suite 350, Rochester Minnesota, 55901, USA, Jeff.green@state.mn.us

Quarrying Impacts on Groundwater Flow Paths

Funding for this research has been provided by the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund and by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources-Division of Waters