Meeting the Water Needs of a New Thriving Community
The Redevelopment of Devens
New England’s subsurface geology varies widely from bedrock, sand and gravel, to thick clay deposits. With increasing water demands, the process of extracting groundwater from these varying subsurface conditions continues to challenge water suppliers throughout New England. In particular, the process of finding and permitting suitable groundwater sources of acceptable quantity and quality has become increasingly complex, lengthy, and costly. Therefore a strategy to first maximize the output of one’s existing resources is imperative.
Adequate water supply – a key issue
The successful reuse development of Devens from a military base to a thriving community and an economic powerhouse has been driven by the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency (MassDevelopment), the state wide quasi-public organization that took ownership of the Devens site in 1996. In accordance with the Devens Reuse Plan, MassDevelopments objectives have been to promote economic growth and social welfare while protecting the environment and its natural resources. Ensuring an adequate supply of water to meet future needs of a growing business and industrial community was essential, and a key to successful redevelopment and job creation.
MassDevelopment retained Wright-Pierce for a 5-year contract to comprehensively assess its water system infrastructure. With a projected four-fold increase in its maximum day demand, one of the key initial tasks was to clean, re-develop, and evaluate the condition and reliable capacity of its four existing wells with a permitted maximum authorized daily withdrawal volume of 5.33 mgd.
Due to the wells’ degradation over time, Wright-Pierce recommended recapturing the needed lost capacity with new replacement wells sized to extract their maximum daily withdrawal volume in a 16-hour period. By fully re-capturing the 43% of lost capacity, the existing capacity was optimized and need for new supply reduced.
Innovative Solutions for developing new sources of groundwater
Angle Well Exploration
Manchester Water Works, NH
Angle wells, successfully used in areas where a large supply yield is required, have numerous benefits over conventional horizontal collector wells, including minimal environmental impact; improved water quality by pretreatment of bank filtered surface water; lower construction, operating, and maintenance costs; and more.
River Bank Filtration Evaluation
City of Meriden, CT
Bank filtration is a cost-effective, natural pretreatment technique for groundwater and surface water. Numerous benefits include: lower construction and operating costs; consistent temperature and water quality (elimination of spikes); less vulnerability to contamination threats; disinfection benefits, and more.