You are here:
Relationships between Private Domestic Wells and Underground Storage Tanks: Evaluation of Mapping and Plume Transport Tool Implementations
Citation:
Weaver, James W., A. Murray, A. Khanal, AND F. Kremer. Relationships between Private Domestic Wells and Underground Storage Tanks: Evaluation of Mapping and Plume Transport Tool Implementations. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-17/282, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
Well water from private domestic wells (hereafter private wells) is often not tested as private owners are exempt from sampling requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Numerous incidents of contamination of water in private wells have been reported, however. Potential contaminant sources, like underground storage tanks, are widespread across the United States. This report describes a pilot project using a geographic information systems (GIS) application that was developed to display locations of underground storage tanks and indicate the likelihood that there are private wells within several selected distances. A few locations can be selected by the application user or, when data from an entire state or region are available, a large area can be viewed at a glance. The pilot project was developed for Oklahoma, because of the large amount of freely available data, but could be extended to other locations where data are available.
Description:
Well water from private domestic wells (hereafter private wells) is often not tested as private owners are exempt from sampling requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Numerous incidents of contamination of water in private wells have been reported, however. Potential contaminant sources, like underground storage tanks, are widespread across the United States. This report describes a pilot project using a geographic information systems (GIS) application that was developed to display locations of underground storage tanks and indicate the likelihood that there are private wells within several selected distances. A few locations can be selected by the application user or, when data from an entire state or region are available, a large area can be viewed at a glance. The pilot project was developed for Oklahoma, because of the large amount of freely available data, but could be extended to other locations where data are available.