In 2019, the Delaware Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, completed a groundwater-monitoring, infrastructure-construction, and data-collection project in Kent County, Delaware.
This report documents the methods and results derived from subsurface exploration, monitoring well installation, and hydraulic testing conducted during the project "Groundwater and Saline Water Intrusion Monitoring Network Infrastructure Improvements: Kent County, Delaware". This project was focused on the aquifers in Kent County that supply water to wells for domestic, public, irrigation, and commercial uses as well as provide base flow to local streams. From shallowest to deepest, they are the Columbia, Milford, Frederica, Federalsburg, Cheswold, Piney Point, Rancocas, and Mt.
In 2015, staff of the Water Supply Section of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) informed the DGS of their concerns about overpumping of the unconfined Columbia aquifer in an area east of Dover (Figure 1). In this area, the City of Dover’s Long Point Road Wellfield (LPRW) and numerous irrigation systems pump water from the shallow Columbia aquifer.
The DGS has been a data provider for the National Ground-Water Monitoring Network (NGWMN) since 2016. NGWMN is a consortium of state and local agencies and the U.S.
Sensors in the Delaware Groundwater Monitoring Network wells detected small changes in water pressure around the time of the Nov. 30, 2017 4:47 PM earthquake.
