Occurrence and Quality of Ground Water in Southwestern King County, Washington
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Occurrence and Quality of Ground Water in Southwestern King County, Washington By D. G. Woodward, F. A. Packard, N. P. Dion, and S. S. Sumioka U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Water-Resources Investigations Report 92-4098 Prepared in cooperation with STATE OF WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY, REGIONAL WATER ASSOCIATION OF SOUTH KING COUNTY, and SEATTLE-KING COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH Tacoma, Washington 1995 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR BRUCE BABBITT, Secretary U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Gordon P. Eaton, Director Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. For additional information write to Copies of this report can be purchased from: District Chief U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Geological Survey Earth Science Information Center 1201 Pacific Avenue, Suite 600 Open-File Reports Section Tacoma, Washington 98402 Box 25286, MS 517 Denver Federal Center Denver, CO 80225 CONTENTS Abstract 1 Introduction 1 Purpose and scope 2 Methods - 3 Description of study area 6 Well-numbering system 8 Acknowledgments 8 Hydrogeologic framework 11 Geologic structure and setting 11 Description of hydrogeologic units 11 Ground-water flow system 17 Lateral flow components 20 Vertical flow components 20 Water-level changes 21 Hydraulic characteristics 21 Generalized ground-water budget- 25 Recharge - - - - - - 25 Discharge 31 Springflow and seeps along bluffs 32 Well withdrawal and water use 35 Water budget for Big Soos Creek Basin - 35 Ground-water quality 39 General character of ground water 39 Suitability of ground water for drinking 42 Ground-water contamination 47 Temporal water-quality changes 50 Additional data needs 50 Water quantity 52 Water quality 53 Summary and conclusions 53 Selected References 55 PLATES 1. Maps showing wells in project data base, generalized surficial geology and locations of hydrogeologic sections, and generalized hydrogeologic sections, southwestern King County, Washington. 2. Maps showing configuration of tops and thicknesses of selected aquifers, southwestern King County, Washington. 3. Map showing potentiometric surface, water table, specific capacity, and hydraulic conductivity of selected aquifers, southwestern King County, Washington. 4. Maps showing distribution of recharge from precipitation, ground-water withdrawals by water-use category, and locations of water-quality sampling sites, southwestern King County, Washington. in FIGURES 1. Map showing generalized distribution of soil associations 7 2. Graph showing mean monthly precipitation and potential evapotranspiration for the Big Soos Creek Basin, King County, 1967-1987 ...................... 9 3. Diagram showing well-numbering system used in Washington 10 4. Map showing major structural features in the vicinity of southwestern King County 12 5. Diagram showing correlation of late Quaternary stratigraphy of Puget Sound Lowland, Washington 13 6. Diagrammatic sketch showing location and types of boundary conditions for the study area in cross-sectional view 19 7. Hydrographs showing water-level fluctuations in selected wells measured during study 22 8. Hydrographs showing water-level changes for wells in the Federal Way area completed in the Qva/Q(A)c aquifer ----------------------------------------------------------------- 23 9. Map showing location of basins modeled for recharge determinations 27 10. Graph showing unit runoff for outwash and till terrains 33 11. Map showing location of springs and seepage-face segments 34 12. Map showing topographic boundary of Big Soos Creek Basin 37 13. Diagram showing distribution of water in generalized water budget for Big Soos Creek Basin 38 TABLES 1. Hydrogeologic units of Quaternary age in southwestern King County 15 2. Statistical analyses of hydraulic-conductivity values for the Quaternary aquifers in southwestern King County 24 3. Results of recharge model runs for eight basins in southwestern King County 29 4. Regression equations derived from data for Big Soos Creek Basin (1967-87) to compute long-term average recharge 30 5. Comparison of recharge values derived from regression equations and recharge values calculated by the deep percolation model (DPM) 30 6. Unit runoff data showing annual values of runoff and baseflow for till and outwash basin segments (from Dinicola, 1990), expressed as a percentage of the annual precipitation (1985-86 data) 32 7. Estimate of inventoried springflow along six bluff segments in southwestern King County 32 8. Summary of ground-water withdrawals in southwestern King County during 1986, by water-use category 35 9. Summary of ground-water withdrawals during 1986 from public-supply/institutional, irrigation, and commercial/industrial wells, by hydrogeologic unit 36 10. Ground-water-quality statistics in southwestern King County, by aquifer 40 11. Summary of water types of ground water in southwestern King County, by hydrogeologic unit 41 12. Classification of well water with respect to hardness, southwestern King County 42 13. Number of ground-water samples that exceeded the primary and secondary standards for drinking water 43 14. Concentrations of heavy metals in ground-water samples, by hydrogeologic unit 44 15. Concentrations of detergents and boron in ground-water samples, by hydrogeologic unit 49 16. Purgeable organic compounds analyzed for in selected ground-water samples 49 17. Comparison of 25 pairs of water-quality data for wells sampled in early autumn 1987 and in late winter 1988 51 IV TABLES-Continued 18. Temporal changes in ground-water quality, southwestern King County 51 19. Temporal changes in ground-water quality in samples from selected wells 52 20. Chemical analyses of ground-water samples from selected wells, by hydrogeologic unit, southwestern King County 60 CONVERSION FACTORS AND VERTICAL DATUM Multiply By To obtain inch (in.) 25.4 millimeter foot (ft) 0.3048 meter mile (mi) 1.609 kilometer square mile (mi2) 2.590 square kilometer gallon (gal) 0.003785 cubic meter acre 4,047 square meter acre-foot (acre-ft) 1,233 cubic meter cubic foot per second (ft3/s) 0.02832 cubic meter per second degree Fahrenheit (°F) °C=5/9(°F-32) degree Celsius (°C) Sea level: In this report "sea level" refers to the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD of 1929)~a geodetic datum derived from a general adjustment of the first-order level nets of both the United States and Canada, formerly called Sea Level Datum of 1929. Occurrence and Quality of Ground Water in Southwestern King County, Washington By D. G. Woodward, F. A. Packard, N. P. Dion, and S. S. Sumioka ABSTRACT Estimates of the average annual recharge to the ground-water system from precipitation for the entire Southwestern King County, Washington, is under study area were based on relations determined from mod going rapid growth in population and urban development, eling selected basins. Discharges from the ground-water creating increased demands for municipal and domestic system were based on estimates of springflow and diffuse water supplies. Because most surface waters are already seepage from the bluffs surrounding the uplands, and the appropriated, ground-water resources are anticipated to quantity of ground water withdrawn from high-capacity meet the new demands. This report describes the ground- wells. In addition, water-budget calculations for the Big water system in the Quaternary sediments of southwestern Soos Creek Basin indicate that about 80 percent of the King County. recharge to the shallow ground-water system eventually is returned to the streams within the basin as baseflow. The 250-square-mile study area is underlain by sedi ments as much as 2,200 feet thick, deposited during at A total of 242 water samples from 223 wells was least four continental glacial/interglacial periods. Subsur collected during two mass samplings and analyzed for the face stratigraphy was delineated by extrapolating informa presence of common constituents. In addition, samples tion from published surficial geologic maps and from also were collected for heavy metals, boron, detergents, drillers' lithologic logs for about 700 wells field-located in and volatile organic compounds. An analysis of the the area. The preparation of 28 cross sections aided in water-quality data indicates that there is no widespread defining 9 hydrogeologic units 5 aquifers, 3 confining degradation of ground-water quality in southwestern King beds, and 1 basal undifferentiated unit. Maps depicting County. the configuration of the tops of the three buried aquifers (Qva, Q(A)c, and Q(B)c) show the extent and the geome try of those aquifers. Maps showing the thickness of the INTRODUCTION Qva and Q(A)c aquifers also were prepared. Southwestern King County (plate 1A) is one of Water-level and potentiometric-surface maps for the several areas in the Puget Sound region of western major aquifers-the Qal, Qva, and Q(A)c~are based on Washington that is experiencing rapid growth in popula water levels measured in about 400 wells during April tion and urban development and therefore has increasing 1987. Hydraulic characteristics of the major aquifers are demands for water for public supply, domestic, commer mapped and show the results of more than 1,100 specific- cial, and industrial uses. Historically, the area has relied capacity calculations and about 240 hydraulic-conduc heavily on ground water to meet increased water demands. tivity determinations for selected wells in the study area. However, in recent years conflicts have arisen between surface- and ground-water