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Journal of Coastal Research 413-420 West Palm Beach, Florida Summer 2002 Aquifer Salinization from Storm Overwash William P. Anderson, Jr. Departm ent of Geology Radford University Campus Box 6939 Radford VA 24141, U.S.A. wpanderso@ra dford.edu ABSTRACT _ ANDERSON, W.P., JR. 2002 . Aquifer salini zat ion from storm overwash. Journal ofCoastal Research, 18(3 ),413-420. .tllllllll:. West Palm Beach (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. ~ Overwash processes are not only an agent of change to the morphology of barrier islands; they are also a source of instantaneous saltwater intrusion to coastal aquifers.Hatteras Island, North Carolina, USA is particularly susceptible euus~~-" to overwash processes because of its geography and the frequency with which tropical and extra-tropical storms strike + S-- the area. Hurricane Emily inundated the island in 1993 with saline water from Pamlico Sound. The floodwaters recharged the Buxton Woods Aquifer, raising salinity levels from approximately 40 mg/L prior to flooding to nearly 280 mg/L within several weeks of flooding. By 1997, chloride levels still had not returned to pre-storm levels. One-dimensional ana lytical solutions of the advection-dispersion equation are used to simulate chloride transport within the aquifer utilizing a pulse SOUrce implemented with linear superposition. These simulations are matched with chloride breakt hrough curves. Initial simulations show that a pulse duration of five days provides the best fit to the data. Simulation of chloride breakt hrough at two str eamline locat ions demonstrates that higher gradients advect chloride further into the aquifer, causing higher chloride concentrations and increasing the duration ofcontamination. The Cape Hatteras region historically is susceptible to several hurricanes in a single season. In order to analyze the effect of multiple overwash events on water quality, predictive simulations show the effect of two overwash events separated by severa l time lags between storms. Simulations indicate that higher gradients and short time lags be tween overwash events result in chloride MCL violations that persist for more than four months. ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS: Hurricanes, Hurricane Em ily, North Carolina, Hatteras Island, saltwater intrusion, storm surge, ooeruntsh, barrier island, groundwater modeling, analyti cal solution. coastal aqu ifers. INTRODUCTION lanti c Ocean from Pamlico Sound, a 3100 krn" estuary (Figure l ). Th e Cape Hatteras portion of the island lies where the Water qu ality in coas tal aq ui fers can be threaten ed not island shifts from a southe rly trend to a west-southwesterly only by upconing and saltwate r intrusion, but also by over trend. It is also at this point that the island widens from less wash and sto rm surge durin g severe storms. Th ese processes than 1 km in wid th to over 3 km in width. Th e "reversed-L" caus e floodin g that recharges water-table aquifers with sa shape of the island acts as a dam during winter extratropical line wa ter. For exa mple , in August and September, 1993, storms C'Nor'easte rs" ) and hurricanes. Northerly win ds pro sound-side flooding during Hurricane Emily in unda te d Hat duced by t hese storms cross as much as 70 km of open water teras Island, North Ca rolina (USA) with sa lt water from in the sound, which, coup led wit h sto rm surge formed by Pamlico Sound, a large estuary on the north side of t he isla nd these intense low-pres sure systems, pr odu ces a rise in Pam (Figu re L). Flooding was most severe in the vicinity of the lico Sound of as much as three m (Figure 2). The sa linity of isla nd's wellfield that exploits a shallow aquifer for drinking Pamlico Sound is approximate ly 60% that of seawate r. wa ter. A large qu antity of the floodwater eve ntually re charge d the shallow Buxton Woods Aquifer (BWA), raising The Buxton Woods Aquifer salinity and in creasing treatment costs. Chloride levels in the BWA inc reased from ap proximately 40 mglL prior to floodin g The Buxton Woods Aqu ifer (BWA) has histori call y been the to nearly 280 rng/L within sev eral week s of flooding.Chloride sole source of fresh water to residents of southe rn Hatteras levels did not fall below 100 mglL until March, 1994, and still Island. Although water pumped from the fresh water aquifer had not reached pre-floodin g concentrations by J anuary, is now suppleme nted by several moderately-sali ne deep wells 1997 . (- 70 m in depth), which hav e chlori de levels of approximate ly 11,000 mglL and require reverse-osm osis treatmen t, the The Cape Hatteras Region shallow gro undwa ter of the BWA continues to satisfy a sub stanti al portio n of the isla nd's freshwater dem and. HEATH Hatteras Island, North Ca rolina, is the largest island of the (1988, 1990 ), ANDERSON (1999), and ANDERSON et al.(2000) Outer Banks, a barrier-island chain th at se pa rates the At- comb in e to provid e a detail ed hydrogeologic framework of the BWA. In general, the aquifer consists of tw o permeable unit s, 01062 received 24 October 2001; accepted in revision 2 January 2002. eac h approxi mately 10 m in thickness, that are se parate d by 414 Anderson ! N Pam lico Sound North Carolina Study Area o c e a n CBpePoin t Figure 3. Approximate exte nt of sound-side flooding in the Cap e Hat Figure 1. Location of study site on the Outer Banks barrier island chain ter as region following Hurricane Emi ly. in North Carolina, U.S.A. contribute to this phenomenon. WILDER et al. (1978) con a semi-confining layer of variable thickness. A silty to clayey ducted a study of th e water resources of northeastern North Carolina, including th e Ca pe Hatteras region . WINNER(1978) sand underlying th e lower aquifer unit acts as a semi-confin ing layer. BURKETT (1996) performed a 72-hour pumping test pr esents a study of the Ca pe Lookout, North Carolina region which suggests that overwash processes are a likely occur at the center of the island (note d with a * in Figure 3) and rence on th e low-lying barrier isla nds and th at weeks to determined the bulk aquifer properties shown in Tabl e 1. These parameters, plus average hydraulic gradients for two months would be required to sufficiently flush the saline wa ter from the freshwater lens. MEW (1999) demonstrated that transect s of th e island that are derived from ANDERSON (1999 ) and MORGAN et al. (1994), are used in subsequent an chloride levels at shallow depths within the BWA on the north side of th e isla nd approach the chloride maximum con alytical simulations . tam inan t level (MCL), which is th e legal limit for chloride in Th e BWA and oth er coastal aquifers of North Carolina have been th e focus of several papers. KIMREY (1960) pre drinking water. All of these studies sugge st that overwash processes play a significant role in controlling th e ground sents an early study of the BWA which shows elevated chlo water quality within the surficia l aquifers of North Carolina 's ride levels at shallow depths within the aquifer. HARRIS a nd barrier islands. WILDER (1964) and HARRIS(1967) obtained simila r results for the BWA and also suggest that aquifer heterogeneities Coastal Aquife rs Studies of coastal aquifers have mostly been confined to th e development of the freshw ater-saltwater inte rface. Many studies focus on methods of eva luating the freshwater- salt , wate r interface in various unconfined settings (VACHER, N 1988; CHENG et al., 1998 ; TAYLOR and PERSON, 1998; BAK KER, 1999), whil e othe rs focus on specific coastal settings such as mainland aquifers, carbonate banks, volcanic islands, North Carolina atolls, and isla nds of glacia l origin (WALLIS et al., 1991; UN DERWOOD et al., 1992 ; VACHER and WALLIS, 1992; GRIGGS and PETERSON, 1993 ; ROBINSON and GALLAGHER 1999' PERSON et al., 2000 ). Barrier islands have received l e ~ s fo cu ~ th an th e oth er island types, but several reports present case studies of specific barrier islands (COLLINS and EASLEY 1999; ANDERSON et al., 2000; CORBETT et al., 2000 ). Som~ recent work has focused on the effect th at tid al processes Tabl e 1. Aquifer parameters of the Buxton Woods Aquifer. Bulk Aquifer Parameter Units Value Storm track adapted from NOAA data Hori zontal hydr aulic conductivity, K; mJd 21.2 Figure 2. Stor m tra ck of Hurricane Emi ly off of the coast of Nor th Ca r Vertical hydraulic conductivity, K" mJd 5.6 olin a in Augu st/September 1993. Aquifer th ickness, b m 24.5 Jo urnal of Coastal Resear ch, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2002 Overw ash in Coasta l Aquifer s 415 saltmarsh communities. GUILLEN et al. (1994) present a case 300 study of an over wash event in the Mediterranean coas t of <Do Spain. STONE et al. (1997) ana lyze hurrican e-induced over CfMCL wash processes in coast al Louisian a, including predictive ::i' <DO 00 0 simulations of wave height in response to barrier-island re ~ r!c 0 0 lzoo <D 0 ~~ ductions. COURTEMANCHE et al. (1999) study the colonization c 0 0 0 ~O '0' o o OIllloem of overwash sands by several sa ltma rs h plants, including ~ 0 Spartina patens and Spartina alterniflora. MORGAN et al. 'E 0 ~OO o 0 ~ 0 0 (1994) and MORGAN (1996) present ana lyses of th e impact of B 0'0 8100 'r€ ~oo 0 overwash waters on inte rduna l wetland water levels in th e U 0 0 0 Cape Hatter as region , noting the rapid rise in water levels i3 0 0 8:, with th e arrival of the storm.