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Newly Released Website Can Aid in Searching for Groundwater-Quality Data

Lexington, KY. (February 6, 2007) – Over 850,000 Kentuckians depend on groundwater for their domestic water supply, and they use about 200 million gallons per day, or 5 percent of the total water usage for the State.  Knowing the quality of that water is important, and the Kentucky Geological Survey has just made it easier to find out how pure the water is. Through an Environmental Protection Agency grant awarded by the Kentucky Division of Water, KGS personnel have enhanced and streamlined online searching for water-quality data in Kentucky. Users can now select individual or multiple water quality parameters, view search results in either tabular or map form, and download the data to “delimited text files” for use in spreadsheets or various GIS software packages.

The source of this information is the Kentucky Groundwater Data Repository, maintained by KGS. To date, 38 parameters in five major categories (water properties, volatile organic compounds, nutrients, pesticides, and inorganic solutes) can be searched either as an entire group or by individual compound or analyte.  Each analyte also has an associated text file with descriptive information about the substance, possible health hazards, and EPA drinking-water standards.   Users can search the entire state; a county or multiple counties; USGS 7.5-minute quadrangles; or by a radius-search from a user-specified location (the user also specifies the radius).

The groundwater data include samples collected between the 1940’s and the present, from both springs and water wells.  Data searches can be formatted to include all sample data for every location for which records are available, or as a summary report that provides the median, maximum and most recent result values. The number of samples with chemicals below detectable levels is also included in the summary report.  Search results can be sorted by sampling date or by a range of dates.

“In the past, finding groundwater-quality information for your area has been difficult” says Steve Fisher, a KGS hydrogeochemist and principal investigator of the project.  “Often one would have to visit several state or county agencies to obtain this information, if it was even available, and it would be difficult to interpret,” says Fisher.

“The new website allows users to search for specific groundwater analyses in their area quickly and easily,” adds Bart Davidson, a KGS geologist who assisted with the project.  “With a few mouse clicks, they can then see the site locations displayed on a map and download the data for their personal use.”

“We have tried to make the search process as user-friendly as possible,” says Doug Curl, the Web designer for the new site, “by providing several online help functions to ensure that the users are able to find exactly what they need.”

Additional web sites are listed so a user can find information about maximum contaminant levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as information from other Kentucky groundwater data sites for agencies including the Kentucky Division of Water and the U. S. Geological Survey.
The new groundwater-quality search engine can be accessed online at the Survey’s web site, https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/DataSearching/Water/WaterQualSearch.asp .

For more information on water-quality or water-well data, contact the Survey at 859-257-5500.