Water Shortage Prompts Pump Test on Campus

Student Analysis Reveals Minimal Effects on Campus Water Table

An October water test on the Berry College quarry revealed minimal effects on the water table.

The purpose of the test was to show how pumping water out of the now inactive quarry would affect the geology and hydrology of the campus.

The test was supposed to reflect overall imbalances in the level of the water table on campus; however, the water table did not fluctuate as much as predicted.

The Floyd County Water Department initially contacted Berry College in September due to extreme drought conditions that were affecting the citizens of Floyd County.

Because of central location by the Etowah, Coosa, and Oostanaula Rivers, the city water is plentiful; however, county water is running low.

The Project
Berry and the FCWD began working alongside the contracting firm Peoples and Quigley to pump water out of the Berry quarry and into the Oostanaula River.

Pumping began on Sept. 30 after nearly 2000 feet of piping was laid to direct water from the quarry to the surrounding watershed.

At the beginning of the project, Dr. Tamie Jovanelly, assistant professor of geology, expected the water table to drop as much as 50 feet.

“During the pump test my biggest concern was the overall effect the pumping would have on the water table. Fortunately, we saw relatively little change to the water table. From the monitoring wells, we only saw a decrease of, on average, one-half foot,” said Jovanelly.

Over the course of nine days, water was pumped at an average rate of 1,200 gallons per minute out of the quarry.

Because pumping started and stopped at unpredictable intervals, Jovanelly’s research students had to conduct an analysis to determine that a total of 9 million gallons was pumped out of the quarry.

Concerns
The research team, comprised of students in her environmental geology class, expected more drastic results from pumping such large amounts of water.

“I was most worried about sinkholes forming around campus because so much water was being drawn out,” said senior Roy Srymanske.

Because Berry sits on top of karst topography, the limestone bedrock underlying the campus is prone to sinkhole formations.

After the Krannert Center partially collapsed into a sinkhole in 1998, many people involved in this project were concerned about similar adverse effects happening again.

“If they pumped down below the ‘danger level’, 565 feet in elevation, that would cause collapses on campus. At this point, the Cage Center would definitely be at risk for partial collapse or weakening due to sinkholes,” said Hillary Sparks, GIS technician for the land resources department.

Because this pump test had no effect on the campus, researchers are worried that in the future, tests will require much higher pumping rates, similar to when the quarry was in use by Florida Rock in the 1990s.

According to Sparks, Florida Rock was pumping nearly 100 million gallons per day out of the quarry and this is what caused Krannert to collapse.

“Fortunately we saw little change on campus from the test, but if it were increased to a scale similar to Florida Rock, we would see much different results,” said Jovanelly.

{KAF}