Cache Valley Aquifer Storage and Recovery

Book excerpt: The City of Millville, located in a prime location for aquifer storage and recovery (ASR), is having issues with elevated nitrate in the Glenridge well, a public water supply sourced from the Cache Valley principal aquifer. To alleviate high nitrate, the city performed an initial injection and pumping test using the Glenridge well. Millville injected water from Garr Spring, another public water supply source of which they own water rights, into the Glenridge well for one week at a rate of 500 gallons per minute. They then pumped the well while monitoring geochemistry to determine the effects on the Cache Valley principal aquifer system. The pre-injection nitrate concentration in the Glenridge well was 7.65 mg/l nitrate as nitrogen, and the nitrate concentration after pumping more than 172% of the volume of water injected was 6.52 mg/l nitrate as nitrogen. There is likely some dispersion of the injected spring water via advection in the aquifer.