Residence Times of Minnesota Groundwaters

ABSTRACT-Tritium, 14C, and nitrate analyses for eighty groundwater samples from selected Minnesota aquifers indicate a range of residence times from a few days or weeks to tens of thousands of years. The presence of significant nitrate contamination in groundwater is confined to recent or mixed groundwaters. Isotopic studies can yield information that will be useful in the design of effective groundwater protection plans in Minnesota

From spring to stream: water quality analysis in Trout Brook, Dakota County, MN

This research was supported by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

Altura, MN Waste Treatment Lagoon Failures: A Hydrogeologic Study

Unpublished manuscript outlining hydrogeologic investigation (including geology, hydrology, dye tracing, etc.) of the Altura WWTF lagoon failure in 1976 in Winona County, MN. Work was later published in the proceedings of the first multidisciplinary conference on sinkholes (see, "Sinkholes: Their Geology, Engineering and Environmental Impact").In April 1976, a series of karat sinkholes opened in the holding lagoon of the Altura MN Waste Treatment Facility. Subsequent detailed field mapping of the region around the community revealed at least 22 sinkholes not shown on existing maps. The distribution of the sinkholes as well as post-failure investigations of the lagoon indicate that catastrophic collapse is related to the presence of a thin, poorly indurated, jointed sandstone overlying a thick carbonate unit. The sandstone served to collect solutionally aggressive vadose water and to concentrate that water onto specific areas of the underlying carbonate. The resulting differential solution produced voids into which the overlying materials collapsed. The disabled facility has been diverting partially treated effluent into a nearby dry run since the lagoon collapsed. A dye trace documented that the effluent after sinking underground reemerges from three local springs and then flows into a river which is a regional trout fishery. However, a second dye trace from the sinkhole in the lagoon failed to establish a connection to any local well or spring.Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources of the State of Minnesot

Altura Minnesota lagoon collapses

In April 1976, a series of karst sinkholes opened in the holding lagoon of the Altura, Minnesota Waste Treatment Facility. This major failure was preceded by minor sinkhole formation during the construction of the facility in 1974. Subsequent detailed field mapping of the region around the community revealed at least 23 sinkholes not shown on existing maps. The distribution of the sinkholes as well as post-failure investigations of the lagoon indicate that catastrophic collapse is related to the presence of a thin, poorly indurated, jointed sandstone overlying a thick carbonate unit. The sandstone served to collect solutionally aggressive vadose water and to concentrate that water onto specific areas of the underlying carbonate. The resulting differential solution produced voids into which the overlying materials collapsed.Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources of the State of Minnesot

Dye Tracing Studies of the Fountain, Minnesota Sewage System

Posted with permission of the National Ground Water Association. Copyright 1986.Fountain, a small community in southeastern Minnesota, is located on a sinkhole plain developed in the Ordovician Galena Formation. Many of the approximately 100 houses in the town have sewer systems that empty directly into sinkholes. Qualitative dye traces using Fluorescein and a quantitative dye trace using Rhodamine WT indicate that effluent from the community's individual disposal systems resurges at a group of springs about a mile northwest of the community. These springs are located in the Galena aquifer which comprises the upper karst above the Decorah Shale aquitard. The travel time of the underground flow here is about one day. The citizens of Fountain are considering the construction of a community drainfield to alleviate the sewage disposal problem. The effluent from individual septic tanks would be collected and piped to a drainfield about two miles south of town. The proposed drainfield site is stratigraphically below the Decorah Shale in a valley underlain by limestones and dolomites of the Praire du Chien Group. Watson Creek, which flows through the valley, is a karst stream which loses water into the ground in the vicinity of the proposed site. The quantitative dye trace from the proposed site indicates that the water beneath it is moving southeast at a velocity of about 1.3 miles/year. Water in the lower karst aquifer (in the Prairie du Chien) is moving two to three orders of magnitude more slowly than in the upper karst aquifer (in the Galena). [Carbon-14] analyses of the water in the Prairie du Chien aquifer are consistent with the dye trace results and indicate residence times of less than 25 years. Flow in the upper karst aquifer is about 300 times faster than in the lower aquifer, and in the opposite direction.This work was supported in part under grant C271047-02 to Fountain from the U.S. EPA via McGhie and Betts, Inc., Rochester, Minn. and in part under a grant from the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCMR)

Ursinus College Alumni Journal, Spring 1948

Give the steward a break! • President\u27s page • College has full extra-curricular program: Dr. Miller forum speaker; Religious Emphasis Week; Ray Eberle for junior prom • Mrs. Smith resigns alumni secretaryship • College is recipient of paintings and furniture • Congratulations, alumni basketeers! • Women\u27s Club entertains Ursinus senior girls • New associate professor joins college faculty • Nineteen alumni attain doctorates • Still room for students in certain categories • College librarian resigns • A successful season was had by all: Men\u27s basketball; Girls\u27 basketball; Wrestling; Swimming • News about ourselves • Cost of living increase voted faculty members • News around town • Ursinus curriculum undergoes revision • Women\u27s rules liberalizedhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/alumnijournal/1032/thumbnail.jp

Optical Brighteners: Sorption Behavior, Detection, Septic System Tracer Applications

Laboratory soil column experiments were used to evaluate the optical brighteners (fluorescent whitening agents) Tinopal3 CBS-X (ASTM designation DSBP-1) and Tinopal3 5BM-GX (ASTM designation DASC-4) and the fluorescent dye eosin Y (C.1. 45380) as adsorbing tracers in subsurface systems. In a low organic carbon content glacial outwash sand (foe = 0.0034, 97% sand by weight) the solid-water distribution coefficient (Kd) was determined to be 0.26 cm113/g for Tinopal CBS-X, 0. 78 cm113/g for Tinopal 5BM-GX, and 0.024 cm11 3/g for eosin Y. All three compounds had simple sigmoidal breakthrough curves. Optical brighteners can be detected in direct solution by fluorometry but suffer from interference associated with naturally occurring organic compounds. Unbrightened cotton can be used to qualitatively detect optical brighteners. Polyethersulfone filter media can be used to selectively remove optical brighteners from solution without changing the background fluorescence spectrum. The exposed filter medium can be analyzed as a solid sample in a scanning spectrofluorophotometer. The resulting spectrum can be used to measure the optical brightener concentration in the filtered sample. Polyethersulfone filters can be used to detect optical brighteners in samples collected in and around septic system drain fields at less than 1 ppb Tinopal 5BM-GX equivalent.Funding for this research project was approved by the Minnesota Legislature [ML 1993, Chap. 172, Art. 1, Sec. 14, Subd. 11 (i)] as recommended by the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund. A graduate student fellowship awarded to the first author by the National Ground Water Association facilitated the column experiment work. The septic system tracer applications portion of this work was made possible by a joint Blue Earth County, Minnesota Soil and Water Conservation District / Minnesota Pollution Control Agency I Federal Emergency Management Administration grant

Dye Tracing Through Thick Unsaturated Zones

Using the fluorescent dye Rhodamine WT, a field fluorometer, and direct samples of water collected from springs, wells, cave drips, and pools we have conducted two successful dye traces through thick unsaturated zones in karst regions. The first dye trace was of a proposed expansion site for a landfill in Winona County, southeastern Minnesota. The site sits on top of a narrow ridge about 150 meters above the adjacent valleys. The second trace was at Jewel Cave National Monument in the southern Black Hills of South Dakota. This trace was initiated to evaluate the impact of tourist facilities on the underlying cave. A visitor center was constructed on the surface, 50 to 100 meters directly above the cave. In both traces, small, irregular pulses of dye began to appear (in springs and wells at the Winona Landfill site and in cave drips and pools at Jewel Cave) within days of the dye injection, and the pulses continued to emerge for months. The pulses were typically a day or less in duration and a very small (10s to 100s of parts per trillion, 10- 12 g/g). The pulses are more frequent after major precipitation/runoff events but appear to be moving through both unsaturated zones in a very irregular, stochastic fashion. The very low levels of dye detected in many of the pulses required so.me type of confirmation analysis. We have successfully used the large negative temperature coefficient of Rhodamine WT's fluorescence to discriminate between low levels of Rhodamine WT and fluorescence due to background materials.Winona County and the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources. The dye trace of Jewel Cave was supported by a grant (USDI-CX-1200-5-A047) from the National Park Service

Optical Brightener Screening for Sewage Contamination of Water Table Aquifers in Southeastern Minnesota, USA

Novel screening methods for detecting optical brighteners, fluorescent organic blue dyes principally used in laundry detergents for whitening fabrics, have been developed for the monitoring of water table aquifers impacted by septic systems. Four rural residential communities characterized by private water supply and sewage systems were selected in southeastern Minnesota. Developments were chosen with a variety of saturated and unsaturated zone materials and thicknesses, water table and well depths, and topographic and cultural settings. Sampling sites were enrolled if wells were completed above regional aquitards. Sanitary surveys of sampling sites were completed with attention to drinking water usage and waste/wastewater disposal practices to uncover sources of crosscontamination. Water supplies were sampled and analyzed to determine aquifer sources, sanitary quality and natural backgrounds and anthropomorphic contributions of physicochemical and microbiological parameters of interest (e.g., nitrate, chloride and coliform bacteria). Filter holders containing untreated cotton, activated carbon and polysulfone/polyethersulfone membrane filters were installed as immersion-type detectors in toilet reservoirs. Syringe filter capsules comprised of polyethersulfone membranes were utilized for direct sampling. Exposure times ranged from minutes to months, and exposed filter media were analyzed in solid phase utilizing a scanning spectrofluorophotometer. Spectral data were computer-processed to objectively match peaks with the spectra obtained from pure fluorescent dyes and laundry detergent formulations. Detections were positive if matched peaks at 440 nm appeared above background fluorescence. Water supply test data and site survey information indicative of septic system contamination were moderately correlated with positive optical brightener detections.Funding for this research project was approved by the Minnesota Legislature [ML 1993, Chap. 172, Art. 1, Sec. 14, Subd. 11 (i)J as recommended by the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund

Using pyrosequencing to shed light on deep mine microbial ecology

BACKGROUND: Contrasting biological, chemical and hydrogeological analyses highlights the fundamental processes that shape different environments. Generating and interpreting the biological sequence data was a costly and time-consuming process in defining an environment. Here we have used pyrosequencing, a rapid and relatively inexpensive sequencing technology, to generate environmental genome sequences from two sites in the Soudan Mine, Minnesota, USA. These sites were adjacent to each other, but differed significantly in chemistry and hydrogeology. RESULTS: Comparisons of the microbes and the subsystems identified in the two samples highlighted important differences in metabolic potential in each environment. The microbes were performing distinct biochemistry on the available substrates, and subsystems such as carbon utilization, iron acquisition mechanisms, nitrogen assimilation, and respiratory pathways separated the two communities. Although the correlation between much of the microbial metabolism occurring and the geochemical conditions from which the samples were isolated could be explained, the reason for the presence of many pathways in these environments remains to be determined. Despite being physically close, these two communities were markedly different from each other. In addition, the communities were also completely different from other microbial communities sequenced to date. CONCLUSION: We anticipate that pyrosequencing will be widely used to sequence environmental samples because of the speed, cost, and technical advantages. Furthermore, subsystem comparisons rapidly identify the important metabolisms employed by the microbes in different environments