The map above includes Southern Maryland as one of the most stressed groundwater systems in the United States.

La Plata, MD – Challenges facing the region’s groundwater supplies are many.

Dr. Albert Tucker of the Chesapeake Environmental Protection Association told the Charles County Planning Commission Jan. 11 that aquifer levels in the region are dropping 2-5 feet annually and more in some places.

The overview isn’t necessarily pretty, but as Jason Groth, chief of Resource and Infrastructure Management and John Mudd, resource manager for Charles County pointed out, the county has taken measures to help in the abatement of the precious resource’s decline.

Prior to 1960 most residential water was supplied through individual wells. Waldorf’s growth in the early 1960s resulted in declining water levels in the Magothy, one of four major aquifers serving the region.

“The state of Maryland are the caretakers of groundwater in Maryland,” Mudd pointed out, and the county worked with the state to limit withdrawals from that source.

“In the Magothy, water levels did stabilize,” he added.

Other concerns grew over the decline in the Lower Patapsco Aquifer in the western part of the county, particularly Bryans Road from the 1970s through 2007, prompting a shift to the deeper Patuxent Aquifer. The county worked with the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Maryland Geological Society to develop strategies which included pumping from Bensville area wells. As a result of the shifts, water levels in the Lower Patapsco significantly rebounded to levels measured in the 1990s.

Maryland monitors the aquifers through a series of monitoring wells throughout the state and has learned, over time, when an aquifer may be overly stressed.

“Groundwater monitoring is a backbone component,” Groth said. “The fortunate thing is the state is the permitting agency, but we equally take responsibility for actually monitoring the aquifers and try to manage them as best as is possible.”

Mudd pointed out that water resources have been studied in Charles County for more than 30 years, beginning in 1984 up until the 2014 Patuxent Aquifer Water Source Study in Charles County.

Strategies for the future include not only groundwater monitoring, but also include minimizing the drawdown in the Magothy and Patapsco aquifers, well field management, water re-use and supplementing the county’s water system with alternatives to groundwater (Groth said power generating stations are already using treated effluent water for cooling their systems, minimizing the impact on aquifers) and Charles County’s Water Conservation Program.

That doesn’t mean things are OK, however.

“There is a lot of evidence that aquifers are continuing to decline,” Groth admitted.

“You will experience problems much earlier than the remainder of the state,” Tucker told the Planning Commission. “The issue that is on the table is sustainability of water in the aquifer system. Are we using it up faster than we’re putting it back in the ground? The answer is, we are.

“People in Virginia are effecting you more than you are affecting yourselves,” he pointed out.

Tucker said that agriculture is the fastest growing user of groundwater in the state.
“Community and industrial needs pale in comparison to agriculture,” Tucker stated.

He stressed that water levels decline 2-5 feet every year.

“In some areas faster than that,” he stressed. “The real problem is population. You won’t run out of water,” Tucker added. “What we’re talking about is the quality of the water degrading. With groundwater recharge we could really stave that off in the future, but we’re talking about a very serious and complex problem.”

Global warming plays a part, he noted, for as sea levels rise, so do occurrences of salt water seeping into groundwater sources.

Tucker praised the staff of Charles County Government Jan. 11, calling them one of the “bell weather counties in the state with respect of what’s going to happen with water in the future.”

“When you look at the number of people doing the work required, you’re lucky that here in Charles you have staff enough to do this,” he said. “Other counties don’t have enough staff to carry this out.”

Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com