DETAILED AQUIFER MAPPING OF THE SPRINGVILLE, N.Y. AREA Erie, Cattaraugus, and Wyoming Counties, New York

Introduction

Public-water systems at Springville and Yorkshire/Delavan, N.Y. along Cattaraugus Creek draw from local groundwater resources and serve about 5,500 people (U.S. EPA SDWIS database). The remainder of the population obtains water from domestic wells, many of them completed in glacial aquifers.

A Cattaraugus Creek tributary valley (Buttermilk Creek) to the south is the site of the West Valley low-level radioactive waste burial site (part of the Western New York Nuclear Service Center).  Numerous investigations of glacial geology and hydrogeology have been performed at this site (for example, Prudic and Randall (1977), LaFleur (1980), and Prudic (1986)) and glacial mapping has included the surrounding area LaFleur (1979). Glacial mapping in the region was compiled by Cadwell (1988).  Muller (1960, 1975) and Caulkin and Muller (1980) reported on the glacial geology of Cattaraugus County. No evaluation of sand and gravel aquifers has been undertaken in the Springville – Yorkshire, N.Y. area.

The proposed study area is just north of the West Valley site and encompasses 137 mi² surrounding the east – west oriented reach of the Cattaraugus Creek between Springville and Yorkshire, N.Y. (figure 1). The northern part of the study area includes four through valleys along the Lake Escarpment ice margin (Leverett, 1902; Muller, 1960) whose outwash heads coalesce into two broad outwash valley trains that extend southward into the Cattaraugus Creek valley.

Objective

The objective of this study is to define the extent and hydrogeologic framework of glacial aquifers from the Lake Escarpment ice margin south along the outwash plain(s) that have been incised by the Cattaraugus Creek and to present the results as a digital map and summary report. 

Approach

The spatial extent of sand and gravel aquifers and their hydrogeologic framework will be primarily delineated through interpretation of existing data, including soil-survey maps, topographic maps, lidar or 10-meter elevation data, and selected well records. Limited fieldwork will include verification of deposits at sand-and-gravel pits and passive-seismic surveys to estimate depth to bedrock in areas lacking well data.

Existing hydrogeologic information and interpretations will be obtained from the literature, published USGS reports, consultants’ reports, Master’s theses and Doctoral dissertations, well records from the NYSDEC Water Well Permit Program, well records in the USGS NWIS database, and test borings and seismic-refraction studies from the New York State Department of Transportation. The USGS NWIS database will be updated with new well data acquired during the study.  

Investigation will include the following sequential tasks:

1         Compile necessary data, including Natural Resources Conservation Service SSURGO soils data, lidar imagery, published reports, unpublished surficial geologic maps, and well records from the NYSDEC Water Well database, the USGS NWIS database, and well data from other State and County agencies.

2         Perform passive seismic surveys (if applicable) as needed to estimate depth to bedrock in areas where there are data gaps. The usefulness of this technique is highly dependent on site and subsurface conditions. Even if depth to bedrock cannot be estimated, inferences of subsurface conditions can generally be made.

3         Develop a surficial geologic map of the study area based on the above data compilation.

4         Delineate the boundary of the valley-fill aquifer system at 1:24,000 scale, including contiguous deposits of alluvium, outwash, ice-contact sand and gravel.

5         Construct about 5-10 geologic sections that depict the subsurface geology of the aquifer system.

6         Write a brief summary report, which will include narrative text for the map product.

7         Develop a GIS dataset of the mapped sand and gravel aquifer boundaries.

8         Compile metadata for newly created GIS dataset and document methods used to produce the dataset.

References