I've often wondered Mark, whether anyone is pulling water from the area to sell bottled water. That would really irk me, that someone would be making a profit in that fashion.
A PBX Hike, The Warren Grove Wildfire 6 Months Later
- Thread starter Teegate
- Start date
I've often wondered Mark, whether anyone is pulling water from the area to sell bottled water. That would really irk me, that someone would be making a profit in that fashion.
Where Have all the Flowers Gone...
I wish it were that simple! No, instead of water export to Philadelphia and New York as Wharton intended, we have brought his consumers to Pine’s edge. Just outside the Pinelands are a vast number of wells, straws just sucking, sucking, sucking away. South Jersey’s aquifers are leaky systems, and not the neatly confined layer-cake entities shown in antiquated schematics.
Sanitary sewer effluent, lawn and golf course irrigation, and impervious coverings all play a part in this story. For southeastern New Jersey, these are some summer consumptive rates for various ground and surface water users: power generation – 100%; industrial – 90 to 100%; potable supply 90 to 100%; irrigation 90%; agriculture 90%. Surprisingly mining has the smallest water consumption footprint with only 12% unreturned to the aquifer (NJDEP 2003: 23, Table II, draft Status of the Water Supply of Southeastern New Jersey).
If things continue upon this trajectory, there will be less and less spungs for Turtle to paint! It only takes as little as a 4- to 8-inch drop in the shallow water-table to dry up a spung (Roman & Good 1983: 48, 52, Wetlands of the New Jersey Pinelands: Values, Functions, and Impacts). Just two days of USGS pumping during the Cohansey Study dropped wetlands near Richard Stockton College’s Lake Fred by that critical amount. As the period of spung-fill decreases, trees and shrubs invade, which in turn lowers spung biodiversity and speeds up their demise.
Spung-Man
Bob,
I wish it were that simple! No, instead of water export to Philadelphia and New York as Wharton intended, we have brought his consumers to Pine’s edge. Just outside the Pinelands are a vast number of wells, straws just sucking, sucking, sucking away. South Jersey’s aquifers are leaky systems, and not the neatly confined layer-cake entities shown in antiquated schematics.
Sanitary sewer effluent, lawn and golf course irrigation, and impervious coverings all play a part in this story. For southeastern New Jersey, these are some summer consumptive rates for various ground and surface water users: power generation – 100%; industrial – 90 to 100%; potable supply 90 to 100%; irrigation 90%; agriculture 90%. Surprisingly mining has the smallest water consumption footprint with only 12% unreturned to the aquifer (NJDEP 2003: 23, Table II, draft Status of the Water Supply of Southeastern New Jersey).
If things continue upon this trajectory, there will be less and less spungs for Turtle to paint! It only takes as little as a 4- to 8-inch drop in the shallow water-table to dry up a spung (Roman & Good 1983: 48, 52, Wetlands of the New Jersey Pinelands: Values, Functions, and Impacts). Just two days of USGS pumping during the Cohansey Study dropped wetlands near Richard Stockton College’s Lake Fred by that critical amount. As the period of spung-fill decreases, trees and shrubs invade, which in turn lowers spung biodiversity and speeds up their demise.
Spung-Man
Good info Mark. I wonder if they count evaporation of the surface of mining water bodies. I often thought of adding the surface area up of all open water areas created by mines to see how they stack up compared to total natural spung surface area. That would take a long time to do, and is probably not feasible, but the results would be interesting.
So with all the precipitation we have been getting lately. Does this make the water table rise and refill dried out spungs? Do swamps work the same way and overuse of the aquifer could cause them to dry up as well?
Windows into Shallow Groundwater
Oji,
You pose a great question! I don’t think we know a lot about shallow groundwater dynamics. From historical records, the seemingly excessive water-table of this winter was actually once commonplace. It took over a century of over-pumping to ever-so-slowly drain our wetlands. I suspect it will take an increase in precipitation over a period nearly as long to fully recharge them. Our smaller streams and wetlands may temporarily reappear, but, like water-bodies on Long Island, they are increasingly becoming ephemeral entities.
Yes, not only was wetland-fill once higher than today, it was a sustained water-fill. For example, numerous Pinelands spungs once held water long enough to support fish populations. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Cope (1896: 943-944, Fishes in isolated ponds, Zoology) was mystified by the number and variety of fish he found in shallow isolated spungs across Camden County, far from other water-bodies. As a wee lad I used to catch brook trout in Ingersol Branch. Their fry would swim upstream into Ingersol Pond, now gone. Its fading carcass was finally ditched into oblivion by a real estate schemer during the 1970s.
Spung-Man
Oji,
You pose a great question! I don’t think we know a lot about shallow groundwater dynamics. From historical records, the seemingly excessive water-table of this winter was actually once commonplace. It took over a century of over-pumping to ever-so-slowly drain our wetlands. I suspect it will take an increase in precipitation over a period nearly as long to fully recharge them. Our smaller streams and wetlands may temporarily reappear, but, like water-bodies on Long Island, they are increasingly becoming ephemeral entities.
Yes, not only was wetland-fill once higher than today, it was a sustained water-fill. For example, numerous Pinelands spungs once held water long enough to support fish populations. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Cope (1896: 943-944, Fishes in isolated ponds, Zoology) was mystified by the number and variety of fish he found in shallow isolated spungs across Camden County, far from other water-bodies. As a wee lad I used to catch brook trout in Ingersol Branch. Their fry would swim upstream into Ingersol Pond, now gone. Its fading carcass was finally ditched into oblivion by a real estate schemer during the 1970s.
Spung-Man
All,
Bringing this post to the front as we visited the location this morning on the Little Egg Harbor and Stafford line where the below photo was taken. It was Jessica's first PBX hike.
This was 9/29/2007
Today, the division line looks a little different. This is not the exact location as the photo above but close to it.
Found a few monuments for the two towns.
Bringing this post to the front as we visited the location this morning on the Little Egg Harbor and Stafford line where the below photo was taken. It was Jessica's first PBX hike.
This was 9/29/2007
Today, the division line looks a little different. This is not the exact location as the photo above but close to it.
Found a few monuments for the two towns.
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I did a shorter version of this hike in September 2007. This area was the first Pine Barren Gentian I ever saw.