Alabama Groundwater Problems

Auburn, Feb. 14, 2003 --- Thanks to heavy rainfall within the last six months, Alabama’s rivers, lakes, streams and even shallow groundwater supplies have recovered fully from prolonged drought. But for deeper groundwater supplies, it’s a different story.

They still have a long way to go, says one expert.

“The rains have had a big impact on surface water systems,” says Dr. James Hairston, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System water quality scientist. “But it takes good steady rainfall over a long period of time to recharge groundwater.”

Unfortunately for groundwater users, it’s a problem that is not likely to improve for the foreseeable future, especially considering that groundwater supplies are being used faster than they can be replaced through natural regeneration.

“It really takes a long time for these resources to replenish completely, especially when you consider that some of the major users of groundwater – municipalities – are pumping it out at a rate of millions of gallons every day.”

It often takes years for this water to be replaced – not surprising, Hairston says, considering that water travels only a few inches an hour, requiring months and even years, in some instances, to reach an aquifer’s recharge area, often located 50 or 100 miles away.

The use of groundwater at rates faster than Mother Nature can keep up is an increasing problem for many cities and farms in southern Alabama, which typically depend on groundwater as their principal water source.

“There’s an old saying that ‘you don’t think about the water until the well goes dry,’ and that’s often what happens with municipalities that depend on aquifers as their principal or even sole source of drinking water,” Hairston says.

“What you’re seeing in some cases is a slow decline of the water table,” Hairston says, “It may only be an inch or two a year, and you don’t notice it. But when you get into a long-term drought cycle, you see it going down a little faster.”

It was a problem underscored three years ago during the severe summer drought when some of Alabama’s largest cities, out of desperation, began tapping into groundwater as surface water resources started drying up.

In some instances, this was perceived as a threat by smaller municipalities that had been using the same aquifer for years as their chief drinking water source and that had begun noticing their water table dropping, Hairston says.

“The big difference between large cities and the smaller communities using groundwater was that the large cities still had surface water they could when the drought got worse,” he says. “These smaller municipalities, on the other hand, had no alternative other than paying $30- or $40-thousand to tap into a surface water source – something many of them couldn’t afford.”

“Some just thought it was unfair.”

From the standpoint of groundwater, Alabama, which receives an average 55 inches of rainfall, is not facing a water crisis. But if the drought drove home one point to municipal authorities, it is that these resources must be more carefully managed in the future.

With groundwater still recovering from the effects of the drought, many Alabama communities could face serious challenges following another prolonged drought.

“It’s getting to be a really critical issue for many growing communities,” Hairston says, “and some are already beginning to understand the value of meeting with representatives from neighboring cities and towns to discuss how these sorts of issues could be resolved in the event of another emergency, such as a severe drought.”

It is an especially critical challenge for growing communities that still depend solely on groundwater resources for their drinking water.

“Some of these communities that depend solely on groundwater already are beginning to realize that their prospects of future growth are limited largely because water shortages inevitably will occur during prolonged drought,” Hairston says. “Since they don’t have any way of expanding this groundwater supply, their only hope is getting connected with a larger municipal water supply located miles away.

“But in some cases, that’s just going to be too costly.”

(Source: Dr. James E. Hairston, Extension Water Quality Scientist, 334-844-3973.)

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