Arsenic Control During Aquifer Storage Recovery Cycle Tests in the Floridan Aquifer

Implementation of aquifer storage recovery (ASR) for water resource management in Florida is impeded by arsenic mobilization. Arsenic, released by pyrite oxidation during the recharge phase, sometimes results in groundwater concentrations that exceed the 10 µg/L criterion defined in the Safe Drinking Water Act. ASR was proposed as a major storage component for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), in which excess surface water is stored during the wet season, and then distributed during the dry season for ecosystem restoration. To evaluate ASR system performance for CERP goals, three cycle tests were conducted, with extensive water‐quality monitoring in the Upper Floridan Aquifer (UFA) at the Kissimmee River ASR (KRASR) pilot system. During each cycle test, redox evolution from sub‐oxic to sulfate‐reducing conditions occurs in the UFA storage zone, as indicated by decreasing Fe²⁺/H₂S mass ratios. Arsenic, released by pyrite oxidation during recharge, is sequestered during storage and recovery by co‐precipitation with iron sulfide. Mineral saturation indices indicate that amorphous iron oxide (a sorption surface for arsenic) is stable only during oxic and sub‐oxic conditions of the recharge phase, but iron sulfide (which co‐precipitates arsenic) is stable during the sulfate‐reducing conditions of the storage and recovery phases. Resultant arsenic concentrations in recovered water are below the 10 µg/L regulatory criterion during cycle tests 2 and 3. The arsenic sequestration process is appropriate for other ASR systems that recharge treated surface water into a sulfate‐reducing aquifer.     

Optimizing Multiwell Aquifer Storage and Recovery Systems for Energy Use and Recovery Efficiency

As more aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) systems are employed for management of water resources, the skillful operation of multiwell ASR systems has become very important to improve their performance. In this study, we developed MODFLOW and MT3DMS models to simulate a multiwell ASR system in a synthetic aquifer to assess effects of hydrogeological and operational factors on the performance of the multiwell ASR system. We evaluated a simplified (dual well) ASR system in comparison with complex system (three-, four-, five-, and seven-well systems). Recovery and energy efficiencies were calculated using the model simulations. Factors such as higher hydraulic conductivity and longitudinal dispersivity significantly reduced the recovery and energy efficiencies of the system. In contrast, increasing the volume of recharged water increased the recovery efficiency; however, the energy efficiency was reduced. Recovery and energy efficiencies also plummet when there is an increase in the underlying regional gradient and the designed storage duration. Operating the system multiple times can yield higher volume of potable water, but the energy efficiency may not vary significantly after the second operating cycle. Single-well systems and multiwell systems exhibit similar responses to changes in physical factors, although operational factors have a more pronounced effect on the multiwell systems. One of the major findings was that fewer wells in a multiwell ASR system can yield higher volume of potable water and better output with respect to the electrical power being consumed. The results provide design engineers with guidelines for optimizing performance of the multiwell ASR systems.     

Relative Recovery of Thermal Energy and Fresh Water in Aquifer Storage and Recovery Systems

This paper explores the relationship between thermal energy and fresh water recoveries from an aquifer storage recovery (ASR) well in a brackish confined aquifer. It reveals the spatial and temporal distributions of temperature and conservative solutes between injected and recovered water. The evaluation is based on a review of processes affecting heat and solute transport in a homogeneous aquifer. In this simplified analysis, it is assumed that the aquifer is sufficiently anisotropic to inhibit density‐affected flow, flow is axisymmetric, and the analysis is limited to a single ASR cycle. Results show that the radial extent of fresh water at the end of injection is greater than that of the temperature change due to the heating or cooling of the geological matrix as well as the interstitial water. While solutes progress only marginally into low permeability aquitards by diffusion, conduction of heat into aquitards above and below is more substantial. Consequently, the heat recovery is less than the solute recovery when the volume of the recovered water is lower than the injection volume. When the full volume of injected water is recovered the temperature mixing ratio divided by the solute mixing ratio for recovered water ranges from 0.95 to 0.6 for ratios of maximum plume radius to aquifer thickness of 0.6 to 4.6. This work is intended to assist conceptual design for dual use of ASR for conjunctive storage of water and thermal energy to maximize the potential benefits.     

Detection of Mixing Dynamics During Pumping of a Flooded Coal Mine

In complex hydrogeological environments the effective management of groundwater quality problems by pump‐and‐treat operations can be most confidently achieved if the mixing dynamics induced within the aquifer by pumping are well understood. The utility of isotopic environmental tracers (C‐, H‐, O‐, S‐stable isotopic analyses and age indicators—¹⁴C, ³H) for this purpose is illustrated by the analysis of a pumping test in an abstraction borehole drilled into flooded, abandoned coal mineworkings at Deerplay (Lancashire, UK). Interpretation of the isotope data was undertaken conjunctively with that of major ion hydrochemistry, and interpreted in the context of the particular hydraulic setting of flooded mineworkings to identify the sources and mixing of water qualities in the groundwater system. Initial pumping showed breakdown of initial water quality stratification in the borehole, and gave evidence for distinctive isotopic signatures (δ³⁴S(SO4) ? ?1.6‰, δ¹⁸O(SO₄) ? +15‰) associated with primary oxidation of pyrite in the zone of water table fluctuation—the first time this phenomenon has been successfully characterized by these isotopes in a flooded mine system. The overall aim of the test pumping—to replace an uncontrolled outflow from a mine entrance in an inconvenient location with a pumped discharge on a site where treatment could be provided—was swiftly achieved. Environmental tracing data illustrated the benefits of pumping as little as possible to attain this aim, as higher rates of pumping induced in‐mixing of poorer quality waters from more distant old workings, and/or renewed pyrite oxidation in the shallow subsurface.     

Hydrogeophysical Methods for Analyzing Aquifer Storage and Recovery Systems

Hydrogeophysical methods are presented that support the siting and monitoring of aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) systems. These methods are presented as numerical simulations in the context of a proposed ASR experiment in Kuwait, although the techniques are applicable to numerous ASR projects. Bulk geophysical properties are calculated directly from ASR flow and solute transport simulations using standard petrophysical relationships and are used to simulate the dynamic geophysical response to ASR. This strategy provides a quantitative framework for determining site‐specific geophysical methods and data acquisition geometries that can provide the most useful information about the ASR implementation. An axisymmetric, coupled fluid flow and solute transport model simulates injection, storage, and withdrawal of fresh water (salinity ～500 ppm) into the Dammam aquifer, a tertiary carbonate formation with native salinity approximately 6000 ppm. Sensitivity of the flow simulations to the correlation length of aquifer heterogeneity, aquifer dispersivity, and hydraulic permeability of the confining layer are investigated. The geophysical response using electrical resistivity, time‐domain electromagnetic (TEM), and seismic methods is computed at regular intervals during the ASR simulation to investigate the sensitivity of these different techniques to changes in subsurface properties. For the electrical and electromagnetic methods, fluid electric conductivity is derived from the modeled salinity and is combined with an assumed porosity model to compute a bulk electrical resistivity structure. The seismic response is computed from the porosity model and changes in effective stress due to fluid pressure variations during injection/recovery, while changes in fluid properties are introduced through Gassmann fluid substitution.     

Evaluation of Pumping Induced Flow in Observation Wells During Aquifer Testing

The vertical variation of drawdown around pumping wells generates an induced flow in the observation wells. A set of governing equations is presented to couple the drawdown variation and the vertical flux distribution in observation wells. A numerical example is performed to justify the governing equations and to verify the solution methods used by the simulation software WT. The example analyzes the effect of skin loss, wellbore storage, and vertical segmentation on the drawdown and induced flow in observation well during pumping. The evaluation of the Fairborn pumping test involves a vertically homogeneous and anisotropic water table aquifer, uniform well‐face drawdown conditions in the pumping well and simulation of the drawdown evolution in the observation well with and without the effect of induced flow. The computer calibrations resulted in small differences between the measured and simulated drawdown curves.