Focus Category:
Groundwater (GW)

Descriptors:
Hydrogeology, Aquifer Characteristics, Data Storage and Retrieval, Groundwater Hydrology, Groundwater Quality, Data Analysis, Computers.

Duration:
July 1, 1997 - June 30, 1998

Names and departments of principal investigators:
University of Wyoming Principal Investigators

Barry B. Lawrence, Wyoming Water Resources Center
Antony R Bergantino, Wyoming Water Resources Center

State of Wyoming Co-Investigators

James C. Case, Wyoming State Geological Survey
Rodney H. De Bruin, Wyoming State Geological Survey
Alan J. Ver Ploeg, Wyoming State Geological Survey
Kevin J. Boyce, Wyoming State Engineer's Office

Statement of the Critical Regional or State Water Problems:
This project proposal addresses bolded item VII.B (Groundwater, pages 7-8) in the Wyoming Water Resources Center's current Request for Proposals. The purpose of the project is to compile and make information readily available on the geohydrologic and geochemical framework of the Little Snake River Drainage Basin in South Central Wyoming. Specifically, the Water Resources Data System (WRDS) at the Wyoming Water Resources Center will be expanded to include information and data on the depth, water quality and hydrology of known formations/aquifers in the Little Snake River Drainage Basin. Relationships between these formations/aquifers and permitted water wells will also be defined and included in WRDS.

Water-well drillers, engineers, geologists and hydrologists operating in Wyoming need to be able to contact a single entity and access a database with information available on the depth to specific formations/aquifers and their known water quality and hydrologic characteristics. Also, the Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission has expressed an interest in having such information included in an expanded Water Resources Data System because of the intense natural gas exploration and development activity in the Baggs-to- Wamsutter region of Wyoming. The Wyoming Water Development Commission has indicated that information produced by this project could be incorporated into the proposed State Water Plan. The Little Snake River Drainage Basin has been identified as one of the first basins to be characterized in that plan.

Nature, scope and objectives of the research:
The project will expand the Water Resources Data System groundwater records in the Little Snake River Drainage Basin. This expansion will be accomplished by first adding permitted water-well records to WRDS and then by merging those records with geologic and hydrologic interpretations of the Basin. The merging of these data will provide a single source of information on the geohydrology and water chemistry of geologic formations, aquifers and water wells in that area. The project objectives are:

A) Acquire existing water well, water quality, geologic and hydrologic data for the Little Snake River Drainage Basin.

B) Develop methodologies and utilize software that will allow the data to be organized and analyzed within a three-dimensional stratigraphic framework.

C) Merge the geologic, hydrologic, water quality and raw well data into an expanded Water Resources Data System.

This project will merge two data sets. The first data set, which will come from the Wyoming State Engineer's Office, includes existing well locations, well depths, static water levels, main water-bearing zones, perforated intervals, yields and water quality. The second data set, which will come from the Institute for Energy Research and the Wyoming State Geological Survey, includes existing or extrapolated/interpolated data on producing-zone hydrological characteristics, depths to tops of formations/aquifers and estimated regional hydrological characteristics of producing formations. If existing or extrapolated/interpolated data do not allow for assignment of source water to a specific formation, that source water instead will be assigned to an aquifer system.

The specific methods and procedures for accomplishing the project objectives are:

A) Acquire water-well completion and water quality reports for the 1100 water wells permitted by the Wyoming State Engineer's Office in the Little Snake River Drainage Basin. Water-well completion data include: well elevation, depth, main water-bearing zone, static water level at time of completion and driller's logs.

B) Acquire existing hydrologic and geologic data, maps and cross-sections of the study area. These data and maps will be obtained from the Wyoming State Geological Survey, the Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, the US Geological Survey (Cheyenne and Denver), the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, the Wyoming Water Development Commission, and from the University of Wyoming's Institute for Energy Research, Department of Geology and Geophysics and Wyoming Water Resources Center. These data will be assembled and evaluated by the Wyoming State Geological Survey.

C) Enter records obtained from the Wyoming State Engineer's Office (Section A above) and formation/aquifer hydrologic characteristics data (Section B above) into the Water Resources Data System. Scan pertinent portions of the water well completion reports for literal display.

D) Define the three-dimensional stratigraphic framework of the entire drainage basin through modification of existing structure contour maps that have been generated by the University of Wyoming's Institute for Energy Research (Section B above).

E) Develop, refine and utilize computer software to merge water well, formation/aquifer and lithologic data (Section C above) with the modified three-dimensional stratigraphic framework (Section D above). This will allow for the extrapolation/interpolation of formation tops to specific water wells.

F) Incorporate the results of the merged data (Section E above) into the expanded Water Resources Data System groundwater database.

G) Modify WRDS to allow a user to perform retrievals by specific well or by random location. A retrieval by specific well will display pertinent information on the local stratigraphic framework, water quality (where available) and site-specific or regionally-estimated hydrologic characteristics of producing formations. A retrieval by random location will display estimated depths to formations/aquifers and regionally-estimated hydrologic characteristics and water quality (Total Dissolved Solids) of producing formations/aquifers. In addition, the random location search will also list surrounding wells from which hydrologic characteristics and water quality may be obtained and displayed.

H) Make the resultant products available through the Water Resources Data System and accessible through the Spatial Data and Visualization Center (SDVC) at the University of Wyoming.

Related Research:
The Institute for Energy Research at the University of Wyoming has completed work on a contract from the Gas Research Institute concerning natural gas resources in the Greater Green River Basin. Computer-generated structure contour maps were produced for all gas-producing formations by using data derived from the Petroleum Information Corporation (Verbal communication with Henry Heasler; February, 1997). These maps will be used as a basis for the proposed stratigraphic framework.

The Spatial Data and Visualization Center (SDVC) at the University of Wyoming has been tasked with assembling a geologic database and a natural resources data clearinghouse. The Little Snake River Drainage Basin project will provide information that will be accessible through the SDVC (Meeting and verbal communication with SDVC Project Coordinators - Jeff Hamerlinck and Henry Heasler; February, 1997). The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and the US Environmental Protection Agency have provided funds to the Wyoming Water Resources Center for a statewide aquifer vulnerability to contamination study. Results from the proposed Little Snake River Drainage Basin study would be used to help validate input to the vulnerability model (Verbal communication with Jeff Hamerlinck; February, 1997).

Investigator's Qualifications:

Mr. Barry B. Lawrence has been Coordinator of the Water Resources Data System at the Wyoming Water Resources Center for the past 11 years. He has overseen the migration of the system from a standalone mainframe environment into a web-accessible distributed database under the Oracle Relational Database Management System. He is very familiar with the structure of large water information systems and has knowledge in programming and design of these types of systems. Mr. Lawrence has a background in Statistics and Zoology.

Mr. Antony R. Bergantino has been a Programmer/Analyst at the Water Resources Data System at the Wyoming Water Resources Center for the past 3 years. He has been migrating the WRDS databases from a standalone mainframe environment into a web-accessible distributed database under the Oracle Relational Database Management System. He is familiar with the designing of large database systems and also has a background in Hydrology.

Mr. James C. Case has over 23 years of experience in environmental analysis, hydrogeology and water resources planning, and has been the Head of the Geologic Hazards/Environmental Geology Section at the Wyoming State Geological Survey for 16 years. In that capacity, he has served on Wyoming's Wellhead Protection Plan Advisory Committee and the Statewide Aquifer Vulnerability to Contamination Committee and Work Group. In conjunction with those activities, he has conducted a statewide assessment of the generalized hydrologic characteristics of all geologic formations and surficial deposits in Wyoming.

Mr. Rodney H. De Bruin has over 21 years of experience in oil and gas exploration and development, Wyoming stratigraphy and geologic hazards. He has been the Head of the Oil and Gas Section at the Wyoming Geological Survey for 10 years. In that capacity, he has classified reservoir heterogeneity in most of Wyoming's major oil and gas fields, administered a grant to support research on the Frontier Formation and a grant to characterize all major gas reservoirs in Wyoming. He is presently developing a database of formation tops picked from geophysical logs.

Mr. Alan J. Ver Ploeg has over 23 years of experience in stratigraphy, petroleum geology, minerals and geologic mapping. He has been a Section Head at the Wyoming State Geological Survey (WSGS) for over 20 years. His first 10 years with the WSGS were as Head of the Oil and Gas Section, and the last 10 years have been as Head of the Mapping and Stratigraphy Section. At the WSGS, he has characterized numerous basins and generated many geologic maps in the State. For the last 4 years, he has been a technical and geological advisor to the Underground Injection Control Program at the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Mr. Kevin J. Boyce has 12 years of experience as a geologist. He has been a Water Rights Analyst and Staff Geologist with the Wyoming State Engineer's Office for 7 years. At the State Engineer's Office he gathers, analyzes and interprets hydrogeologic data in order to provide technical assistance and advice on projects related to groundwater supplies. Recently, he has been a project manager on the Fort Union Formation Aquifer Monitoring Plan and a participant on the Madison Aquifer Assessment.

Training Potential:
The project will employ two part-time graduate assistants in Geology to assist in data acquisition and manipulation. An additional undergraduate student will be employed for data entry and verification (See Attachment A). Two non-student personnel will also be employed through the project. One will be a part-time Research Associate I housed at the Wyoming State Geological Survey and the other will be a part-time Computer Programmer housed at the Wyoming Water Resources Center.

Information Transfer Plan:
The target audiences for this project are the Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, the Wyoming State Engineer's Office, the Wyoming State Geological Survey and the Wyoming Water Development Commission, as well as water-well drillers, geologists, hydrologists, engineers and students having interests or projects within the Little Snake River Drainage Basin.

This information will be globally disseminated through the Water Resources Data System and through the Spatial Data and Visualization Center at the University of Wyoming via Internet and/or Internet2. In addition, the results of this project will be presented to the Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, at the State Water Forum, at the American Water Resources Association (Wyoming Chapter) Annual Meeting and through other presentations given by the investigators.

Project personnel regularly disseminate information on water-well characteristics, water quality, geology and hydrology to diverse audiences throughout the State and region. Investigators with the Wyoming Water Resources Center have built and are maintaining the Water Resources Data System - a principal distribution system for water information in the State of Wyoming. Investigators with the Wyoming State Geological Survey have mapped and characterized large portions of the State of Wyoming and have released the results of these activities through numerous publications, presentations and press releases. Cooperators to the project are: the Wyoming Water Resources Center, the Wyoming State Geological Survey, the Wyoming Water Development Commission, the Wyoming State Engineer's Office, the Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, the Institute for Energy Research and the Spatial Data and Visualization Center at the University of Wyoming.