Groundwater is a critically important resource. Groundwater sustains springs, streams, lakes and wetlands, providing essential habitat and drinking water for wildlife and humans. Our groundwater endowment may seem inexhaustible in the Puget Sound. With all our rain, how could we ever run out?
But this vast amount of water is not stored in a simple underground reservoir or tank, readily available for our use. It is stored within complex layers of rock, shale, sand and other sediment.
About Drawdown
An underground formation that holds a large amount of water is called an aquifer. Water moves very slowly through aquifers—so slowly that wells pumping large amounts of water from an aquifer can cause a long-term, cone-shaped depression in the groundwater level called a drawdown. Large drawdowns can cause the water level in wells, streams and wetlands to drop or cause them to dry up entirely. Drawdowns can also cause the
levels of arsenic, radium (the precursor to radon) and salinity in drinking water to increase.
Reduced flow from groundwater into streams, wetlands and lakes can have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems and wildlife. Without cooling groundwater, a first-class trout stream becomes a troutless stream. Up to 70 percent of the water in some wetlands flows from
groundwater. Because most species of wildlife depend on wetlands during some stage of their life cycle, groundwater drawdowns can severely affect critical habitat for many birds, fish and mammals, and in our sole source aquifer in Pierce County it can affect our drinking water.
Why is this important? Because if allowed to, Cal Portland will expand their mining and drawdown our water table as much as 1.5' or more...right here in DuPont, very near our drinking water wells on Bell Hill. This cannot be allowed.
The mine is not good for our community, and it is not good for our environment.
(Source: ASC Groundwater Drawdown)
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