White Wolf Basin Groundwater Recharge Feasibility Study

The White Wolf Basin Groundwater Recharge Feasibility Study is a Proposition 13 grant funded project. The project is an outgrowth of a pilot recharge study performed in 1999 in an attempt to expand the existing conjunctive use program in the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District’s (District) service area that has been in operation since the deliveries of State Water Project began in 1972.

Prior engineering studies performed by Bookman- Edmonston (B-E), a division of GEI Consultants, Inc., in 1975 and DWR in 1977 identified the White Wolf Basin as a potential candidate for future groundwater recharge and conjunctive use operations for the storage of State Water Project water supplies.

The current project involves a series of tasks designed in part to characterize hydrogeologic conditions in the eastern White Wolf Basin relative to the siting of full-scale conjunctive use facilities. This study commenced in May 2002 and is scheduled to be completed by March 2004. Work performed to date has included:

• Collection and review of available geologic and hydrogeologic data and water and oil and gas well logs
• Conducting a preliminary geotechnical soils investigation in the vicinity of the proposed groundwater recharge facilities
• Conducting a hydrogeologic exploration program involving the drilling and construction of four monitoring wells and one pilot production well
• Conducting isolation zone water quality sampling and analysis to identify water quality variations within the aquifers encountered
• Agricultural well aquifer testing and analysis of aquifer test data
• Developing and calibrating a preliminary groundwater fl ow model of the White Wolf Basin using Modflow
• Developing and calibrating a preliminary reverse flow hydraulic model of the District’s 850 Canal using HEC-RAS as part of a proposed pump back operation to the California Aqueduct and other District turnouts on the 850 Canal
• Identifying reaches of the 850 Canal requiring modifications to accommodate reverse flow as part of the proposed pump back operations
• Preparing technical memoranda on various aspects of the project completed to date
• Meetings with the District and DWR representatives to provide project updates and progress reports.

Work to be completed includes:

• Performing groundwater model simulations of various recharge and recovery scenarios to be developed by the District and B-E Performing reverse flow simulations based on various recharge and recovery scenarios to be developed by the District and B-E
• Developing preliminary design drawings for groundwater recharge and recovery facilities
• Developing preliminary cost estimates for the construction of groundwater recharge and recovery facilities
• Preparing technical memoranda on various aspects of the project as tasks are completed
• Preparing a final report for submittal to DWR.

Depending on the results of the feasibility study, a supplemental groundwater banking project consisting of 340 acres of spreading basins, 19 recovery wells, two booster pumping stations, and 51,000 feet of 5- to 57-inch-diameter transmission pipeline will be proposed for construction. As currently envisioned, the proposed banking project would be designed to have a capacity of 62,000 acre-feet per year of groundwater storage and recovery.