Ratcliff said the well sinks about 35 feet down, into an area of the water table called the “unconfined aquifer.”

The groundwater is protected from the drought while lakes, ponds, streams and rivers have gone dry due to the 2011 drought. However, the threats there are different, he said.

“Is there a direct effect of the drought conditions to the aquifer conditions? It’s a lag time, a big lag time. We’re talking several years,” Ratcliff said. “Groundwater doesn’t flush like surface water does. It’s protected from evaporation. It’s usually not endangered from a drought, but if you have a drought in multiple years, then it can lower the groundwater. Mostly, though, lowering is caused by people overdrawing from it.”

Resource management
Ratcliff said aquifers in the American West are being drawn down at a rapid rate, primarily for agricultural use. The aquifer most used in that region, which stretches from western Oklahoma up into the Dakotas, is the Ogallala Aquifer, he said.

Ratcliff said the campus well will be used to illustrate to students how flow rate can be calculated so the water in the well can be used sustainably. The well also will show how water quality can be tested.

“We can draw out the water and measure how long it takes to recharge the well.

You get an idea of the flow from that. You can model the flow mathematically,” Ratcliff said. “Also, we’re going to take water quality parameters and look at nutrients, nitrates, fertilizer and septic systems, which we don’t have here — things like phosphates in your water. The quality of groundwater here is usually pretty good.”

Northrop Grumman spokesman Norm Mejstrik said the project showed “a lot of foresight” among research projects on campus. He said Ratcliff’s project, and other projects funded by the company’s $15,000 grant to the campus, help develop science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education for a future workforce.

Other important pieces of technology funded by the grant include a thermal cycler, which helps with DNA research; computational chemistry workstations, used in the fields of pharmaceutical and health science research; bridge and load amplifier sets to help engineering students stress-test load-bearing structures; and important re-certification and maintenance on a 3-D printer used in engineering model building.