Delineation of protection (capture) zones for the Putaruru well field and the Blue Spring on the Waihou River

TR 2012/16
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Report: TR 2012/16

Author: MA Gusyev, U Morgenstern, G Zemansky, S Cameron, MW Toews, C Tschritter (GNS Science)

Abstract

The Putaruru well field and the Blue Spring serve as a main source of drinking water for the town of Putaruru.

 The South Waikato District Council would like to increase its consent to abstract a maximum of 3,800 m3/day from the Putaruru well field. The Blue Spring is also used by Coca-Cola Amatil for a bottled water source due its pristine water quality.

GNS Science was commissioned by Waikato Regional Council to delineate protection zones (PZ) and capture zones (CZ) for the Putaruru well field and the Blue Spring in order to facilitate the protection of groundwater quality at these drinking water supply sources.

Delineation of protection (capture) zones for the Putaruru well field and the Blue Spring on the Waihou River [PDF, 4.9 MB]

Contents
  Executive summary iii
1 Introduction 1
2 Site-specific and regional setting 2
2.1 Putaruru well field 2
2.2 Blue Spring 2
2.3 Geology 2
2.4 Hydrogeology 3
2.5 Hydrology 4
2.6 Hydrochemistry 5
2.7 Existing models in the Putaruru well field and Blue Spring area 6
2.8 Calibration targets 7
2.8.1 Groundwater heads 7
2.8.2 Stream flow 7
2.8.3 Mean residence time (MRT) 7
3 Age tracer results and interpretation 8
4 Protection and capture zones 9
4.1 Criteria and method 9
4.2 Capture zone mapping 10
4.2.1 Model set-up 10
4.2.2 Calibration of groundwater flow model 10
4.2.3 Sensitivity and uncertainty of mapped capture zones 11
4.3 Comparison between mapped capture zones 11
5 Summary and recommendations 12
6 Acknowledgements 13
7 References 13
  Appendix 1 - Methodology of groundwater age dating 27