BOARD00363

• Board Meeting Date: 5/24/2004
• Description: Artificial Recharge of Ground Water in Colorado - A Statewide Assessment
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

Artificial Recharge of Ground Water in Colorado
A Statewide Assessment

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into a limestone aquifer (Gerges and others, 1998). An AR system using 6 infiltration ponds
recharges aquifers supplying the town of Newman and iron mining operations ofMt. Newman
Mining Co (Foo and others, 1989).

England
The North London Artificial Recharge Scheme provides up to 46,000 ac-ft per year to the
London area. Surplus surface water from the river Thames and Lee is treated and recharged into
the Chalk aquifer beneath London (Ramsay, 2002). In dry summers, the stored water is pumped
from the aquifers, treated once again and then distributed. The Chalk aquifer was heavily
depleted in the early half of the 20th century, but due to a combination of ASR and declining
industrial water usage, ground-water levels beneath London are actually rising at the rate of2.5
m/yr, currently threatening tunnels and building foundations (Oldershaw, 2002).

Germany
Bank filtration and ground-water recharge have been used for treatment of drinking water for
more than a hundred years in Germany (Jekel and Heinzmann, 2003). Approximately 15 percent
of drinking water in Germany is derived through the bank filtration method of AR (Sch6tller,
1996). Seventy percent of Berlin's drinking water comes from ground water that originated from
surface waters, either by bank filtration or AR (Jekel and Heinzmann, 2003). Artificial recharge
is commonly used in Germany to purify water, in combination with chemical treatment
techniques.

Israel
In Israel, approximately 70 perccnt of the national wastewater is reclaimed for use in irrigation.
The Dan Reclamation projects in the Tel Aviv area, plus several other projects, artificially
recharge over 200,000 ac-ft per year of treated wastewater into an aquifer for later agricultural
withdrawals. The wastewater effluent is first treated and then injected into the ground for soil
aquifer treatment. The system also helps prevent seawater intrusion (Oron, 2002).

Netherlands
Various forms of AR have been operating in the Netherlands since 1957. About 5 percent of the
country's drinking water is Rhine bank infiltrate, and 14 percent is pretreated surface water from
the Rhine and Meuse Rivers that is artificially recharged in 25 recharge basins within dune areas
(Stuyfzand and Kooiman, 1996; Schijven and others, 1999). Recharge to spreading basins
accounts for around 120,000 ac-ft per year. A deep well infiltration plant also operates in the
dune area, west of Amsterdam (Stakelbeek and others, 1996). In this system pre-treated surface
water is injected into semi-confined aquifers at greater depths (50-100 meters).

Sweden
Approximately 25 percent of Sweden's public water supply is derived from artificially recharged
ground water (Sundl6f and Kronqvist, ] 992). Most AR recharge plants in Sweden are located in
glaciofluvial deposits. Sweden's first artificial ground-water recharge system was developed in
the I 890s by J.G. Richert in Gothenburg utilizing recharge through an old gravel-pit
(Gudmundson, 1971).

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