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<br />C. PROBLEM: <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />'. <br /> <br />The study area has numerous urban, suburban, and rural areas, and is <br />underlain by a complex network of water-bearing sediments (aquifers). <br />These aquifers are less than 20 feet deep in much of the area and are easily <br />tapped by numerous domestic, commercial, and irrigation wells. The <br />shallow depth also makes these aquifers easily polluted by spills of <br />hazardous materials, leaks from underground storage tanks, and leachate <br />from domestic, commercial, and agricultural land use. Wet basements, <br />unstable foundation materials. :J~d w,,:erlogged soils also are common in <br />areas of shallow ground water. <br /> <br />The shallow aquifers are so poorly defined that ground-water flow paths <br />are difficult to discern, and water rights issues can be uncertain. It is likely <br />that the aquifers are tributary to the South Platte River, and that a large <br />part of the water flowing through the aquifers originates as percolation <br />from areas served by municipal or agricultural water agencies. If these <br />factors can be better defined, municipal or agricultural water rights might <br />be increased in response to the better documented rates of return flow to <br />the South Platte River. <br /> <br />Although about 600,000 people live on or near the shallow aquifers and <br />problems caused by the shallow water are numerous, no systematic <br />mapping of all these aquifers has ever been undertaken_ The work of <br />Hillier and Schneider (1979) was the first attempt to map some of the' <br />shallow aquifers in the area. However, this preliminary work has proven to <br />be inadequate because it does not map the location of all the shallow <br />aquifers, the mapping is generalized, and the mapping does not include <br />important factors such as the water-table altitude, direction of ground- <br />water movement, and thickness of the aquifers. Water table maps in <br />Schneider (1983) likewise are incomplete. <br /> <br />A U.S. Geological Survey study of natural resources that are important to <br />building and maintaining the Nation's infrastructure also has need for <br />detailed mapping of the shallow aquifers in a large area along the Colorado <br />Front Range. Detailed mapping of the shallow aquifers in the smaller <br />Boulder-Fort Collins-Greeley-Brighton study area will provide part of the <br />needed information about the availability of water and aggregate resources <br />in the Front Range. <br /> <br />Because the shallow aquifers directly overlie bedrock aquifers in some <br />areas and ground water can flow between the two aquifers, mapping of the <br />outcrop and subcrop areas of the bedrock aquifers also is needed in order <br />to better understand how water use in one aquifer could affect water <br />availability in another aquifer. <br /> <br />2 <br />