Sixty‐Two Years of Hydrogeology Memories

Abstract

My life journey began in 1924 at Trenton, Missouri, in the midwestern region of the United States. Jobs were scarce during the Great Depression, but my father was able to find employment in Detroit, Michigan, and so my family moved there when I was 2 years old. I attended several grade and high schools and a small engineering college, Lawrence Institute of Technology, in the Detroit metropolitan area. Like many of my generation, my plans were interrupted by World War II. I was drafted into the U.S. Army and completed my freshman and sophomore years at Indiana University as part of the Army Specialized Training Program. I became a topographic surveyor and was assigned to the 14th Field Artillery Observation Battalion of the U.S. Third Army, commanded at that time by George S. Patton. I went ashore with that battalion when it landed on Utah Beach late at night on D-day of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France. I was injured several months later when my observation post near Bastogne, Belgium, was hit by enemy artillery during the Battle of the Bulge. After the war ended, I returned to Detroit and resumed my college education, graduating with a BS in civil engineering in 1948. My hydrogeology memories started soon after that when, one evening in 1946, my father announced that he and I were going into the business of drilling water wells. My father bought his first percussion rig that summer and painted a big red sign on it: ‘‘Walton and Son Water Well Contractors.’’ We practiced drilling and developing wells in our backyard located in the northwest suburbs of Detroit, with the help of my father’s well drilling friend. During the next few years, I spent my spare time between college classes learning how to fill out a water well log and how to locate a 1-foot-thick lens of sand by the feel of the cable tools. My father eventually owned and operated four percussion rigs. I continued drilling wells part time until 1949 when I accepted the position of hydraulic engineer with the USGS at Madison, Wisconsin. The Survey’s office was next door to the State Geologist’s office in the basement of Science Hall across from Memorial Union. Frank Foley, the District Geologist, and his assistant, Bill Drescher, told me on my first day that for the next 2 years, I would be evaluating the ground water resources of the Cambrian-Ordovician Aquifer in the MilwaukeeWaukesha area. Now most of what Frank said went over my head. But then Frank assured me that he and Bill would, in good time, help me with my task and suggested that I might want to enroll at the University of Wisconsin and take some geology courses. Needless to say, I immediately enrolled and started my second educational voyage by enrolling in physical and historical geology classes. I also learned some important lessons in the field, beginning with a 5-d pumping test that our office conducted at Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I was issued a stopwatch, steel tape, blue carpenter’s chalk, and a notebook and was assigned to measure water levels in a well during the midnight shift. I was instructed to coat the steel tape with the chalk, feed the tape through a small hole in the pump base, and then record the readings of the water levels in the well. On the last day, Bill Drescher told us to plot up our data, match it to the so-called Theis type curve, and calculate something called T and S. I quickly finished the task and proudly handed my results to Bill who broke out laughing and said ‘‘not on this planet.’’ I had accidentally fed the tape into a dry well that was partially wet, carefully recording bogus water levels over and over again. Soon after that, I learned more than I wanted to know about ground water level, climate, earth tide, and barometric records as the result of having been placed in charge of the statewide observation well program. The area under investigation for the MilwaukeeWaukesha project was only partly covered by topographic maps. Somehow, bedrock surfaces, formation thicknesses, piezometric surfaces, and the water table had to be mapped and cross sections had to be drawn in all directions from Lake Michigan without the benefit of full topographic coverage. I managed to do this using benchmarks located at railroad stations, an aneroid altimeter, railroad maps, highway corridor maps, and cross sections. Consultant in Water Resources, 101 West Windsor Road Apt 4110, Urbana, IL 61802; eg107@hotmail.com Copyright a 2008 The Author(s) Journal compilationa 2008National GroundWater Association. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2008.00448.x