Water resources of the Wheeling-Steubenville area, West Virginia and Ohio

Abstract

Sufficient water is available in the WheelingSteubenville area to meet any forseeable demands. The Ohio River will supply large and dependable quantities of surface water for municipalities in the Ohio River Valley. The average flow of the Ohio River at Bellaire, Ohio, for 11 years (1942-52) was 27, 140 million gallons per day (mgd). The total water withdrawn, both ground water and surface water, was about 950 mgd, or less than 3. 5 percent of the mean flow of the Ohio River. A large percentage of the water is used for cooling and is pumped through the plants and returned to the river unchanged except for a slight rise in temperature. Only 5 of 19 municipalities having public water supplies use surface water; however, since 4 of the 5 are the largest cities in the area, more than 70 percent of the water used for public supplies is from surface sources. The 3 largest cities obtain water from the Ohio River. The tributary streams average approximately 140 square miles in drainage area. Stream-gaging stations are maintained on two of the tributaries, and the lowflow characteristics of some of the ungaged tributaries were computed from available data. The flows vary widely from flood to drought, but even during low flows the quantity of water available is sufficient for many uses. The low flows could be augmented by storage. Ground water is used by 14 communities for their public water supply. Many of the smaller industries have developed their own ground-water supply, and some of the large industries augment their surface-water supply with ground water because the ground water has a more uniform temperature. Induced infiltration in the alluvium in the valley of the Ohio River is the principal source of large quantities of the ground water. It is believed that by using induced infiltration there would be a maximum ground-water potential of about 350 mgd in the 34 miles of river front that can be considered favorable for the development of large groundwater supplies. At present approximately 35 mgd, or about 10 percent of the estimated maximum groundwater potential of the area, is being withdrawn. Although the mineral content of the ground water is lower than that of some of the small streams, it is higher than the mineral content of the Ohio River. The observed hardness of the ground water ranged from a little less than 200 to more than 800 parts per million (ppm), expressed as CaCO3, as compared with 115 to more than 1,000 ppm for the small streams and slightly more than 50 to slightly more than 270 ppm for the Ohio River. Water from the Pleistocene and Recent alluvium has a higher pH than Ohio River water. INTRODUCTION