Reflections on Water - Chapter 1 Dialog

Chris Nicodemus & Katrina Meserve

Q. Why should plate tectonics have anything to do with water resources, that is ancient pre-history? 

A.  There are many reasons but perhaps most important is that the quality of the ground water that we can access is modified by the nature of the bedrock itself.  The movements of the earth associated with this process is a slow-motion “rock cycle”, but as heat and pressure transform and raise specific rocks, the mineral content, the heavy metals, and things like acidity of the environment change---this very much impacts the character and quality of both the drinking water and the nature of the soils and plants that can thrive in any location in any given period. 

Disturbances to the bedrock be they subtle or cataclysmic will impact the associated water in the given location.  The field of geology has advanced dramatically in the past half century but the precise details overall are not fully settled and for individual places be they a tax lot, or a town, many of the details are most probably unstudied and unknown.  In a region with mountainous terrain the story can be especially complicated, but water moves through the rock fissures and both collects and disperses contaminants and may move in directions contrary to expectations.  Even minor earth quakes or some excavation project might change the water quality and heavy metal content or local content.  Do caution and periodic monitoring of water quality may be  worthwhile. 

Q. What would be a beneficial step a landowner could take to minimize adverse impacts to our local water resources? 

A. Landowners, contractors, and town officials alike should keep the issue of our bedrock and ground water in mind as they plan improvements and remind their neighbors as well. If mining or prospecting has occurred on the property in question, the potential that one might encounter mineral or metal rich soils should be considered. Appreciate that detailed understanding of the composition of bedrock  and the bedrock aquifers adjacent to any given site likely does not exist but one can obtain more general information regarding depth to bedrock and some information regarding minerals in area wells through the NHDES website. For those who are computer savvy NHDES has records of most NH wells, their depths, and the depth of the bedrock as well as water levels in a publicly accessible data base.… One should not assume someone else has the answer for any given location, but one can learn a lot but exploring the records of what is known.

• Tri-town story map: Tri-Town Story Map (arcgis.com)

Q. What is most surprising to you in thinking about the changing continental landscapes? 

A. We tend to think about place in the context of where it is now.   Biologic life has occupied the planet for billions of year, and with life roughly similar to what we have now for many hundreds of million years. In this time the continents have shuffled, oceans have formed, tropical continents have moved to the poles and the climate has changed in concert with all of this.   Nature is no stranger to change, deserts come and go and life adapts.  Our culture is occupying a narrow slice of all that time and has adapted for the world as we know it.  There have been times when the entire planet has been frozen and there have been times when there has been little or no ice, but humanity has arisen in what is still an ice age.  Considering the impact of glaciers is thus a natural next chapter in this story.

Google Earth perspective of the Northern New Hampshire service area of ACT and the headwaters flowing off our mountain peaks.

Hydrology Resources