Quality of groundwater used for domestic supply in the northern San Joaquin Valley, California

Abstract

Groundwater provides more than 40 percent of California’s drinking water. To protect this vital resource, the State of California created the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The Priority Basin Project (PBP) of the GAMA Program provides a comprehensive assessment of the State’s groundwater quality and provides increased public access to groundwater-quality information. Private domestic and small-system drinking-water wells in the Northern San Joaquin Valley (NSJV) were the target for this assessment. These wells tend to pump water from shallower parts of alluvial aquifers compared to deeper, longscreened public-supply wells in the region.