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We are conducting a collaborative, population-based case-control study in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont to investigate the reasons for the elevated bladder cancer mortality in northern New England. Arsenic in drinking water is one of the primary exposures under investigation. To estimate subjects' lifetime exposure to waterborne arsenic, it will be necessary to obtain water samples from private wells that subjects used in the past. We conducted a methodologic study to assess the feasibility of locating and sampling from private wells at subjects' past residences. Ninety-eight New Hampshire residents (mean age 67 years) completed a questionnaire requesting the complete address, dates of occupancy, and drinking water sources for each home lived in since birth. An interviewer then asked subjects for more detailed information about each home to assist in a field search of past homes in the three-state study area of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Fifty-eight of the 98 subjects indicated that they had used a total of 103 private wells in 95 previous homes located in these three states. We conducted a field search to locate these 95 homes, visited town offices to find the properties on tax maps and obtain the current owners' names and addresses, attempted to obtain permission from the current owners to sample the wells, and collected water samples. In all, 48 (47%) of the 103 past wells in the study area were sampled successfully. The remaining wells were not sampled because the homes were not located (22%) or had been demolished (2%), permission to sample the wells was not obtained (17%), the wells had been destroyed (7%) or could not be found on the grounds of the residence (3%), or for other reasons (2%). Various approaches for improving the success rates for sampling water from private wells are discussed, as is the use of predictive modeling to impute exposures when sampling is not feasible.

A study of road-deicing chloride (Cl) concentrations and loads was conducted at three streams in Chittenden County, VT from November 2005 to 2007. This study was done by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Vermont Agency of Transportation. The streams, Alder Brook, Allen Brook, and Mill Brook, were selected to represent different land uses in the upstream watershed, different road types and densities, and different geometric patterns of the roadway draining to the receiving stream to assess the relative contribution of and differences in state road salt applications to steam Cl concentrations and loads. Water-quality samples were collected and specific conductance was measured continuously at paired stations upstream and downstream from State highways and related to Cl concentrations to assist in determining the effects of road-salting operations during winter maintenance on the levels of Cl in streams. Cl applied by the State of Vermont for deicing purposes represented less than 20 percent of the annual estimated Cl loads in all 3 streams below the state highways. None of the monitored Cl concentrations in the water-quality samples collected at the three paired sampling stations exceeded either of the US. Environmental Protection Agency’s (US EPA) recommended chronic and acute Cl toxicity criteria of 230 and 860 mg/L, respectively.

Elemental mercury is found in fractured depressions and potholes on the bedrock surface, in the overburden, and is dissolved in ground water at the site of a former chlor-alkali plant (cell house) along the bank of the Androscoggin River, in Berlin, N.H. The cell house has been demolished, ground-water flow impeded by installation of an up-gradient-slurry wall, and capped with an impermeable geomembrane. Mercury has been removed from fractures at the surface on the riverbank five times; however, more continues to be found. Potential pathways for movement of mercury and ground water were indicated with the results of a geohydrologic study. The study demonstrates the integration of geophysical surveys, geologic mapping, and water-level monitoring in three areas: (1) the riverbank, (2) the site perimeter, and (3) the capped area. Results from ground-penetrating radar and two-dimensional-resistivity surveys along the riverbank indicate electrically conductive zones that are interpreted as bedrock fractures, which are potential ground-water-flow paths. Geologic mapping along the riverbank shows that bedrock fracturing is more prevalent in gneiss than pegmatite and is associated with schist in shear zones that correspond to geophysical anomalies. Nearly horizontal anomalies in ground-penetrating-radar survey results beneath areas mapped as pegmatite may represent locations where vertical fractures in gneiss terminate on a horizontal fractured contact between gneiss and pegmatite. Significant hydraulic connections were identified by analysis of stage changes in the Androscoggin River and bedrock water levels. Assessment of hydraulic heads in bedrock and overburden show vertical ground-water gradients in both directions. Resistivitysurvey results along the site perimeter indicate fractures and overburden-filled bedrock troughs where ground water may bypass a slurry wall. Overburden water levels and discharge from a drainage pipe suggest that ground water is passing through or beneath the slurry wall. Response of overburden water levels do not show connections with the river.

Analysis by remote-sensing techniques and observations of exposed bedrock structure were preliminary steps taken in a study to locate potential bedrock-fracture zones that may store and transmit ground water near Great Bay, N.H. To help correlate lineaments on the surface with fractures, structural measurements were made at exposed bedrock, largely along the shoreline of the bay, and analyzed to identify fracture trends and fracture characteristics. With these fracture data, lineament-filtering techniques, such as (1) buffer analysis around individual lineaments, (2) discrete-measurement analysis by domain, and (3) spacing-normalized analysis by domain, identified "fracture-correlated lineaments." Of the 927 lineaments identified in the study area (180 square kilometers), 406 (44 percent) were evaluated because they either were located within 305 meters of an outcrop with fracture data or intersected one of five 3,300-meter-square grid domain cells that encompassed the fracture data. Of the 406 lineaments, 190 (47 percent) are fracture correlated, although only 15 percent were correlated by more than one filtering technique.

The New Hampshire Bedrock Aquifer Assessment was designed to provide information that can be used by communities, industry, professional consultants, and other interests to evaluate the ground-water development potential of the fractured-bedrock aquifer in the State. The assessment was done at statewide, regional, and well field scales to identify relations that potentially could increase the success in locating high-yield water supplies in the fractured-bedrock aquifer. statewide, data were collected for well construction and yield information, bedrock lithology, surficial geology, lineaments, topography, and various derivatives of these basic data sets. Regionally, geologic, fracture, and lineament data were collected for the Pinardville and Windham quadrangles in New Hampshire. The regional scale of the study examined the degree to which predictive well-yield relations, developed as part of the statewide reconnaissance investigation, could be improved by use of quadrangle-scale geologic mapping. Beginning in 1984, water-well contractors in the State were required to report detailed information on newly constructed wells to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES). The reports contain basic data on well construction, including six characteristics used in this study-well yield, well depth, well use, method of construction, date drilled, and depth to bedrock (or length of casing). The NHDES has determined accurate georeferenced locations for more than 20,000 wells reported since 1984. The availability of this large data set provided an opportunity for a statistical analysis of bedrock-well yields. Well yields in the database ranged from zero to greater than 500 gallons per minute (gal/min). Multivariate regression was used as the primary statistical method of analysis because it is the most efficient tool for predicting a single variable with many potentially independent variables. The dependent variable that was explored in this study was the natural logarithm (ln) of the reported well yield. One complication with using well yield as a dependent variable is that yield also is a function of demand. An innovative statistical technique that involves the use of instrumental variables was implemented to compensate for the effect of demand on well yield. Results of the multivariate-regression model show that a variety of factors are either positively or negatively related to well yields. Using instrumental variables, well depth is positively related to total well yield. Other factors that were found to be positively related to well yield include (1) distance to the nearest waterbody; (2) size of the drainage area upgradient of a well; (3) well location in swales or valley bottoms in the Massabesic Gneiss Complex and Breakfast Hill Granite; (4) well proximity to lineaments, identified using high-altitude (1:80,000-scale) aerial photography, which are correlated with the primary fracture direction (regional analysis); (5) use of a cable tool rig for well drilling; and (6) wells drilled for commercial or public supply. Factors negatively related to well yields include sites underlain by foliated plutons, sites on steep slopes sites at high elevations, and sites on hilltops. Additionally, seven detailed geologic map units, identified during the detailed geologic mapping of the Pinardville and Windham quadrangles, were found to be positively or negatively related to well yields.