The water department of a moderately sized New England town granted me access to this municipal well site and to their groundwater studies of the surrounding area. This well is one of five that serve the town’s drinking water supply. I was drawn to photograph a site like this because roughly half of Americans rely on groundwater for their daily water needs.
In this image, I wanted to show where the groundwater that enters the well originates—and to consider how land use influences that resource. A residential development lies uphill to the east. Wastewater from several homes is treated below ground through private septic systems.
I photographed the full distance between the well and the nearby houses, wanting viewers to see the physical connection between them. Groundwater studies and mapping revealed a productive sand and gravel aquifer deposited as glaciers retreated from the valley. This layer appears as the uppermost light tan band in the image. Buried infrastructure includes wells, septic systems, and wastewater pipes.
Back in the studio, I assembled the landscape and geologic layers into a single composition. A blue overlay represents the saturated portion of the aquifer. The well and septic systems were digitally constructed to clarify their relationship within that shared groundwater system.