120 CONSERVATION OF GROUND WATER 



currently is about 50 per cent greater than in 1945, and the 

 city's demands are continuing to increase. However, Lan- 

 sing can develop large additional supplies from the water- 

 courses of the Red Cedar and Grand Rivers. 



Local ground-water shortages have developed in many cities 

 because of progressively increasing requirements of expanding 

 population and industry, rather than because of failure of 

 wells to meet continuing demands. Some cities have met their 

 increasing needs and yet have reduced the pumping lift in 

 the city wells by development of new well fields outside the 

 areas affected by the pumping of the older wells. Alexandria 

 and Natchitoches, La., have developed new well fields within 

 the last few years. Wider spacing of wells would certainly 

 ameliorate the apparent shortage at Baton Rouge, La., where 

 45 million gallons a day is pumped from a shallow aquifer, 

 mostly from 40 large wells within an area of 2 square miles. In 

 this aquifer the artesian pressure has dropped as much as 230 

 feet since 1914. 53 



Montgomery, Ala., for several years obtained its public 

 supplies by flow from artesian wells drilled in 1886, but 

 pressures declined until by 1899 all supplies were being 

 pumped, and water levels in those wells are now more than 

 100 feet below the surface. A new well field west of the city 

 is now providing about 4 million gallons a day from the 

 same aquifers, but these wells are outside the deep cone of 

 depression formed by the older wells. Supplementary sup- 

 plies have also been obtained since 1937 from wells drilled 

 in the alluvium along the Alabama River, and more ground 

 water could doubtless be developed from that watercourse. 



Many cities, like Lansing, Mich., and Montgomery, Ala., 

 are located along watercourses which could provide large addi- 

 tional supplies of ground water. In Canton, Ohio, for instance, 



53 Cushing, E. M., and P. H. Jones, "Ground-water Conditions of the Baton 

 Rouge Area, Louisiana," La. Dept. Publ. Wks., Mimeo. rept., 1945, 37 pp. 



