Short Woods Brook Aquifer in New Fairfield, CT

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Access a legend for the map below
Source of Map: Water Resources Inventory of CT, Part 6, Upper Housatonic River Basin, by the
U. S. Geological Survey and the CT Department of Environmental Protection, 1972.

THIS IS AN EARLY (1972) GENERALIZED MAP OF ESTIMATED AQUIFER BOUNDARIES
ONLY (YELLOW TAN COLOR IS DISCOLORATION ONLY. SHORT WOODS BROOK
AQUIFER IS LARGEST OF THREE SEGMENTS, TO RIGHT )
COMPARE IT TO LATER DATE USGS SURFICIAL MATERIALS MAP

EXCERPT ON SHORT WOODS BROOK
AQUIFER FROM 1980 HVCEO STUDY
The largest of three small aquifers in New Fairfield, this narrow and shallow site of 0.4 square miles lies along a brook valley just north of the Town center. Except for a retail business center and a small number of homes in the center, the direct recharge area is entirely undeveloped, and mostly wetland (zoned for two-acre residential).

Composition of this aquifer is favorable - coarse-grained; although very close in location to the north end of Margerie Reservoir, USGS maps do not show a hydraulic connection.

View of Short Woods Brook Aquifer near
Shaws. Photo courtesy of Rick Gottschalk.

Basic protection measures should focus on wetland preservation and strict controls on sewage disposal. The nearby Town road salt stockpile should also be relocated or controlled to prevent groundwater contamination. By virtue of location, this small aquifer could potentially provide a small central area water supply source for the Town.

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UPDATE ON SHORT WOODS
BROOK AQUIFER AS OF 2004
The New Fairfield Municipal Water System became operational in 2004 with three bedrock wells. The minimum safe yield is about 14,000 gallons per day (gpd), but local officials lowered it to 12,000 gpd. Current use for Town properties and Shaw’s market is 3,000 - 4,000 gpd. Additional properties along the water main may be allowed to tap into this system in the future as conditions permit.

Maximum theoretical yield with all 3 wells pumping continuously would be about 115,000 gpd, although at that level the wells might begin interfering with one another and the sanitary radii would have to be increased.

While there are known groundwater contamination problems in New Fairfield Center that contribute to the need for new potable supplies, local officials do not plan to take water from the nearby Short Woods Brook stratified drift aquifer.

A key reason is that this aquifer provides a hydraulic head that pushes water into the bedrock fractures, and there is concern that pumping large volumes of water from the stratified drift aquifer might begin to pull pollutants northward from the contaminated areas to the south.

The municipality has given names to the two other nearby small aquifers to the west. The first section is known as the Bigelow Aquifer which runs south to north under a swampy area between Bigelow Road and Route 37. Then the second segment, known as the Warwick Aquifer, is configured west to east along Route 37 from Warwick Road to Bigelow Road.