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Photographs of the Commissioning of Drought Monitoring Well CE 686 On September 5, 2001.
DEP Secretary David E. Hess throws the switch to activate the transmitter and send the ground-water level data to the geostationary satellite.
The solar panel below the antenna keeps the battery charged to operate the data logger and the transmitter. The ground water level data is sent to the satellite every four hours at 17 minutes past the hour. The data is then sent by the satellite to a ground station in Harrisburg, where it is processed into the USGS database, and is available on the USGS Web site.
Mark Jones, Hydrologic Technician with the USGS, begins to lower the pressure transducer into drought monitoring well CE 686. The pressure transducer hangs on a cable in the well bore, many feet under the water-table surface. As the water-table fluctuates, the water pressure on the transducer changes, and this pressure change is recorded in a data logger that is in the instrument shelter.
Mark measures the depth to the water table. He used the laptop computer to set the correct water table elevation in the data logger, which is the white box under the laptop. In the background, William P. Schaffstall, Supervising Hydrologic Technician with the USGS, checks the alignment of the solar panel. Electric current generated by the solar panel keeps the battery charged. The battery is the gray box in the left front of the instrument shelter.
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