Ground-water hydrology of the Dade City area, Pasco County, Florida, with emphasis on the hydrologic effects of pumping from the Floridan aquifer
The Dade City area, northeast Pasco County, Florida, is an area of about 260 square miles. Of the approximately 32 million gallons per day pumped from the Floridan aquifer in the area in 1975, about 16 million gallons per day were pumped from an area of about 0.25 square miles by a citrus processing plant. There are essentially two producing zones in the Floridan aquifer in the Dade City area. The upper zone is from about 10 feet above to about 150 feet below National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 , and the lower zone from about 300 to about 500 feet below NGVD of 1929. There is evidence of hydraulic interconnection of the upper and lower zones of the Floridan aquifer. This appears to be highly significant in terms of the geohydrology of the Floridan aquifer in the area, particularly with regard to its ground-water flow pattern, water quality, and aquifer hydraulic characteristics. In the immediate vicinity of the citrus processing plant, aquifer transmissivity may range from 200,000 to as much as 400,000 feet squared per day. It is probable the Floridan is only semiconfined in the immediate vicinity of the citrus processing plant. High aquifer transmissivity in the area is the reason why there are only a few feet of drawdown of the Floridan 's potentiometric level even near the center of the well field.