Ground-water development in East St. Louis area, Illinois. Urbana, IL ...

about 8 days a year have 3 inches or more, of ground
snow cover.
Based on records collected at Lambert Field, the mean
annual temperature is 56.4 F. June, July, and August are
the hottest months with mean temperatures of 75.2, 79.6,
and 77.8 F, respectively. January is the coldest month
with a mean temperature of 32.1 F. The mean length of
the growing season is 198 days.
A large part of central and southern Illinois, including
the East St. Louis area, experienced a severe drought
beginning in the latter part of 1952 (Hudson and Roberts,
1955). For the period 1953 through 1956, cumulative deficiency
of precipitation at Edwardsville and Lambert
Field was about 22 and 34 inches, respectively.
An intense rainstorm, exceeding 16 inches in 12 hours
at places, occurred June 14 and 15, 1957. The storm is
discussed in detail by Huff et al. (1958). A Heavy rainstorm
also occurred August 14-15, 1946, when over 11
inches were recorded at East St. Louis.
Owner
Table 5. Precipitation Gaging Stations
Shell Oil Co.
East St. Louis and
Interurban Water Co.
East Side Levee and
Sanitary Dist.
East Side Levee and
Sanitary Dist.
East Side Levee and
Sanitary Dist.
East Side Levee and
Sanitary Dist.
Standard Oil Co.
Illinois State Water Survey
American Smelting and
Refining Co.
Olin Mathieson Chemical Co.
U. S. Weather Bureau
U. S. Weather Bureau
U. S. Weather Bureau
U. S. Weather Bureau
Location of gage
Wood River
Chouteau Island
Centreville
Collinsville
Edgemont
Millstadt
Wood River
Lakeside Airport
Alton
East Alton
Collinsville
Belleville, Scott
Air Force Base
Alton Dam 26
East St. Louis,
Parks College
GEOLOGY AND HYDROLOGY
Large supplies of ground water chiefly for industrial
development are withdrawn from permeable sand and
gravel in unconsolidated valley fill in the East St. Louis
area. The valley fill is composed of recent alluvium and
glacial valley-train material and is underlain by Mississippian
and Pennsylvanian rocks consisting of limestone
and dolomite with subordinate amounts of sandstone and
shale. The valley fill has an average thickness of 120 feet
and ranges in thickness from a feather edge, near the
bluff boundaries of the area and along the Chain of
Rocks Reach of the Mississippi River, to more than 170
feet near the city of Wood River. The thickness of the
valley fill exceeds 120 feet (figure 5) in places near the
center of a buried bedrock valley that bisects the area as
shown in figure 6.
According to Bergstrom and Walker (1956) recent
alluvium makes up the major portion of the valley fill
in most of the area. The alluvium is composed largely of
fine-grained materials; the grain size increases from the
surface down. Recent alluvium rests on older deposits
including valley-train materials in many places. The valley-train
materials are predominantly medium-to-coarse
sand and gravel, and increase in grain size with depth.
The coarsest deposits most favorable for development
are commonly encountered near bedrock and often average
30 to 40 feet in thickness. Logs of wells in cross
section A—A' in figure 7 and in table 6 show that the
valley fill commonly grades from clay to silt to sand and
gravel interbedded with layers of silt and clay with increasing
depth.
The valley fill is immediately underlain by bedrock
formations of Mississippian age in the western part of
the area and bedrock formations of Pennsylvanian age
in the eastern part of the area. Because of the low permeability
of the bedrock formations and poor water
quality with depth, the rocks do not constitute an important
aquifer in the area.
Soils
The soils of the East St. Louis area were divided into
three groups by the University of Illinois Agricultural
Experiment Station as follows: bottomland soils, silty
terrace soils, and sandy terrace soils. The bottomland
soils in St. Clair County were divided into seven soil types
by Smith and Smith (1938) as follows: Beaucoup clay
loam, Drury fine sandy loam, River sand, Newart silt
loam, Gorham clay loam, Dupo silt loam, and Riley fine
sandy loam.
Drury fine sandy loam extends in a very narrow strip
along the Mississippi River. It is a grayish-yellow to yellow,
light brown, medium-to-coarse sand with variable
thickness, usually 7 feet. The subsurface and subsoil are
not well developed. Surface drainage is slow to rapid and
permeability is rapid.
Beaucoup clay loam, Newart silt loam, Gorham clay
loam, and Dupo silt loam cover much of the area. They
are generally dark gray to grayish brown clay loams to
silty clay loams 6 to 15 inches thick. The subsurface var-
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