The neighborhood's water is excellent for drinking, washing, farming, and recreation.
This crucial resource is the prime concern of the Priory Neighborhood Water Protection Association. As Town of Washington or Brunswick residents dependent upon personal private wells, we must protect our own water sources. Given the depth of the soil and the structure of the surrounding geology, this protection takes on a greater meaning. Within much of the Priory Neighborhood the soil is between one foot and one inch (or less) in depth. Many neighbors can see the sandstone or other rock formations breaking the surface of the ground. Others report great difficulty in carrying our projects, such as fencing, pools, gardening and construction.
The shallow depth of the soil is complicated by the concrete nature of the Wonewoc Formation - a very thick well cemented layer of quartz arenite and orthoquartzite. Very impermeable and moderately fractured. This formation lies on top of two very fine grained and very fractured layers of stone, the Eau Claire formation and the Mt Simon Formation. Water flows atop the Wonewoc Formation - downhill or thru the vertical fractures. This sounds awfully technical. The layman's description is easier. Water hits the rock about a foot down, then it collects and flows downhill thru a very shallow layer of rocky topsoil. Sometimes the water finds its way deeper into the fractured layers. This is our water source many of us have our wells sunk to the Mount Simon Formation. This is the water we drink, cook with, and bath in. Clearly, we have a duty to protect our water.