As a life-long resident of Schenectady County, Vincent Schaefer was very vocal about preserving the purity of the land and water of the Great Flats Aquifer which provided the drinking water for the majority of the county and once served as very fertile farmland.

In the mid-1970s, Rochester-based developer Wilmonite Inc. first proposed a site for building a new shopping mall over the aquifer, but the town rejected this initial location in 1977 and 1979. The town ultimately approved a new nearby site, and Wilmonite developed the Rotterdam Square Mall, which opened in 1988. However, during the intervening years, Schaefer and many other residents were adamantly opposed to the Mall, citing environmental, economic and cultural concerns. Schaefer was a member of The Society for the Preservation of Water Resources, Inc., which formed in 1981, to protect the area's water resources and educate citizens about potential hazards that might affect drinking water. The Society included many fellow scientists and engineers with technical backgrounds that could conduct their own studies and explain the implications to area residents. Schaefer also feared the Mall's impact on historic sites that must be torn down or be otherwise adversely affected by the new Mall, the potential for flooding, the issues with water runoff, and the decision to build the Mall in a suburban area rather than revitalize downtown Schenectady businesses.

The subseries includes Schaefer's scientific studies, his historic surveys and research, correspondence, especially his letters to the editor, his 1979 newspaper series in the Schenectady Gazette designed to educate fellow residents about the importance of the Great Flats Aquifer, newspaper clippings, maps and photographs. Very few of these materials were initially in folders so the archivist elected to retain the small number of folders and titles and then arranged the remainder of the materials in chronological order in folders labeled Great Flats Aquifer.

Please see the finding aid for APAP-061 for the records of the Society for the Preservation of Water Resources for more specific information about this not-for-profit organization.