National Groundwater Association Conference

[Kelly]

Just thought I'd do a quick report on the "4th Conference on Hydrogeology, Ecology, Monitoring, and Management of Groundwater in Karst Terrains". This conference was held last week in Safety Harbor Florida, and was different from the other karst conferences I have been to. Usually I see a lot of cavers at these things, but this conference was mostly government officials (mostly USGS). It was GREAT to learn that the USGS is doing so much research in hydrology in karst areas and is even putting serious money into it.

The majority of the conference was about different techniques of locating a testing for drinking water sources. There was a lot of information about Florida caves and we saw many neat presentations on how cave divers were helping these government folks out with their research.

It was really great to see cavers working hand-in-hand with our scientific government agencies to learn more about the karst environments and help preserve our drinking water quality!

-Kelly

[L Roebuck]

Thanks for the report Kelly!

It is great to know more research in the hydrology of karst areas is being conducted. Making sure we, the people, have safe drinking water should be a priority, in my opinion. I wish I could afford the out-of-caver-pocket expense to attend all the cave related conferences and seminars but unfortunately it's just not doable.

This is somewhat off topic -- but I have often wondered how safe the bat cave water supplies are for humans. I know of one cave that has been protected because of the gray bat colony and this cave also supplies the sole source of drinking water to 5 or 6 families. Year by year the guano piles are increasing which probably indicates the bat colony is thriving and healthy. But what about the humans who consume the guano laced drinking water? So which deserves the protection priority -- the human species or the bat species?

[Brian Roebuck]

pretzlgirl said:

Thanks for the report Kelly!

It is great to know more research in the hydrology of karst areas is being conducted. Making sure we, the people, have safe drinking water should be a priority, in my opinion. I wish I could afford the out-of-caver-pocket expense to attend all the cave related conferences and seminars but unfortunately it's just not doable.

This is somewhat off topic -- but I have often wondered how safe the bat cave water supplies are for humans. I know of one cave that has been protected because of the gray bat colony and this cave also supplies the sole source of drinking water to 5 or 6 families. Year by year the guano piles are increasing which probably indicates the bat colony is thriving and healthy. But what about the humans who consume the guano laced drinking water? So which deserves the protection priority -- the human species or the bat species?

Excellent question Lynn!

I'm not sure but maybe the scientists feel the people who drink cave water should be able to know enough to protect themselves while the bats do not. That is not an excuse if the scientists ignore the problem to humans though. I feel they should at the very least tell the people if they feel guano in the water is a health concern. The people at that point could make an informed decision as to what they needed to do.

This does bring up the idea that scientists could be afraid to tell the people the bats were causing water pollution to the drinking supply for fear the people would get rid of the bats instead of getting another water supply. This is an interesting issue.

In the case of this cave I recall the water flow is quite good and as such the amount of guano per gallon of water would be very small. In a more stagnant cave stream this may not be the case and pollution could be a very real concern from guano etc from a bat colony.

[Kelly]

pretzlgirl said:

This is somewhat off topic -- but I have often wondered how safe the bat cave water supplies are for humans. I know of one cave that has been protected because of the gray bat colony and this cave also supplies the sole source of drinking water to 5 or 6 families. Year by year the guano piles are increasing which probably indicates the bat colony is thriving and healthy. But what about the humans who consume the guano laced drinking water? So which deserves the protection priority -- the human species or the bat species?

That's a good question Lynn. I agree with Dr. Beaner that humans should know better (though obviously some don't). We do have access to various filters and such that would remove the bad stuff from our drinking water, and anyone drinking from a spring not part of a public water system should certainly be using those things.

Drinking any untreated water out of karst is risky business. While there are some natural impacts to karst, the biggest impact by far is coming from humans. The pesticides used by one farmer can lterally effect the drinking water of thousands.

I got an email from a man in north Georgia who installed a 400-foot deep well on his property. He ran the pump a bit and then took his first swig. He wound up in the hospital for around a month. Most of that time he was unconsious! The water was tested and was found to contain Ecoli. I went out to his property and noticed that his well was installed in a valley, and up stream in the valley were several farms with cows and other various farm animals. Obviously, stuff just leaks WAY down into the limestone from the ground surface!

When this man built his house, he flushed the well with chlorine, and installed a filter to remove bacteria.

-Kelly