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Karst Environmental Education and Protection

Sinkholes & High Tech Stormwater Treatment

SINKHOLE SENSE AND NONSENSE

By Roger Brucker

Sinkholes are found everywhere in karst, but still remain mysterious. This is especially true when sinkholes open suddenly to surprise farmers, contractors, developers, and public officials. The Web site www.StopTranspark.org shows many examples of sinkholes that have swallowed roads, buildings, airport runways, farm ponds and lakes. Generally such collapses are attributed to “acts of God” -- or anything other than the neglect of developers who should know better.

In parts of the country where sinkhole surprises are common, the developer’s response is often to run in several truckloads of rock fill and smooth over the collapse as fast as possible so those who pay for such neglect will be none the wiser.

Prudent developers insist on competent professional geophysical exploration of the subsurface, especially in unstable karst. Core drilling is demanded by knowledgeable developers, who do not want to pay twice for the same folly.

There is a lot of mythology about how sinkholes are formed and why just dumping in fill hardly ever works.

Karst sinkholes all develop through three processes:
1. Solution of rocks, generally limestone, by water flowing through existing openings,

2. Transport of soil and loose rock material to create larger voids, usually by gravity and flowing water, and

3. Collapse when soil cover or bedrock become weakened and fall into voids beneath. The reason why plugging sinkholes with rocks, trash, junk, dead animals, etc. doesn’t work is that most sinkholes leak sideways along rock bed partings as well as downward. So long as water drains through the sinkhole, collapse is inevitable. Some road builders and developers like to say they can “mitigate” sinkholes by BMP (best management practice). Could it be they would rather get paid for immediate work than offer a long term guarantee? Most farmers can tell developers that sinkholes open for business, no matter what you try to do to them.


HIGH TECH WASTEWATER CAVE DISPOSAL

Bowling Green, KY used to dispose of all untreated sanitary sewerage by dumping it through “injection wells” into caves. The EPA made them stop that despicable practice. But the city still has 700 or so injection wells for disposing of storm water. The EPA told them to stop that, and the cost has been estimated at $200M or more. The latest “high tech” method in Bowling Green and their
Transpark is to collect parking lot and street runoff in concrete boxes. The box is baffled so the heavy sediments like sand and grit fall to the bottom of the box. Oil, grease, and other volatile components float to the top. The box drains into an enlarged sinkhole and the water is carried away by the cave below. In case of heavy rain or flood, the grit deposit, all volatiles, and water are first scoured out of the box. Then overflow flood water bypasses the box and goes directly into the cave. You may ask, isn’t this just an expensive way to save up all the contaminants and flush them into the cave all at once
(when any monitoring is overwhelmed)? Ain’t science grand!

Somewhere in humankind

By John Blubaugh

At some point in humankind’s evolutionary past, maybe when the prehensile tail shriveled and dropped off, manipulative skills developed and “quality of life” took root. With tool and weaponry development, the struggle for existence eased and leisure time was born. Time was afforded to question and the answers contrived signaled the beginning of recorded history as evidenced in expressions found on cave walls. Natural phenomenon, the hunt, fertility, and all events affecting the survival or demise of the tribal unit were documented with pigment on stone or by stone carving. Later, with the maturation of human coexistence, less significant human experience entwined with the essentials and culture became divergent.

The complexities of culture required structure. Beyond tradition and law, cultural structure was further refined and defined by subtle value judgments. That which was desired became good, as opposed to evil, or, as beautiful where ugly and unsightly were to be shunned or discarded.

Beauty has long been a contrived standard used to elevate a socially desired quality. It is apparent, for the greater part, that assigned beauty is a flighty attribute. Lifestyles change so rapidly now, that relics from near past generations, once made popular and marketed as beautiful, are rediscovered and often incorporated into current utility. Reintroduced, their former beauty is enhanced as collectible, antique, or of good investment potential.

Manipulation of the “beauty” concept has reached a new level of complexity and sophistication at the hands speculators. Realtors, bankers, and contractors now leverage or control politicians and law in order to claim the physical landscape. Extraction of resources, brown space for construction, pork projects of all sorts, all come at great cost and eventual destruction of nature. Required environmental studies are circumnavigated with spin promise of avoidance and mitigation. The system binds the true environmentalist to a justice now contrived to all but guarantee decision favorable to the establishment. The public is wooed with a promise of job opportunity and financial well-being. The control is made absolute with their promise to create an environmental Eden when their goal is realized. Parks, landscaping, artificial wetlands, are a few visions of beauty perpetrated by the movers and shakers.

Stand on high ground in Alaska, where no evidence of human invasion or manipulation is visible, true and perfect beauty is revealed. Beauty in truest form, without the manipulative maneuvers of humankind, is found only in nature. Cavers know beauty. The subterranean world is among the least visited and violated environs remaining. That beauty offers a glimpse of, not only that which has been lost on the surface, but what may still prove possible for future generations. Environmentalists realize that the unseen wilderness is in peril from surface manipulation. That natural beauty is being compromised and that to mitigate its future is to lose it forever. Environmentalism is fundamentally founded in preservation of beauty. When the wellspring of beauty disappears, so goes humankind. Socially contrived concepts of manipulated beauty may bolster the spirit but will not support life.

Humans are guilty of repeating past error. Throwing out the baby with the wash best describes what we do with nature’s beauty. Trouble is, and full circle to boot, our progeny is another of nature’s beautiful gifts.

QUARRY THREATENS GREEN RIVER CONTAMINATION, LOCAL BUSINESSES

Hart County Quarry Permit Questioned by Concerned Citizens

By Roger Brucker

The Kentucky Department of Natural Resources has received a request for a permit to locate an 18.5-acre limestone quarry in Hart County, from Scotty’s Contracting & Stone, Bowling Green, KY. The company’s leased land is known as Boyds Knob, located on karst land between Canmer, KY and Munfordville, KY, less than 1,800 feet from Green River. The permit is being opposed by neighbors and several Kentucky organizations that fear the quarry will spoil the water quality of Green River and harm area businesses. The quarry site is upstream from Mammoth Cave National Park and may contaminate the Park’s protected waters.

The proposed quarry will mine Girkin and Ste. Genevieve limestone at a former quarry site that was abandoned. Aggregates from area quarries are used in such construction projects as roads. The company conducts quarry operations near Bowling Green, KY and has been awarded road construction contracts in south central Kentucky.

Opponents of the quarry are Friends of Green River, an area group organized to help clean up and protect Green River, individual neighbors, and two Kentucky groups. KarstEEP (Karst Environmental Education and Protection, Inc.) is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to the preservation of karst landscapes against threats of flooding, contamination, and collapse. Kentucky Waterways Alliance (KWA) is a non-profit organization that monitors streams in the state and works for policies aimed at improving water quality statewide. Mary Pollard, Munfordville, is secretary of Friends of Green River. That organization’s Web site is www.SaveGreenRiver.com.

In letters to the Division, opponents have asked that a variety of studies be conducted prior to any permitting, because the threats to neighbors are common to quarries everywhere, and pose a grave danger to Green River. Organizations have called for blasting studies, wastewater studies, dye tracing to confirm underground conduit flow from the site, transportation studies to gage the effect of heavy hauling on farm roads, and biological surveys.

“Neighbors of the proposed quarry are deeply concerned that the quarry drilling and blasting operations, with their accompanying shock can continue round the clock,” said Mary Pollard. Pollard said several longtime resident farmers remember the quarry operation in the past and recall ponds being drained by blasting. Livestock operations depend on these ponds. Ponded sinkholes depend on a clay bottom sealing the multiple holes downwards and sideways. Short frequency blasting waves crack the clay and a pond may disappear in a few hours – ducks and all.

“Dust and pollution from the rock crushing, storage, and hauling will make the neighborhood an intolerable place to live,” Pollard said. She believes that the quarry can burn floodlights all night long, since hours of quarry operation are not listed in the application. Pollard said that all roads near the quarry site are narrow farm roads that are not likely to stand up to the heavy pounding of hundreds of loaded trucks in day and night haulage.

Dust from quarry operations elsewhere has been the target of legal challenges. “Rock crushers and blasting pour out clouds of limestone dust that settle for miles, carried on the wind,” said Judy Petersen, Executive Director of KWA. She cited scientific papers that describe the high risk of airborne rock dust to those with heart trouble and respiratory diseases. Roger Brucker, a member of the Board of KarstEEP said silica dust from chert can cause cancer. The Ste. Genevieve limestone contains chert. “Nowhere in the permit application is any safeguard described to mitigate the noise and dust of this quarry operation,” said Brucker.

Green River environmentalists believe the quarry is not compatible with a $110 million program that is already committed to clean up and protect Green River from contamination. “Official dye trace maps prove that all of the area runoff and groundwater go to two springs that straddle Boyds Knob. This means that all water and fines from the quarry will enter crevices and sinkholes, will flow down vertical shafts and through horizontal cave passages to Boyds Spring and Grady Spring that empty into the river with no filtration or treatment,” Brucker said. He said that the karst landscape is a three-dimensional network of openings and caves under all of the Sinkhole Plain, the name of a geographic feature associated with Mammoth Cave.

“When streams are loaded with sediment, plumes can be seen for hundreds of feet along the relatively pure river. We see these clear plumes at Echo River flowing into Green River. And we see the muddy and polluted Graham Springs plume flowing into the relatively clear Barren River near Bowling Green,” Brucker said. He said that Green River contains at least five kinds of endangered mussels at shallow riffles such as Sims Bend downstream from the quarry’s spring outfall. Mussels depend on filtration of their gills for respiration and food (plankton). Entrained rock dust can clog their gills and create mussel kills. “The aquatic life of Green River makes it one of the highest quality streams in the Commonwealth,” said Judy Petersen of KWA. The Green River within Mammoth Cave National Park, a few miles downstream, is one of only a few Kentucky Wild Rivers and the underground waters within the Park are one of one three protected Outstanding National Waters in the state and a reason why Mammoth Cave is a World Heritage site.

Mary Pollard said that area quarry businesses in Horse Cave and Upton have ample rock to supply present and future aggregate requirements. She said the superintendent of the quarry in Upton said, “We have enough rock for 100 years of projects.” She believes the claim cannot be supported that the proposed Scotty’s quarry will bring any benefit to Hart County, such as jobs. Scotty’s already employs skilled quarrymen and drivers at their Bowling Green operation.

Pollard said the Division of Natural Resources is examining the hydrogeology of the proposed quarry site, including an investigation of nearby caves. No date has been set for the next hearing on the permit application.

KARST FLOODPLAIN SITE FOR SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT?

By Roger Brucker

Pocahontas County, WV County Commissioners want to bring JOBS!, DEVELOPMENT! PROGRESS! to their community in an impoverished section of West Virginia, near some of that state’s significant caves. They already have a big ski resort on top of a mountain, but the season only lasts so long. For economic survival many lots have been sold off for second homes. A developer wants to add still more homes. However, there’s a little problem.

Sewage from the resort and homes overwhelms the inadequate sewage treatment plant. Heavy fines have been levied. Wastewater dribbles and trickles down the mountain and efforts to conceal the problem have come to nose. “We need a big new sewage plant at taxpayer expense!” said the developers to the commissioners.

A new $11,000,000 plant has been proposed to be located on a nice level field in the narrow valley at the foot of the mountain. The site is the Sharp Farm, a 150-year old historic farm, location of a bed and breakfast and a general store. Tom Shipley said the farm’s prehistoric occupants left behind chipped stone artifacts, and that Gen. Robert E. Lee’s southern forces camped there early in the Civil War. Tom is a descendant of the Sharp family. The sewage treatment plant is to be located on the only flat area between two streambeds.

“It’s above the floodplain”: Corps of Engineers

The Army Corps of Engineers declared the land to be above the 100-year floodplain. They never inspected it, but simply drew a line along a contour 40 feet up. An engineering firm designed the proposed plant but never investigated the site. Had they done so they would have found three things: 1. The field floods regularly, and Tom’s photos show the wide torrent boiling over the road and bridges, 2. The field is a karst floodplain and Tom’s photos show various sizes of collapsed sinkhole basins, and 3. During heavy rains water boils up through some of the sinkholes and overflows the field.

To prevent condemnation by eminent domain, Tom and others argued unsuccessfully that the site is not suitable. The judge is reported to have said “It looks like a good place to me.” Plea denied. Case closed.

According to George Deike, III, a geologist living nearby who cut his doctoral teeth on the Mammoth Cave area karst, one of the streambeds is dry much of the year because the water is diverted underground. The underground river capacity is limited, so floods overwhelm it. Dye trace evidence shows that the underground drainage goes into two important trout streams. Any elevation of stream temperature due to effluent is likely to cause a trout die off in the finest set of trout streams in the east.

“The irony is that a couple of miles down the valley they could have sited the treatment plant on sandstone on a state-owned property,” said Deike. He believes that greed and politics are the drivers of the project to locate the sewage plant on Tom Shipley’s karst floodplain. “Competent planners would not do that; there’s no right way to do the wrong thing.”

What KarstEEP Has Done

We equipped Tom Shipley with a PowerPoint presentation to dramatize the $11 million mistake. It will use Tom’s dramatic photos to show the flooding, sinkholes, and upward “boil holes”. We sent him plans for a live demo. It will show, using masonite pegboard, how a model plant cannot be built safely on a karst floodplain. The water washing over it will damage it, and water coming up from below will defeat any levy. In the meantime, other cavers are moving into the fight that is pitting the County Commissioners and developers vs. taxpayers who have already defeated the reelection bid of one of the commissioners who voted to build on Sharp Farm.

Spokesman Brucker said: “I believe education is essential in this complicated case. We want to equip Tom and his friends to bring a better understanding of the economic, social, and environmental risk of building a plant that is certain to collapse, flood, and contaminate.” Reminded of the criticism when he broke a plate to demonstrate karst collapse potential at a public meeting in Kentucky, Brucker said, “Remember Dishman Lane, a $1 million example of poor karst planning.”

A Brief History of the Cave Community’s Response to I-66
In Pulaski and Laurel counties

By Larry Simpson

Lee Florea was the Paul Revere of Pulaski County. At least that’s the way I saw it. But instead of using a horse, he used email. It was April of 1999 when I got the message on my computer, and I’d never heard of Lee. An expressway was being planned through Pulaski County. When I forwarded the message to Ralph Ewers, he thought it must be an April fool’s joke, but when Lee sent me a map scanned from the local newspaper, I was convinced. The plan was to connect the Bluegrass Parkway with the Daniel Boone Parkway for an expressway across the state and eventually in segments across the nation. But why Pulaski County? One reason was probably politics. Congressman Hal Rogers, Chairman of the House Appropriations committee, was from Somerset Kentucky, and this was his pet project. (It should be noted that Rogers has also provided funding that allows for upgrading sewage and cleanup of sinkholes in Kentucky.)

By then, I had been a road construction inspector for ten years and knew the locations of many of the caves in the proposed pathways for the road. I felt obligated to do as much as I could to protect the caves. It was like deja vu for me. Fifteen years before, the state had decided to straighten highway 80 and make it a limited access divided highway. In straightening it, they built it overtop of Price Cave, the master conduit for a major system that feeds Short Creek. I had written a letter to the Transportation Cabinet warning about the cave but got no response. At the time, I was just one person with no credentials and no email, living in a small house in Stab.

Dave McMonigle, Jerry Nichols and I gathered at my house, and taping four topo maps together, tried to sketch the proposed choices of routes shown on the newsprint. There were five possibilities. All five would pass through karst with possible impacts to caves. Two would not only pass through a wildlife preserve, but would cut through several caves including Wells, and one of those would also hit Coral. Although that proposed route would cost more, require an extra bridge and entail a longer distance, the corridor recommended by the consultants who did the study of options, would pass over and possibly through Wells Cave. We looked for an alternative corridor that would avoid major caves, but any east-west route would have to pass through karst.

Numerous emails later, Dave, Jerry and I met with Lee Florea, Barbara Graham, John Cole and Randy Paylor from the Bluegrass Grotto at Lee’s apartment in Frankfort, Kentucky. Lee was a geologist in his mid twenties who worked for the Kentucky Department of Mines. He was bright, serious, and as it turned out, a good caver. Barbara was a caver who had done bat identification and counts in the Daniel Boone National Forest. John and Randy were also serious, committed cavers.

We decided we would fight the location of the roadway, but it was likely that the road was inevitable with development growing in the area. We continued to look for the best environmental alternative for the road. If we just made the road go away for a few years, there might not be any good options left when it came back again. I feared it was inevitable it would come back.

We came up with a number of ideas and got to work. Barb contacted friends in the forest service and Sierra Club, Lee, Jerry, Dave and I checked for caves in the paths of the Corridors. We put out feelers for other cavers to help, and John Cole took our plight to the Ohio Valley Region of the NSS, which he chaired. We were reluctant to publicize Coral, so we focused on Wells since it would be in the path of two corridors. We made photo trips into that cave, dragging a canoe to a pool to show the size of the conduit. Lee and I took pictures in canyons that would most likely fall within the road cut.

Lee began a survey of Knee Shredder Cave, which was in one of the paths. My daughter, Anna and I made a canoe photo trip on the Rockcastle River and Cane Creek near the wildlife refuge. The internet buzzed with emails about the road. Jerry personally met with the planning consultants, Wilbur Smith and Associates who have an office in Lexington. He showed them cave maps, but they did not take him seriously. The problem was the lack of an official database of caves. Because they had been kept secret, they didn’t exist, as far as the planners knew. Never mind the obvious sinkholes and dry valleys, everyone knew the big caves were on the other side of the state. We began discussing a need for a Kentucky cave survey, and Lee began inputting some of our locations into his laptop. Fortunately, the Department of Mines had given him GIS software that could be used for cave maps as easily as mines.

I consulted with a friend who was an urban planner and who had dealt with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. He warned that it would be a difficult battle and advised me to get a lawyer and find an alternative corridor. I was already looking for an alternative. Lee Florea had gotten hold of copies of the preliminary report by Wilbur Smith Associates. I studied them to learn the priorities involved in creating the planned corridors and began writing a critique of the study. The planners had only included a brief few sentences about karst, greatly underestimating the difficulties it would impose on the road. On closer look at the plans, I discovered the consultants had proposed an entrance ramp right over top of the Wells Cave River Passage. It became obvious that back flooding in sinkholes below the proposed embankment could structurally compromise the road.

After the next few meetings, at Barbara Graham’s house, there were too many new faces to remember. Jim Currens, a hydrologist with the Kentucky Geological Survey joined us. Mark Turner, an environmental geologist joined the fray from a distance since he had relocated to New England. He asked many pertinent questions of the KTC by email. Hillary Lambert, a caver and activist who had fought the Sloans Valley landfill also joined. There were members from Kentucky Heartwood and the Sierra Club as well as a general contingency of tree-huggers and Ludites who’s philosophy would have not been far removed from my own a few years previous, and for that matter, is still in the same ballpark.

When my turn came to introduce myself, I added that I am a construction inspector who builds roads for a living. There was a moment of silence and raised eyebrows as if I had offered a beer at a Baptist prayer meeting. I quickly explained that, while not an engineer, I did speak their language, and that I intended to show them the engineering problems they would incur in karst. I quickly added that I thought all roads were bad except that I liked to drive on them.

The group quickly divided into those who would accept no road and those of us who thought the road was inevitable and wanted to work toward preventing as much environmental damage as possible. We agreed to disagree with each other’s views but to work together. Hilary Lambert, a no-roader was chosen to lead the group, an amalgamation of organizations and individuals to be called Kick-66. Hilary organized meetings, wrote press releases and did a million other things necessary to keeping a movement alive. People would be contacted who knew something about NEPA and EIS rules, an area I knew little about. Lee and I gave a slide show for the Greater Cincinnati Grotto. A display was made for Karst-O-Rama. Signs and bumper stickers were made. A rally was held near Somerset in the parking lot of a local grocery store. We wrote letters and emails to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. They paid attention.

The KYTC held several conferences with us, inviting our inputs and assuring us that environmental issues would be attended to. Was it a sham? Some thought so. The old paranoid distrust for the government of the 70’s still lived, maybe for good reason. A number of emails talked of political scams and land grabs and crooked politics, Kentucky style. My emails assured them that most engineers were more interested in getting their job done and making their Final Four picks than political agenda. But I knew that bureaucracy is a many-layered onion. As the KYTC held open forums on the proposed road in London and Somerset, many residents also protested.

Meanwhile I continued to study the plans, which were extensive. The preferred rout through Wells Cave and the other one through Coral required routing the roadway several miles south of the Boone Parkway where it was to connect, crossing I-75 south of Corbin rather than a more straight line north of London, Kentucky. Could there be some ulterior motive to route traffic the extra distance from the south? I suspected a route would be needed to haul radioactive waste to holding grounds in the west. It also appeared that the route that would cut through Wells and Coral was made to bring traffic from south of Corbin close to both Laurel Lake and the Burnside area of Lake Cumberland, and thus more tourist dollars.

We argued that most of the tourists came from the north not south, since Tennessee already had Nolen Lake, and that these areas were already overcrowded, and finally that increasing full time jobs by bringing the road closer to an industrial park to the north would be better than creating more summer jobs at the lakes. We also argued that rather than solving traffic problems in the area, the road would more likely lead to congestion around each interchange. But I was pretty sure these arguments were futile. The planning consultants had already proved their arguments with their own statistics, even though their interpretation seemed biased. And money was no object since it was government money and the consultants would be paid a percentage of cost!

The state archeologist was not much help, replying to our emails that any burials could be excavated and reburied by Native Americans. He was nearing retirement. The Boone National Forest personnel did not even reply to my emails. I enlisted the help of Biology students of Dr. Tom Kane a speleo-biologist at the University of Cincinnati. Molly White began doing her Masters thesis on caves of the area. Rare Rafinesque bats were already shown on the planning GIS drawings.

Barbara Graham contacted a reporter, Ty Tagami, from the Lexington Herald-Leader, and we gave him a tour of Wells Cave. The Lexington Herald-Leader was critical of the proposed roadway. On a subsequent biological inventory trip, both Barbara Graham and Cat Whitney spotted blind cavefish previously unknown in Wells Cave.

But my best argument was that the caves themselves were both a hazards to roads and natural storm sewers that prevent floods. By building over caves, engineers run the risk of collapse, flooding and the pollution of water supplies. Spending a lot of time in the University of Cincinnati Geology Library, I found references to collapse, flooding, toxic spills and pollution in karst from New Jersey to China, and as close to home as Bowling Green. We began to let them know in detail what these possibilities were and where they could occur in terms engineers could appreciate. Having done so, the state could then be proven to have had prior knowledge and be held liable in a lawsuit. My take was, what’s bad for the karst is bad for the road and bad for the community. Jim Currens, a caver and karst hydrologist of the Kentucky Geological Survey was working on karst dye tracing maps of Kentucky. His letters to the KTC warning of known caves in the corridor could not be ignored.

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet held several public forums in Somerset and London where protestors asked a number of hard questions of the planners. Some wanted to use the present highway 80 footprint and make it wider. I was not in favor of that corridor for two reasons. I knew that the present road, although more than adequate for the traffic it serves, did not conform to interstate standards. The present road would have to be ripped out, widened, straightened, and leveled. Utilities would have to be rerouted, houses torn down, people displaced. While it might save trees in the short term, the people displaced would have to find new land, and use new materials for building, while new telephone poles and electric lines would have to be installed. So the net ecological and cost savings would be near zero, while the amount of displacement to residents would be high.

The second factor was the Sinking Valley drainage, which passes directly below highway 80 on it’s way to Short Creek. It was the same concern I posed to the Highway Department more than twenty years previously when they re-routed highway 80 through Price Valley. We had surveyed the cave where the road was subsequently built, and it was large and carried an enormous volume of water. Since there was only thirty or forty feet of limestone between the cave and the roadway with construction requiring nearby blasting and heavy equipment, it became clear that such a plan was a disaster waiting to happen. To me, it had been a mistake to build route 80 over this important conduit in the first place, and it would be an even bigger mistake to build an interstate there. In addition, a wider interstate bridge built over Buck Creek at the location of the present bridge would probably wipe out Stab Cave just upstream. Stab Cave is short but historic and rich in fauna as well as geologically interesting.

But in studying the plans, I could see one advantage to using part of highway 80. One justification the planners used for taking the southern corridor through Wells Cave was that the Rockcastle River had been declared a Wild and Scenic River between highway 80 and the backwaters of Lake Cumberland. Endangered mussels could also be found upstream from the lake. By putting the bridge in the lake area and taking a southern route, the road would avoid the Wild and Scenic River but cross the intensely cavernous section of karst that held Wells, Coral and several other significant caves.

If the bridge were to be placed north of highway 80, the road would almost have to cross the vast Sinking Valley drainage basin that extended ten miles north of highway 80. But if the present four lane bridge over the Rockcastle was to be expanded, the road might be threaded south of Sinking Valley and north of the next large cave system.

It was not a question of how to avoid karst, but which corridor would have the least impact. In western Kentucky, the karst contains Mammoth Cave and many other extensive caverns. In Central Kentucky, the blue grass karst hosts numerous smaller caves. And the eastern band of karst roughly follows the western border of the Daniel Boone National Forest from Tennessee all the way up through Carter Caves state park near Morehead. The largest and most extensive caves of this karst can be found in the most southern four counties in that band, Pulaski County being gifted not only with widely exposed limestone, but also the well developed drainage system of the Cumberland and its tributaries. So the road would have to pass through karst.

I proposed that the road cross I-75 north of London, saving road miles, follow the path of highway 80 east of the Rockcastle River through the National Forest to minimize damage to the forest, where the road is less populated, then after crossing the Rockcastle, bring the corridor south of Sinking Valley avoiding large caves. In addition, by my calculation this route would be slightly shorter and cost less than the route through Coral Cave. I not only made this proposal to the KTC, but also sent a copy as a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, The Commonwealth Journal.

I had several misgivings about this corridor, but it seemed the least of several evils. For one thing, it would pass close to one of my favorite hiking spots near the Rockcastle. Second, it would pass close to Squalid Manor, our field house. Third, there would have to be another bridge built over Buck Creek, which is also wild and scenic, and contains endangered mussels. Fourth, there was no way of knowing what caves might lurk in the area undiscovered. By taking action, I was taking responsibility. It was a battlefield dilemma.

Before the route could even be approved, it may have caused ecological tremors near Wells Cave. It appeared land speculation was already taking place. A large tract of land in the headwaters of Wells Cave drainage was clear-cut as if to squeeze every dime out of the land before the road came through. Shortly thereafter a strip mine was proposed almost directly above the cave, but that effort was fought and the permit withdrawn.

When a revised plan was published by the KTC, I was surprised to see the preferred corridor. Coincidentally, the road would cross the Rockcastle River at highway 80 and pass south of the Sinking Valley drainage before crossing Buck Creek. I was not pleased with the proposed corridor east of the Rockcastle River. They must have wanted badly to build so much extra road south of Corbin. They justified this southern bypass around Corbin by saying there was too much infrastructure that would have to be disrupted north of London. To get around Corbin required a swath through the National Forest, but the consultants justified that section as passing mostly through areas previously strip-mined.

July 7, 2000, the following report by Ty Tagami ran in the Lexington Herald Leader:

“SOMERSET: Indiana bats, blind crickets and other rare creatures of the dark can rest easy, transportation officials say: Many of the critters’ caves beneath the Daniel Boone National Forest won’t be blasted by construction for a proposed interstate.

“Kentucky Highway officials announced yesterday that due in part to public pressure, they abandoned a plan to build part of the proposed Interstate 66 through Cane Creek Wildlife Management Area and its extensive network of caves.

“Instead, the proposed segment of the four lane highway between Somerset and London would cut through the Daniel Boone Forest farther to the north, along a corridor that parallels highway 80….”

Never mind, that the caves were not actually located in the wildlife refuge, it was still good news. At least I felt I could breathe a sigh of relief and get back to Coral. But my relief was short lived. Plans needed to be ironed out for the corridor that would provide a bypass around Somerset to connect to the Cumberland Parkway. A committee of businessmen, political leaders and citizens of Somerset held meetings to discuss the corridor. Lee Florea was on the panel, but mostly it was a group who knew little about engineering and cared nothing about karst. Lee’s liberally conservationist ideas were usually ignored or overruled. Avoiding things like subdivisions and a golf course, the corridor was shifted farther north until it became apparent the entire route would shift into the Sinking Valley drainage. I wrote a letter warning the KTC that such a change could be disastrous. I also sent them the following points as a primer on construction near sinkholes:

1. All sinkholes drain underground. The water has to go somewhere, often where least expected.

2. Ponds built in sinkholes are usually temporary. Flood pulses and topographic changes may empty ponds over night.

3. Filling sinkholes may cause other sinkholes to collapse, sometimes under structures, due to changes in surface or sub-surface.

4. Grouting to mitigate sinkholes (often tried in roadways) may cause bigger problems, such as new sinkholes or expansion of the old one as water works around the grout.

5. Collapse of sinkholes below water, sewer or gas lines can multiply problems by breaking lines.

6. Vibrations from construction equipment, blasting or truck traffic can cause sinkhole collapse.

7. Changes in stream gradient due to road embankment can cause sinkhole collapse.

8. Increased sedimentation due to construction can cause decrease in ground water quality, sinkhole filling and collapse.

9. Directing drainage water into sinkholes from roadways may cause flooding, pollution of aquifers and sinkhole collapse.

10. Borrow pits and road cuts can reroute subsurface water and cut off springs.

11. Lowering of the water table is known to cause sinkhole collapse.

12. Polluted water in karst can flow quickly to distant unknown points or become trapped in pockets for long periods of time.

13. Toxic or explosive spills can travel underground and produce vapors which migrate through cracks into wells, under buildings and into basements.

14. Toxic and explosive spills in karst are difficult and expensive to mitigate.

15. Surveyed and explored caves represent a small fraction of the underground drainage, which is often too small, sediment filled or partially collapsed for persons to negotiate.

16. Truck spills are inevitable along major highways and are most likely where steep grades, turns or interchanges are located. Special drainage and retention measures should be designed into these areas.

Lee Florea and others, received a small grant from the National Speleological Society and Wilbur Smith Associates to do a preliminary study of the possible affects of the roadway on the karst in the new alignment. He and Jason Gulley renewed the survey of Price Cave and several others in the area and did limited dye tracing along the proposed corridor.

The next published revision of the corridor in 2003 showed the preferred route passing directly through Price Valley, the same place I had warned the KTC about twenty-five years previously. Back to the drawing board. Again, I wrote letters and sent emails. Lee Florea was no longer able to be active in the struggle since he was pursuing his doctorate degree in Florida. I helped Kevin Toepke set up a Save Short Creek web site. Chris Johns, a videographer and caver, contacted me proposing to do a Short Creek video. I offered to help him, thus beginning yet another cave project. We decided to focus on the Sinking Valley System and some of the people who live in the area rather than the political background. We emphasized the power of the floodwaters that course through the conduit and the problems that could be caused by disturbing the cave.

That fall, Dr. Julian Lewis entered the scene as a consultant. A cave biologist with excellent reputation as an environmentalist and scientist, he was one of the best choices we could have possibly asked for. He set traps for cave invertebrates lured by Limburger cheese, and was quite successful in discovering new and rare species of limburger lovers. I helped him with entrance locations whenever I could.

The KTC and their consultants had been given a list of cave locations with GPS coordinates by the Kentucky Speleological Society with the agreement that these locations would not be disseminated to the public. Locations were generated on topo maps printed out for Dr. Lewis and others to investigate.

The problem was that most of the locations had originally been placed on the topo maps either by visual interpretation or by memory, sometimes passed from caver to caver with ensuing variation. These locations were then given GPS co-ordinates. Few had actually been field verified with a GPS unit. In one case, the cave was on the opposite side of the hill from where the topo and GPS location put it. In that case, it was a cave I had actually passed down myself, and I remembered it being at the erroneous topo location. Mike also remembered it being at that topo location. We had apparently looked at the topo location so often, while only having visited the cave once or twice; the error had altered our memories of where the cave actually was! After hiking around in the briars for an hour or so, I finally asked a resident who took us straight to the entrance. Dr. Lewis rectified the problem by keying in new coordinates for each of the caves he visited.

In early 2004, I got a radical idea. Why not invite the engineers on a field trip to show them the karst features I was concerned about? After several emails, we set a date. They were enthusiastic. I chose a weekday so they would have the added incentive of getting out of the office. Among others, the project manager, Joe Cox and State Hydrologist, Dave Harmon who is a hydrologist and supervisor of the KTC environmental project coordination program attended. Dave Harmon, as it turned out, had been a student of Ralph Ewers. I showed them Short Creek, Boiling Pots and Quarry Sink, a collapse sinkhole that had occurred a few years previously, less than a thousand feet from the proposed road. It got their attention. There had been a similar collapse of the recently built Dishman Lane near Bowling Green that had severed utilities and swallowed a pickup truck.

I subsequently gave a second tour for the engineers and representatives of the Karst consultant, Gannett-Fleming. Dr. Lewis was also on hand to educate them in cave biology. I provided handouts showing the map of Price Cave projected on a topo map. There were about sixteen of us, including Dave Harmon and David Beattie, the KTC branch manager; several geologists, two biologists and assorted engineers and consultants. This time we did get into two actual caves, Stab and Cedar Creek which seemed to impress the engineers and consultants almost as much as the Quarry Sink Collapse and Boiling Pots. David Beattie followed me into somewhat challenging crawlway and climb to the bottom of a waterfall. I was impressed with his natural caving ability. One minor incident occurred when a consultant fell and broke his arm at the Boiling Pot sinkhole.

A photographer for the Commonwealth Journal showed up and shot a group photo. There was another moment of déjà vu since thirty years previously I had posed for a picture for the same newspaper with Dave Beattie’s father who was the City Engineer of Somerset.
At that time, Mike Johnson and I were helping Ralph Ewers do some free consulting for the City of Somerset after clogged sinkholes caused flooding in residential areas. We were not able to help much at that time because the damage was already done. Sinkholes had been filled, and houses had been built in the wide depression. This time I hoped we could minimize those problems.

The Commenwealth Journal apparently interviewed state officials after the field trip. One encouraging quote suggested we had gotten our point across:

“Harmon said a section of road which was over a cave system in the Bowling Green area collapsed in recent years. Further knowledge of Pulaski’s karst should help the transportation department make decisions on how to minimize a road collapse possibility.

“For instance, the exact location of a new road might be influenced by whether or not there is sufficient “overburden” between the cave and the surface. Overburden refers to the rock and soil that lies over a cave.”

“We were very lucky to be able to work with cavers who knew a lot about the caves,” said Harmon”

The jury is still out on the final path of the roadway. If it avoids major cave systems, it may actually prevent toxic spills to the underground environment by allowing trucks a more efficient and straighter path across the state. At the same time it will also bring more trucks hauling various kinds of HAZMAT cargo along its path. That’s what it is designed to do. These materials may include nuclear waste from eastern reactors bound for western depositories. How well the road is built is at least a major factor in how many toxic spills occur. Both HAZMAT fluids and vapors can flow through caves at swift speeds. They can also be stored in pockets within karst, difficult to detect, remove or predict. In 1986 the Mammoth Cave Park Geologist, Jim Quinlin, estimated that HAZMAT spills on I-65 to average 1.5 per year.

In April 2004, a spill caused by a collision shut down I-75 less than twenty miles from the I-66 corridor through karst. The ensuing explosion left two drivers dead and barrels of chemicals that could also explode if in contact with water.

The Commonwealth Journal reported: “Sodium hydrosulfite, which is used as a dye in paper and leather products… is highly volatile and emits a toxic vapor. The chemical is so dangerous in nature, that it calls for immediate evacuation of an area of one-square mile around the area of the chemical spill...Fortunately, it never rained, but the early morning dew did cause a minor explosion around 7 a.m. in the morning.”

Mark Turner informed me of a previous spill: “If you will recall, there was a Hydrofluoric Acid Spill on I-75 near Berea about 10-15 years ago which shut I-75 down completely…. and did enormous damage to the local environment and the roadway itself. The acid vapor is extremely toxic and exposure to the vapors can cause death, or extreme bone pain after exposure... Oh, and yes it eats through nearly everything except wax and certain plastics....”

Such chemicals whiz by daily and even hourly on an expressway without being noticed until there is a spill. One means of prevention would be to build a storm water containment system that would isolate the runoff of the entire roadway. This system could flow into a series of storage facilities that could be remotely closed during emergencies to contain liquids until they are removed. On and off ramps and interchanges are often the scenes of truck overturns due to shifting loads. These structures should be discouraged within karst, and where necessary, at least deserve a detention system to collect spills.

But if a roadway is like an unstoppable elephant that can only be prodded away from doing the most damage, development is like the million fleas upon its back. The development that follows a roadway is more insidious and less controllable. The road will necessitate more gavel and concrete, meaning expansion of quarries like the one that straddles the stream passage of the Sinking Valley System. The road may make strip mining more profitable and enable marginal mines like the ones a few miles north and east of Coral Cave. So far, there are no poultry or pig mega-farms in the area, but that could happen too.

For years, the residents of Pulaski County have had little choice but to pile their trash behind their houses or throw it into streams and sinkholes. When a landfill was built, it overlapped the drainage of the largest cave in the county, Sloans Valley. Near one cave, sewage is dumped on a nearby field. Septic systems are often not much better. Sewage lagoons in karst have also been known to burst with a sinkhole collapse making this problem a sticky one indeed. Add barnyard run off, agricultural chemicals, and fuel storage leaks to the mix for a strange brew. In the immortal words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Recently hypodermic syringes were discovered in the Coral Siphon, small torpedoes washed through from the previous flood. They could be the new icons of our disposable culture.

When the road comes, a slice of the earth will be opened, and with that slice there will be an infection. We are the infection. Even if we ride in a solar powered car, we are part of the continuum of the roadway. Most of the products we use and the materials they are made from are hauled by truck. Very few times does money change hands without affecting the environment. What can be done?

We began our caving years with the warnings of other cavers that caves are at great risk from vandals and careless spelunkers. For that reason we restricted the publicity for Coral Cave for more than thirty years. It worked pretty well. Most of the wear and tear can be attributed directly to us. There is little graffiti compared to other, better known caves such as Wells or Sloans. But the damage that could be done by cavers or vandals cannot compare with the potential destruction from construction and development.

We learned from the I-66 threat at the same time the secret cavers of Rumbling Falls were learning from the threat of a proposed sewage plant. People have to know about a cave in order to value it and want to fight for it. People came forward and protested the Sloans Valley Landfill because they had experienced Sloans Valley and wanted to save it. Likewise, to some extent, cavers rallied around Wells Cave. But those were still only a select few who knew the cave, had time, thought they could contribute and were passionate.

But what can be done? Although most cavers practice cave ecology, and many participate in cave clean-ups the outside forces of development are closing in on many caves. There are no easy solutions. We are trying to protect places we usually don’t own that are affected by what happens in the entire drainage basin that surrounds them. We need the cooperation of people who usually don’t know or care about what they have never seen. Some of the residents we encounter have different values than ours, and can make things really hard or really easy on us depending on whether we respect their values.

Education is the first defense against destruction of these places we love. From one on one education to multimedia education, emails to websites, pamphlets to Imax, people need to know the value of caves, especially communities located in karst. They need to know that protecting karst protects themselves. Often Caves provide flood protection or spring water. A building or road that harms a cave will probably bring harm on itself. One case in point is that of Rodney Ping. Jason Gully and Lee Florea met Rodney whose family owns many acres of property in Sinking Valley. After taking him and his daughter caving, he joined the NSS, became active in the Wells Cave Preserve, and he and his family have cleaned up several sinkholes in the area. One on one education may be the most important.

Coordination is the second line of defense. Many of us have already joined Grottoes and the NSS, but as advocates for caves, we need to know each other, educate each other and coordinate our knowledge of caves so we can join in protecting them. The Kentucky Speleological Survey was founded on just such a premise. By coordinating locations and maps of caves while allowing limited access, the KSS is able to show planners potential karst impacts. We also need to form bonds with other environmental groups such as the Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club.

Legislation is a third and difficult line of defense. Many states have laws protecting archeological and mineral treasures of caves, but few communities regulate land use in karst, although some communities restrict building within sinkholes, rightfully treating them as if they are floodplains. Cavers often live outside these communities and have only limited input into such local laws, and few cavers I know have interest in politics and law. Lawmakers and property owners need to be educated about the benefits and hazards of karst, so they can make good decisions. Cavers also need to be educated in the complex national environmental laws, and when they apply.

Litigation is possibly the most costly and time-consuming defense, as was proven when Tennessee cavers, valiantly fought to prevent sewer effluent from being drained into very significant caves of Spencer Mountain. Several years, thousands of dollars and many hours were involved. The only thing in the favor of environmentalists is that most governmental and business organizations fear litigation and the bad publicity it can involve.

A fifth line of defense, and possibly the most satisfying, is habitation. Years ago, Jim Helmbold placed a plaque in Squalid Manor. It read, “Invest in the Future. Buy a Cave.” He must have taken the saying to heart. He later bought a couple of acres containing the entrance to Wells Cave, which he donated to the NSS in 2001. But when the Coral entrance property was auctioned off a couple of years ago, we could find no cavers wealthy enough to buy it. And even owning an entrance is only limited protection. Jim could do nothing about the clear-cutting in the watershed above Wells Cave. Larger caves make bigger targets for accidental abuse.

While most of us may not be able to own a cave, by surveying and getting to know a cave, we can form a relationship with the cave and learn to take responsibility for it. By forming friendships with the owners and people of the surrounding community, we form a long-term commitment that is satisfying as well as protective to the environment above and below ground.

As the Caving Boomers of the seventies reach retirement age, it is hoped that many pool their resources to buy property above and around caves, move into those communities and become active forces in local education and legislation for the preservation of caves. In doing so, we must learn to live lightly on the land and teach others to do so.

I-66 Action Alert: Your Comments Needed!
DRAFT Environmental Impact Statement is Available
Your comments due by October 9, 2006

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed I-66 segment between London and Somerset was made public in early July, and the public comment period is until October 9, 2006.

Please take the time to educate yourself about this important issue, and to submit your comments on the profound unsuitability of building a new interstate highway, I-66, across the southern third of Kentucky, not to mention its proposed ghastly sidekick, a federal bioterrorism lab.

Where to learn more about this bad highway project & make comments
Go to www.kick66.org for a wealth of information about the history of the project, how to submit your own comments, how to get involved with opposition group KICK 66, and upcoming events that are related to the Draft EIS comment period. Contact Sue Koplowitz at kick66@hughes.net to be placed on the KICK 66 email list.

What’s at stake?
The value of your land and home, the beauty and wildness of the area between London and Somerset, the area’s caves & karst, high quality waterways, both above and below ground, the unparalleled and world-class biodiversity, the Rockcastle River’s threatened Wild and Scenic status, the disruption of local lives, the impending destruction of the Daniel Boone National Forest, and ‘new neighbors,’ like a bioterror lab.

Info about the “Caves of Sinking Valley” film & the proposed federal bioterror lab
To learn about “The Caves of Sinking Valley”, a film about the karst area filled with underground wonders that would be torn apart by this interstate, contact Larry Simpson lsimpson@fuse.net or Chris Johns cjoutreach@msn.com. A federal bioterrorism lab has been proposed for rural Pulaski County on beautiful Buck Creek, next to the proposed I-66 corridor.
Sign the petition and learn more at nobioterrorlab.org

Bowling Green Daily News
Commentary

Let's talk facts
We just want to make sure transpark isn't harming environment

By ROGER BRUCKER

Wednesday, August 16, 2006 12:02 PM CDT
Two groups critical of the Kentucky Transpark have been attacked by the Inter-Modal Transportation Authority, the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce and others who support this development. As a founding member of one of those groups, Karst Environmental Education and Protection, I welcome an opportunity to respond.

Contrary to what Warren County Judge-Executive Michael Buchanon said, KEEP doesn't want to “stop everything.” It isn't true that we “don't care about the local economy.” We support economic development, when done with regard for the environment and the law. The transpark hasn't represented those ideals. It's saddling local residents with tens of millions of dollars of debt and falling far short of the promised thousands of jobs.

KEEP is a nonprofit, volunteer organization of scientists, landowners and others who oppose the transpark, as currently being developed, for reasons involving the environment, economics, property rights and other issues. It's a diverse group representing various socio-economic and political backgrounds. KEEP has no paid staff and requires no membership fee, so there is no membership list that can be turned over, as the ITA demanded.

Of greater concern, it seems, are the names of individuals behind the lawsuit, and their source of funding. Those names appear on the lawsuit, which is paid for by the citizens themselves, including me. We're not using tax dollars or funds from outside groups.

We sued three federal agencies, not the city of Bowling Green, Warren County or ITA. Those entities voluntarily added themselves to the lawsuit. The federal agencies named as defendants are represented by five attorneys. If the county, city and ITA believed our case was weak, why did they intervene, adding six attorneys of their own, at additional taxpayer expense?

The transpark is being developed in a geologically fragile location prone to sinkhole collapse. It is underlain with caves and underground streams. In an editorial, the Daily News wrote that “some scientists believe these streams do not flow into Mammoth Cave.” However, more scientists are on record expressing concerns about the transpark than are on record supporting it. KEEP believes an Environmental Impact Statement should be done to finally determine the transpark's potential long-range environmental impact.

The ITA says it's conducted “close to 60 separate studies.” What studies? Who paid for them? Who conducted them? What are their credentials? We're aware of one “study” by an ITA-funded consultant, using questionable methodology. This same consultant previously recommended against building a large industrial development on karst.
Karst drainage basins often spill over into adjacent basins under high-stage flood conditions. Nineteen karst scientists urged the ITA to study the possibility of contamination. It's simply false to say that Mammoth Cave is safe from this threat. The National Park Service pointed out that essential studies have not been done.

The ITA says the transpark isn't subject to an EIS, because it hasn't received federal funds. However, from the beginning, the ITA said it would rely on substantial federal funding. Millions of federal dollars have been allocated for infrastructure development. The issue of whether the use of federal funds should require the completion of an EIS is at the crux of the lawsuit by KEEP

Our recent legal brief is not a “renewed” effort to fight the transpark, as reported. It is a continuation of an unresolved legal challenge. The lawsuit was dismissed in part because the court found our claims were premature. There was never a hearing on the merits. A hearing is what we are now seeking, through our appeal. We filed notice of appeal in federal court last February, so the filing of our legal brief in July should have come as no surprise to ITA's lawyers.

Judge-Executive Michael Buchanon has accused KEEP of “hiding behind the veil of environmentalism.” Our position regarding the transpark has always been transparent. We have sought meetings with the ITA, we have appeared on public television with the agency's representatives, and we have expressed a willingness to answer questions. It is the ITA, not KEEP, that has hidden information from taxpayers. One example is a study that, according to a reliable source, questions the economic feasibility of the transpark. The ITA has never made this study public in its entirety, despite a promise to do so.

Some politicians have decried that “outsiders” are involved in the fight against the transpark. The transpark does not just impact citizens of Warren County; it is a matter of interest to everyone in Kentucky and the United States, because state and federal tax dollars are involved, and because Mammoth Cave National Park - the state's most popular tourist attraction and an important economic factor for southcentral Kentucky - is potentially threatened.

KEEP is on the side of law. As taxpayers we deplore ITA's financial shenanigans. The ITA has yet to acknowledge that the taxpayers of Warren County will pay the bond interest and principal of a highly risky venture. The ITA asserted that debt service would be from companies purchasing land. Those revenues have not materialized because there is no demand. There are 176 industrial parks in Kentucky, mostly empty. Few companies relocate unless they are expanding. Using public funds to develop another such commercial project for which there is insufficient demand is just socialism.

I will be happy to appear with any representative of the ITA at any public venue in Warren County, to answer questions, and to ask questions of my own. Buchanon has said the public has a right to know. I could not agree more.

Roger Brucker is a veteran cave explorer and the author of four books about Mammoth Cave. He has published scientific papers on caves, and consulted for National Geographic Television. He is a co-founder of the Cave Research Foundation, a fellow of the National Speleological Society and a co-founder and board member of Karst Environmental Education and Protection.

Transpark lawsuit to require an EIS is in the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C.-July 2006

KarstEEP, Warren County Citizens for Managed Growth and three individuals
filed a brief in the federal appeals court on July 24, 2006 (see brief link
below) against several federal agencies over their failure to prepare an EIS
for the 4,000-acre Kentucky Trimodal Transpark. Briefing will occur through
Sept. 2006 and then oral argument may be scheduled.

Opening Brief, KarstEEP et al v. U.S. EPA et al