Groundwater focus for scientist at Crystal Bridges

FILE PHOTO/NWA Media/DAVID GOTTSCHALK Water from Crystal Spring flows along the trails Tuesday morning on the grounds of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.
FILE PHOTO/NWA Media/DAVID GOTTSCHALK Water from Crystal Spring flows along the trails Tuesday morning on the grounds of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

BENTONVILLE -- The unseen flow of water underground is being highlighted this week as hydrogeologists from around the Midwest gathered at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for the annual Midwest Groundwater Conference.

Scientists called for research, discussed water needs in Arkansas and heard about local research projects as the conference opened Wednesday morning.

Crystal Spring

Crystal Spring was significant in the founding of Bentonville and was part of the inspiration for the setting of Crystal Bridges. The water flowing through Town Branch Creek was diverted through a 36-inch pipeline set in a trench for five years during the museum’s construction. Heavy equipment was brought in through the stream bed to preserve the natural setting.

Crystal Spring also played a role in the selection of Bentonville as second Arkansas site of the Midwest Groundwater Conference in 60 years. The conference was held in Little Rock in 1986.

Staff Report

Water flowing through the karst rock of Northwest Arkansas is impatient, Tom Aley, of Ozark Underground Laboratory told the group.

"It is in a hurry to get in the ground and in a hurry to get through it," Aley said.

Aley, who is part of a recent study on the water flowing into Cave Springs, said water travels through several cave systems before it reaches Cave Springs. Ozark cavefish, listed as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, live in and around the Cave Springs site.

The quick flow combined with a threatened species has a dual meaning: water in detention ponds and streams in the 20-mile area pouring into Cave Springs needs to be clean to protect the fish, but the survival of the fish means Northwest Arkansas has high water quality.

John Cherry of the Center for Applied Groundwater Research talked about groundwater contamination.

Researchers need to put more effort into looking at both what goes into the water in the ground and characteristics of the ground it goes into to protect well water, Cherry said.

Landfills, sewer systems and fracking can leach an underground plume that slides along slowly like an underwater glacier, Cherry said. Fracking contamination is understudied and rules about how far the drilling operation is from a well don't take into consideration the science of how gases move under ground, Cherry said.

Arkansas is water-rich, Todd Fugitt, geology supervisor at the Arkansas Natural Resource Commission, told the group.

The state is fourth in the amount of irrigation acreage and the number two producer of groundwater in the United States, Fugitt said.

In rice-producing areas of Eastern Arkansas most of the water used for industry and agriculture comes from wells. Some of that rice is trucked to St. Louis for beer production, he said.

"If you eat rice or drink beer you've had a taste of the alluvial aquifer," Fugitt said.

Water is being pulled out of ground at unsustainable levels, Fugitt said, pointing to predictions in the commission's Arkansas Water Plan. The state has enough water, it just isn't all underground. Lakes and streams have surface water but the flow is seasonal, Fugitt said.

The water table was dropping in southern Arkansas for years, Dave Freiwald, deputy director of the U.S. Geological Survey in Little Rock told the group.

Union County set up a conservation board in 1999 after being told they would have to cut the amount of water they were pumping out of the ground by 72 percent or run out. Part of the solution was using surface water. By 2010 eight wells monitored by the agency rose between 13 and 74 feet as the aquifer recharged, Freiwald said.

Surface water can help eastern Arkansas also, Fugitt said. Current Arkansas water policy is about conservation, education and use of excess surface water, he said.

Education is a primary mission for the Illinois River Watershed Partnership, said Delia Haak, executive director.

The partnership hosted the groundwater conference at Crystal Bridges and offered field trips to the Cave Springs watershed sanctuary and center Tuesday.

"Some of why we got to where we are today was lack of education," Haak said.

The Illinois River Watershed has seen dramatic improvements in water quality in the last 10 years because of partnerships, Haak said. Water treatment is releasing less phosphorus, landowners test before putting down fertilizer and developers and industry play a part, she said.

Arkansas is blessed with a large quantity of water but the quality of the water is the challenge for the state, Haak said.

"We're probably going to be looked at in the future," she said.

NW News on 10/15/2015

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