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Hi I'm Nick bergmeyer with the Help the Hellbender initiative
In our previous video we discussed farmers and livestock producers
and how they can help protect water quality.
In this video I'd like to discuss sinkholes and how they're related to water quality.
Many people are familiar with sinkholes forming in their backyards of their farm fields
but what most people don't know is that these are actually portals underground waterways.
Unfortunately when pollution such as agricultural chemicals
and fertilizers are allowed to enter these sinkholes
it results in reduced water quality in our water supplies
and our rivers and streams.
Today I'd like to talk with Rand the superintendent of Harrison County Parks
and Cassie Hauswald with the Nature Conservancy
about what people can do to help protect water quality and preserve sinkholes.
My name is Rand Heazlitt and a I'm a the superintendent for the Harrison County Parks system
but um I'm also a longtime caver since I was about 15 years of age
and I work on a the a one of the fastest-growing a cave projects in the country
which is the Binkley system which just also happens to be part of the sinkhole plain here in southern Indiana.
Sinkholes a are essentially drainage areas a that capture runoff from a agricultural,
industrial, parking lots, a septic systems, a forested areas
and all types of water captured.
A that water is then directed down into a the karst that lies below.
A that can consist of cave systems as well as streams
that are deep lie deep underneath the ground.
The important thing about sinkholes
is that they're indicative of what actually lies beneath us underneath the surface
which is a karst or caves.
Often times a sinkholes indicate that there is a dome or the top of a room or crevice or canyon
that lies just beneath the surface some period
some distance below.
I'm Cassie Hauswald.
I'm a freshwater ecologist with The Nature Conservancy
and today I'm standing in front of unnamed spring
you'll notice that this water is a little bit murky
and that's because we had a rain event last night.
It rained a lot and there are sinkholes up above this spring
that feed in to this spring
so this is just an underground stream that becomes a surface stream at this point.
These are direct links to the sinkhole
and a spring is a direct link to our streams and rivers
where we have wildlife that I depends on a clean water just like we do.
So things like the hellbender salamander and the Blue River
a and freshwater mussels, fish, a people that like to swim in streams
we don't want to swim and streams that have chemicals and things that shouldn't be there
and so there are ways to just to dispose of our chemicals
and that's where those things should go.
And if you have a sinkhole on your property that you need help doing something with,
you need advice or you need resources to make it better and enhance it
you have several options out there.
2 that come to mind are your are the Natural Resource Conservation Service
your local district conservationist in that office can help you
with programs aimed at fencing out sinkholes
at implementing alternative water sources
and revegetating if that would be the case it'd be whether it's grass or trees.
If you're more interested in habitat
the US Fish and Wildlife Service has a partner's program
that can also help you with sinkhole management.
So once again that would be vegetation of some sort
but these are places not only for critters and Wildlife to to hang out and hide
but they also are benefiting water quality
and that benefits everyone.
Sinkholes are intimately tied to the quality of our groundwater and our rivers and streams.
When people use sinkholes for the disposal of trash and chemicals
or sediments are allowed to run into sinkholes
the eventual result is poor water quality for both people and wildlife.
It's important that conservationists and landowners work together to implement practices
to reduce the pollution entering sinkholes.
Together we can make places like the Blue River a better place for all wildlife including hellbenders.
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