Groundwater Safety in Limestone Country

CHL and WKU are pleased to announce a special program, Ground Water Safety in Limestone Country, to be held at Allen County Produce on March 9th at 2:30 pm. The speaker will be Dr. Chris Groves, University Distinguished Professor of Hydrogeology at Western Kentucky University. Groves is the Director of the Crawford Hydrology Laboratory at WKU and with students and colleagues he has been studying water access and quality in limestone regions for more than 40 years, working in 25 countries. In one project, Groves and his colleagues implemented installation of water treatment systems in 105 rural Chinese orphanages with contaminated water supplies, providing clean and safe drinking water for more than 14,000 children.

Closer to home, Groves is deeply interested in understanding limestone groundwater, and water safety, here in southcentral Kentucky. We will discuss how such water behaves in this area, where springs and wells can be important drinking water sources, and what factors can influence its availability and quality.

This public event is associated with on-going karst research, you can find more information about the project via this ArcGIS StoryMap,  Hidden Landscapes: The intersection of clean water, culture, and karst in southcentral Kentucky.  Supported by funding from the US Geological Survey through the Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute (KWRRI)