Fully Funded!!! ...and then some!

 

Wow!!!  You folks are AMAZING!  The Karst Springs Initiative is now fully funded (and then some)!  We have been overwhelmed by your generosity.  Now it’s time to hit the ground running.  

We recently optimized our gaging station at the East Fork Obey River Rise with equipment contributed by Western Kentucky University - Crawford Hydrology Lab and installed a new gaging site at the upstream sink of the East Fork Obey River with an instrument donated by the datalogger vendor Solinst.  We also received news this morning that the East Tennessee Grotto and an individual from the grotto are collectively donating $400 to fund dye tracing that we proposed to better define the groundwater recharge basin for that area.  Lots of exciting fieldwork is on tap for the next year in the East Fork Obey.  

Additionally, we recently installed a new gaging station at Head of Sequatchie Spring.  We're excited about this site that drains one of the largest closed depressions in North America (Grassy Cove) and a lot of big and deep caves. The spring has some historical flow data, from Dr. Nicholas Crawford’s dissertation, which we can build upon and is the perennial start of the Sequatchie River. 

Our supporters at Tennessee Technology University - Department of Earth Sciences have also been major contributors to the project - installing a gaging station at The Boils in Jackson County.  Like us, Dr. Evan Hart (TTU) was in a hurry to get the station installed before the recent drought ended so that we'd capture that important low-flow data.  He measured a flow of approximately 30 cubic feet per second during his recent site visit - the lowest discharge ever measured at The Boils.

So what's next?  With the funds contributed from you awesome folks, we will be purchasing THREE new suites of dataloggers!  We plan to establish gaging stations at the large springs in the upper Collins River, specifically Grundy Big Spring and Collins River Rise. These springs likely drain the large karst systems within Savage Gulf and are the first perennial flow seen on the Collins River.  Additionally we plan to establish gaging stations near Spencer, Tennessee at Big Swamp Spring, Island Spring, and Big Spring all located within the Caney Fork drainage.  Several of the springs in this area are inundated by Great Falls Lake in the summer months, so we hope to take advantage of our new equipment to get some data from these springs while the lake is at low levels.

If you could take a moment to send us your preferred mailing address to karstspringsinitiative@gmail.com - we'd like to send each of you a token of our appreciation (a ruler/protractor with the KSI logo).  

 

We are excited with the prospects of new work we’ll be able to accomplish with the addition of all of this new equipment made possible by your support.  Thank you once again for giving us the resources and ability to study the great springs of Tennessee.

Sincerely,

Ben Miller and Brian Ham