BLOG: This May Not Seem Like a Groundwater Story...

by Chris Barnett, Groundwater Foundation Board Member and Indianapolis-Marion County Groundwater Guardian Team Leader

This may not seem like a groundwater story.  But it is….

A couple of years ago my wife and I started talking about a master bath remodeling project. When I went up in the attic to look behind the wall, I noticed a lot of unused space adjacent to the bathroom and the master closet. As an avid DIYer, an idea formed: I suggested the attic space could become a cedar storage closet. So the idea grew into a project, and I re-worked the master closet to install a door for attic access.

Now fully committed with a door to nowhere, I had to source the materials. I figured I’d just buy the cedar from my local big box store, but they sold thin “closet liner” material that was made to be glued or nailed into an existing closet, and I wanted something more substantial…1/2-inch tongue and groove walls and 3/4-inch tongue and groove flooring. Courtesy of Google I found a couple of sawmills that sell directly to consumers, and one of them was very interesting because of the Nebraska connection I have with the Groundwater Foundation. Here’s what I found on their website:

“The Sawle Mill buys and mills timber grown in Nebraska. Our Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is primarily harvested from the Niobrara River valley where the soil, step bluffs, and climate combine to produce exceptionally vibrant, colorful, heartwood.”

https://sawlemill.com/

https://sawlemill.com/

Curious, and interested in knowing how my choices affect the environment, I didn’t stop there. It turns out juniperus virginiana is native to the US from the Plains east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf. It is a pioneer species, which means that it is one of the first trees to repopulate cleared, eroded, or otherwise damaged land, and it is especially long-lived. (Hmm, maybe I don’t want to cause it to be cut.) But in many areas near pasture or cropland, it is considered an invasive species, even if native. It is fire-intolerant, and used to be controlled by wildfires. Especially in Nebraska, fires have been stopped with roads, plowed fields, and other fire breaks, allowing red cedar to invade and grow where it is unwanted. (Okay, invasive is bad, so I might be helping!)

https://agronomy.unl.edu/eastern-redcedar-science-literacy-project/invasion

In the Niobrara River valley of Nebraska, there is a significant connection between groundwater and the surface flows in the river and its tributaries (something I learned through the Groundwater Foundation), so invasive trees along the river valley are using groundwater while invading the banks and bottoms. And this is where the sawmill and their customers come in: harvesting and milling red cedar trees from the Niobrara Valley helps to manage the invasive species, reduces the water use by invasive trees in the valley, and makes beneficial use of the groundwater-fed trees to create jobs and income in rural Nebraska…just like Nebraska’s other ag products.

Not to mention the end-use: beautiful, useful, aromatic, and pest-free storage closets like ours!

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Chris Barnett is the Executive Director of the Lawrence Community Development Corporation, as well as the team leader for the Indianapolis-Marion County Groundwater Guardian Team, the Marion County Wellfield Education Corporation. Chris also serves on The Groundwater Foundation's board of directors. Reach Chris at cbarnett.lcdc@gmail.com.


The views expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the view of The Groundwater Foundation, its board of directors, or individual members.

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {#ThrowbackThursday with Nebraska MEDS Coalition - Drug Take Back Program}

Frannie was doing some spring cleaning this weekend and discovered a few bottles of old medications from when she had a bad cough a couple years ago.  At first, she wasn't sure what to do, but then she remembered seeing a blog a couple years ago about the Drug Take Back Program by the Nebraska MEDS Coalition! 

After a little digging, she found the blog, took her old medicines back to the pharmacy and wanted to share this information with all of you!

That's right, we're celebrating #tbt early to make sure you're properly disposing of those old pharmaceuticals and personal care products.

Happy spring cleaning!

--
Attention Nebraska friends:

Did you know that 85% of Nebraskans rely on groundwater for their drinking water? Groundwater is also an important source for irrigation (the water used to grow our food). It's not only important that we conserve groundwater, it is also important that we protect it from contamination. Groundwater contamination occurs when substances in the groundwater make it unfit for an intended purpose and can cause harm to people, animals and the environment. Contaminants can be naturally-occurring or manmade- like gasoline, oil, road salts, or other chemicals. Frannie wants to talk about another group of manmade contaminants today- pharmaceuticals and personal care products, including:

• Cleaning and laundry products
• Make-up products
• Sunscreen and other moisturizers
• Vitamins and dietary supplements
• Medicines (prescription, over-the-counter, veterinary, etc.)

Find out more about these products here.

These products help keep us healthy and clean, but if they are disposed of improperly, they can end up in surface and groundwater. Improperly disposing of medications includes: flushing down toilets and drains or tossing in the trash.

Instead, be a leader and talk with your parent/guardian about making sure these products are properly disposed of with the Nebraska MEDS drug take-back program! Remember: never handle these products. Let your parent/guardian handle all medicines and personal care products. 

The Nebraska MEDS Coalition is a group of state and community partners that educate Nebraskans about proper drug disposal and provide safe, convenient disposal opportunities! There are over 290 pharmacies across Nebraska that participate in the Nebraska MEDS drug take-back program and will take back leftover, unused, or expired medications all year round. Since 2012 when the program began, 33,176 pounds of medications have been collected and safely disposed of! Help be part of the solution and find a pharmacy near you!  

It is important that we all play a part in protecting this precious resource! Talk with your parent/guardian about protecting groundwater by taking back unused or expired medications today. Show them this fun infographic with more information.

BLOG: Skip the Straw

by Jennifer Wemhoff, The Groundwater Foundation

You're out to dinner with your family. You order a nice, cold glass of water to drink with your meal. The server brings your glass, and plunks down plastic straws for you and each of your family members. You open it without another thought, add it to your drink, and slurp away.

That straw may be convenient, but once your drink is done, that straw is part of the 500 million plastic straws used in the U.S. every single day. That's enough to fill 127 school buses or circle the earth 2.5 times. That means the average person in the U.S. will use about 38,000 or more straws between the ages of 5 and 65. 

Plastic straws don't decompose and are generally too lightweight to make it through a recycling facility's sorter, meaning they end up in a landfill for all eternity or find their way into a water body. Once they're in the water, they break down into small pieces that marine life mistake for food (71% of seabirds and 30% of sea turtles have found with plastic in their stomach). 

It's not a good situation all around.

So what can you do?

It's easy - skip the straw! Simply tell your server you don't want straws when you're dining out with your family. At home, opt for reusable straws (find some cool plastic alternatives). Ask your friends and family to do the same.
Here are some great resources to help convince you to quit plastic straws:
https://thelastplasticstraw.org/
https://www.strawlessocean.org/

BLOG: Groundwater Perspectives - Part 1

by Robert Swanson, retired Director, USGS Nebraska Water Science Center

Bob Swanson speaks at the 2017 Groundwater Foundation
National Conference.

When Jennifer Wemhoff from the Groundwater Foundation asked if I would write a blog, I thought, “This is it, I’ve made it.....I’m old!” And, yes, I just retired from a 38-year career in hydrology with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), so I guess the thought was warranted. 

As the title suggests, this is first of a series that I hope to inform the members and followers of the Groundwater Foundation on different perspectives of how groundwater has influenced my life and career.

I can even take my connection to groundwater a couple of decades further back to predate my employment at the USGS. Like the vast majority of Nebraskans, my family drank water from a domestic well and our livestock drank water supplied by windmills. However, one of my earliest memories is watching our brand new irrigation well being drilled in the early 1960s on the family farm. The first time that propane powered engine roared to life, began pulling 600 gallons per minute from the Red Willow Creek alluvial aquifer, and flowed through gated pipe and irrigation ditches was in every way a miracle to me. That well sits within a few hundred yards of the outcrop of the Ogallala formation, part of the High Plains regional aquifer system that spans parts of eight states in the Great Plains.

Irrigation didn’t make our lives any easier, just the opposite. We didn’t have a center pivot that a person could simply throw a switch and effortlessly irrigate 160 acres. No, we owned about a quarter mile of 8-inch aluminum pipe. We picked it up in the morning, loaded it onto a wagon and moved it to one of a half dozen fields in the 80 odd acres we had under irrigation. We irrigated that field through the day and night, perhaps longer if it was a large field, and the next day we repeated the task. Then the whole orchestrated routine began all over again...four, sometimes fives times during the summer. It was backbreaking work in which the entire family took part. Once the pipe was laid at the edge of the field, we would open, or set, the gates to distribute cold, clean, water to thirsty corn, milo, soybeans, and alfalfa. Our hands would be touching that water, our bare feet sank in the cool mud. My brother and sisters and I would crawl down, to us, endless rows of water flowing under a canopy of green to the other end of the field looking for and plugging gopher holes that intercepted the water from intended purpose. Yes, I have a connection to groundwater.

Irrigation didn’t make us significantly wealthier. It did, however, save us from the unpredictable and harsh penalties that drought visits on farms in the Great Plains. It helped alleviate the perpetual boom and bust crop cycles. Irrigation arguably allowed for me to go to college to pursue a career in hydrogeology. In fact, all four of the Swanson kids would attend college and become the first of our family name, that immigrated from Sweden, to do so.

Years later, my father would voluntarily retire that irrigation well as groundwater declines in our corner of Nebraska necessitated sacrifices to maintain water levels. Much of the earth that once produced grains and hay has been fallowed and returned to grassland. It remains, however, that my family and I literally owe our lives to the magic that resides in water. 

So, now you have an idea of the appreciation and reverence for which I hold this resource and what provides the backstory for future installments of this series. Next up...my relationship to the Groundwater Foundation and how it shaped a life dedicated to the study of water.

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Robert Swanson was Director of the USGS Nebraska Water Science Center (NEWSC) from 2004 until his retirement in 2017. The NEWSC has 40 dedicated water science professionals, support personnel, and students and offices in Lincoln and North Platte, Nebraska. He oversaw a science program that is managed through two sections, Hydrologic Surveillance and Hydrologic investigations. The USGS operates over 130 streamgaging stations, about 70 continuous groundwater recorders, and compiles ground-water levels for over 5,000 wells in Nebraska.  

Prior to 2004, he gained a wide range of experience in the Hydrologic Surveillance (Data) Section as a hydrologic technician and hydrologist in the Lincoln, Cambridge, Ord, and North Platte Field Offices. He served as field hydrologist for the National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program's Central Nebraska River (CNBR) Basins Study Unit research team and later as CNBR Study Unit Chief.  From 1999 to 2004, Bob was assigned to the USGS Wyoming Water Science Center as the Chief of Hydrologic Surveillance. He has also been Acting Director for both the Iowa and Missouri Water Science Centers. He has served on numerous committees for the advancement of science and technology in the USGS, as well as business practice committees.