KWI Newsletter

Fall 1992
Volume 1, No. 2

Slow and Steady Progress for the Karst Waters Institute
The Federal Government Gets Involved in Cave Research
KWI Gets Grant
KWI to Sponsor Conference on Breakthroughs in Geomicrobiology
Karst Waters Institute Expands Its Publicity Campaign
Karst Hydrology Atlas of West Virginia
Karst Waters Institute Annual Meeting
KWI Board of Directors Address and Phone List
Mission Statement for the Karst Waters Institute
Goals of the Karst Waters Institute
Objectives of the Karst Waters Institute

SLOW AND STEADY PROGRESS FOR THE KARST WATERS INSTITUTE

Dr. John Mylroie, President, Karst Waters Institute

The Karst Waters Institute has continued to move forward since the last report on progress in volume I, number 1 of the Karst Waters Institute Newsletter. Progress has been slow, but continuous. Considering the uncertain economic and political climate in the United States this past year, our progress has been significant. The KWI has advanced on several fronts, and much of that is reported in the various articles that follow. The KWI is sponsoring a major conference on the role of bacteria in karst processes; progress continues on the Karst Hydrology Atlas of West Virginia; the KWI is centrally involved in an effort to establish a federal aspect of cave and karst research; the KWI has obtained funding to support short courses on cave biology and karst hydrology.

The Karst Waters Institute still has a major hurdle to pass, and that is to locate a continuing source of funding to maintain KWI operations and meet the many KWI objectives. The fund raising effort initiated in the last Newsletter has been very successful. The KWI Board of Directors came through and met the challenge I had placed before them. Numerous others came forward and made substantial contributions. These funds have been used to keep the KWI operating and to seed a number of projects. The KWI now has a logo and materials to aid in promoting the goals of the KWI. The KWI is exploring a number of avenues to build itself up to a self-sustaining organization. Any contributions towards this end are welcomed, be they funds or ideas on how to obtain funding.

The KWI continues to work with governmental agencies, industry, private individuals, and other not-for-profit organizations to educate about karst science and to assist in solving pressing scientific problems in karst areas. The KWI is currently affiliated with the Friars Hole Karst Preserve and the Michigan Karst Conservancy. The KWI interacts with the National Speleological Society, the Cave Research Foundation, and the American Cave Conservation Association. The KWI is in contact with numerous karst scientists in other countries as well as almost all karst scientists in the United States. The KWI hopes to establish communication between as many groups and individuals with an interest in karst as is possible.

As President of the Karst Waters Institute, I can best move forward with the goals of the Institute if I have as many human resources as possible. Many of the readership of this newsletter have been a continuing source of ideas, suggestions, comments and criticisms that have been of great value to the KWI. Please keep your input coming and help move the KWI ahead in 1993.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GETS INVOLVED IN CAVE RESEARCH

The late 1980's were a very interesting time for cave and karst work in the United States. Two events have conspired to involve the federal government in cave and karst research. One was passage of the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act (FCRPA) of 1988. For better or for worse, this put the federal government in a pro-active role with respect to caves. By their own admission, the federal agencies don't know enough about caves and karst to carry out the mandate of the law. A second event was the discovery and exploration of Lechuguilla Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, perhaps one of the most significant caves ever found from both a scientific and an explorational viewpoint. The cave has gained unprecedented recognition in the public consciousness, highlighting caves and karst overall. The publicity from Lechuguilla and the concern over the FCRPA generated some interest in cave resources and research within the federal government.

In 1990, the New Mexico congressional delegation sponsored a law, subsequently passed, that directed the National Park Service to establish a National Cave Research Institute. No funding, however, was appropriated, but the NPS was directed to study the feasibility of such an institute and report back to Congress. Many people in the karst community who had heard about the proposed institute were of the opinion that the issue would die. However, some funding was allocated by the Park Service for planning, and things began to move forward in mid-1992.

A workshop was sponsored by the Park Service in Albuquerque, New Mexico on August 18-20, 1992 to develop the initial plans for the National Cave Research Institute (NCRI). KWI Board member Dr. Arthur Palmer was asked to attend, but could not, however KWI President Dr. John Mylroie was able to get invited as Dr. Palmer's substitute to present the KWI's experience and background on the issue. The workshop consisted of a mix of Park Service superintendents, resource specialists and managers, and cave scientists from a variety of settings. The Park personnel were drawn mostly from the Southwest District of the NPS, with a few other westerners on hand. The scientists were also mostly from the west (Harvey Duchene, Carol Hill, John McClean, Tom Miller, Diana Northrup and Mike Queen). John Mylroie was the only person from east of the Mississippi River, other than Jeff Bradybaugh from Mammoth Cave. Mylroie was also the only person present currently in an academic setting.

Dr. Mylroie was asked to give a talk about other karst institutions for 30 minutes on the first day (August 18). He used the opportunity to explain about the KWI, and the past four years of work the KWI had put into just this topic. Dr. Mylroie gave out some new handouts as well as volume 1, number 1 of the KWI Newsletter that helped explain the KWI initiative. For the next day and a half, the attendees basically re-invented the wheel, looking at a variety of options and avenues, before settling on what is very similar to the KWI ideal. It took a lot of effort on the part of the scientists present to keep the proposed NCRI from becoming a bureaucratic nightmare. The key issues were site, organization, staffing and facilities.

Site: This topic kept coming up before the workshop leaders had gotten the group to define what sort of institute was wanted. The initial proposal was to consider four sites, all national parks: Carlsbad, Black Hills, Buffalo National River, and Mammoth Cave, although technically, any site could be considered. All the proposed sites suffered from being remote field locations, the type of settings the Europeans had advised the KWI to avoid back at the first proto-KWI meeting in November of 1988. However, there were some realities that had to be faced, the biggest of which was that the New Mexico congressional delegation wanted this institute at Carlsbad. Many attendees initially recoiled from the Carlsbad location, but as they thought about it some more, the idea was bought up of how nice it would be to get the NCRI established where it was actually wanted - no other politician or group had showed any interest. It was pointed out to the attendees what had happened to the Florida Sinkhole Institute. It had failed in part because it had no political constituency on site to fight to keep it alive. During the course of the discussions, other interesting details surfaced: the local people wanted the institute to be in Carlsbad; there was a two year junior college in Carlsbad (affiliated with New Mexico State University in Las Cruces); and a newly formed environmental research institute (to, among other things, provide baseline data for the WIPP site), with a federal budget of about $27 million was going into Carlsbad. Modern means of electronic communication make site isolation less of a burden than it was just 10 years ago. Of the four sites, Carlsbad had another advantage in short (relative) drives to gypsum karst, alpine karst, and lava pseudokarst as well as its own unique karst. The final recommendation of the group was to endorse Carlsbad.

Organization: The key here was to recommend utilization of an existing Park Service program called the CPSU (Cooperative Park Studies Unit) which is used to form linkages with academic institutions to obtain necessary research skills and personnel. The advantage of a CPSU is that it allows subcontracting of an entity like the NCRI through an academic unit. This makes the resources of an academic unit available at the same time providing some distance from government bureaucracy. The plan was that the NCRI would participate as a funding agency, providing grants and contracts for scientific cave and karst research, both basic and applied, on both federal and private lands. Developing a centralized cave and karst data base will be an important aspect of the NCRI mission.

Staffing: There was much discussion here, the big issue being whether the NCRI itself would conduct research, or would it merely act as an information and data repository, and a research funding agency (read: bureaucracy). The argument was successfully made that the NCRI would have no credibility if it wasn't staffed by active scientists who made the decisions on how the NCRI operated. The NCRI would have a Chief Scientist or Director, a "Mr/Ms. Outside" who promoted the NCRI, visited the politicians, federal agencies, etc., and a Program Director, a "Mr/Ms. Inside" who stayed mostly at the NCRI and made sure the place functioned. After that come the following staff scientists: archaeologist, biologist, geologist, hydrologist, and resource specialist. These were placed in the GS rank of 12 to 14 (38-70k). Then came some technicians and administrative types to handle contracts, budget, secretarial work, computer operation, etc.

Facilities: Between the CPSU status with one or more universities, and the appearance of a big, new sophisticated lab in Carlsbad (the $27 million environmental lab), the facilities issue was easier to deal with. The NCRI will try to avoid much of the expense of facilities by subcontracting out to other's equipment. A laboratory will be established at the NCRI, but it didn't sell to some of the group until it was suggested to use it for teaching and in-service training of Park personnel in addition to on-site research. At the moment it appears the plan will call for the NCRI to have ample office, computer, GIS, and lab space to function well. Some meeting space will be on site, but for sponsored conferences, etc., available teaching space (such as the junior college) will be used. Vehicles and some equipment will be available. After much discussion, it was decided that the NCRI won't get into the dormitory business, and housing for visiting scientists and students will be coordinated by the NCRI using local resources, and it will be cheaper in the long run to financially support this tack as opposed to building the NCRI's own housing.

The key to the NCRI will be how (and if) the enabling legislation is written, and how the subsequent agreements forming the CPSU are written. If this is done carefully, an entity much like KWI will appear. The initial plans for the NCRI call for $500,000/year of grant money to disperse - this would go a long way to upgrading cave and karst research in the U.S. Visiting scientists, graduate student support, travel funds, etc., are all included in the working budget as well as staff salaries and fringes. Bricks and mortar money was not discussed, but will be included unless an existing structure is bought or leased.

At a point near the end of the workshop, John Mylroie was asked how he felt, and he said "Great, I think." The NCRI, if established, would do much of what the KWI has set out to do. Therefore, what use was the KWI? The response was that the KWI could be an important recipient of NCRI funds, especially as it was centered in the east where most caves are on private land. The NCRI will have a prime function to deal with federal lands first, and many felt that a private foundation, like the KWI, would be the best way to deal with caves and karst research in the eastern U.S.

The Park Service people who ran the workshop will now take all the assembled notes and write up a draft report, which the workshop attendees will review and comment on. This process may go through a couple of iterations. Then a final document will be produced, go up the chain of command, and get submitted to Congress for passage (with requested funding) in the late spring or early summer. Who knows what, if anything will be in that final bill? Who knows if it will pass, especially given the deficit and the change in government? The point is that something is going on, and the KWI has input into the process and can perhaps expect a return at the end. A draft report was to be produced in October. As of mid-November, 1992, no further word had emerged from the National Park Service regarding draft reports or any other progress. With the change in Presidents, we may expect a more liberal environmental outlook, but at the same time there is a strong need to reduce the deficit. At this point all the KWI and its friends can do is stay alert and stay tuned.

KWI GETS GRANT

The Karst Waters Institute has been awarded a grant of nearly $6,000 from the Cave Conservancy of the Virginias for the purpose of conducting the First Annual Karst Hydrology Mini Camp and the Third Annual Cave Biology Mini Camp in southern West Virginia in the summer of 1993. This ongoing project provides an educational opportunity for serious cavers and is an important link to the caving community. The Second Annual Cave Biology Camp was run at the WVACS field station near Lewisburg, WV on August 22-23 by KWI Board member Dr. David C. Culver of American University and KWI Planning and Advisory Committee member Dr. Horton H. Hobbs of Wittenberg University. The camp attracted 28 cavers and was extremely successful (for a participant's response to the camp, see Hoke, R., 1992, Leave No Stone Unturned - or - Cavorting With Cave Life: DC Speleograph, v. 48, no. 9, p. 16.). KWI Board member William Jones will teach a Karst Hydrology course this coming summer as an addition to the course taught last summer by Drs. Culver and Hobbs (referred to by last year's participants as Calvin and Hobbs). The course developers hope that this type of activity can serve as a model for additional KWI projects. The courses combine slide lectures with ample field work to provide serious cavers with an important educational opportunity. Cavers are a critical resource for cave science, and the more we can help them to observe the caves through which they pass, the better science we will be able to do in the future. We also may be able to recruit the cream of the cavers into the cave sciences. The camp program was run with a liability insurance program, which will be utilized in the next camps. Such an insurance program has implications not only for protecting the course instructors and participants, but for future access to scientifically valuable caves that are currently closed because of owner concerns about liability.

KWI TO SPONSOR CONFERENCE ON BREAKTHROUGHS IN GEOMICROBIOLOGY

Rationale

Over the past several years it has become clear that a topic of increasing interest among cave and karst scientists is the role of microorganisms in both geological and biological karst processes. Joint teams of American and Romanian scientists have identified a subsurface karst ecosystem near the Black Sea that is chemoautotrophic, i.e., using the chemical energy of sulfide bonds rather than the energy of sunlight as the primary energy source. The remarkable discoveries of new minerals and new speleothems in Lechuguilla Cave raise many questions concerning the role of microorganisms in deposition of sulfates and carbonates in this environment. In many karst areas in the eastern United States, environmental contamination and the concomitant problems of reduced carbon and microbially-mediated transformations are becoming increasingly important topics of concern. In carbonate islands, the activity of bacteria in the mixing zone between fresh and salt water has become a prime focus of investigation into the development of porosity and permeability in carbonate aquifers and oil reservoirs. Thus biologists and geologists now share an interest in microbially-mediated oxidation/reduction reactions and their roles in ecosystem function, production of geologic features, and chemical transformations in general.

Given this common ground that unites karst biologists, geochemists, geologists, hydrologists, and geomorphologists, and the recent upsurge of interest in microbiology of karst processes, the KWI has proposed an interdisciplinary conference on the microbiology of karst, more specifically, the geomicrobiology of oxidation/reduction reactions in karst terrains. The conference will be interdisciplinary both because it will cut across the traditional disciplines of the geological and biological sciences, and because it will involve scientists who have traditionally worked on cave and karst problems within their discipline and those who have not. The title of the conference will be: Breakthroughs in Geomicrobiology.

Structure of the Conference

Overall, the conference will be three days in length. The first and third days will be devoted to keynote addresses, and invited and volunteered papers. On the evening of the first day there will be a poster session and reception. The second day will be devoted to a field trip as well as workshops on field and laboratory techniques. Topic session chairs will in most cases give the first presentation of each session. The possibility of publication of the symposium papers is being explored, perhaps as a special issue of a journal. The field trip will involve an examination of the unusual chemistry of mineral springs in Colorado Springs and nearby Manitou Springs, and a trip to nearby Cave of the Winds, Colorado, for a look at some of the results of karst processes interacting with microbiology.

The Karst Waters Institute is sponsoring the conference with cooperation from programs at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. The KWI is interested in obtaining cooperation from other groups and institutions. The Conference Chair is Dr. David C. Culver of the Department of Biology at American University in Washington, D.C. Dr. Arthur N. Palmer of the Department of Earth Science, State University College at Oneonta, Oneonta, NY is chairing the Program Committee, along with Drs. Tom Kane, Janet Herman, and Carol Wicks. Dr. Louise Hose, of the Department of Geology and Applied Earth Sciences at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, CO is in charge of local arrangements. Fund Raising and Finance for the conference is being handled by Dr. Jack Hess of the Water Resources Center, Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, NV, with assistance from Dr. Philip LaMoreaux of P. E. LaMoreaux and Associates, Tuscaloosa, AL. Dr. Ira Sasowsky of State College, PA is in charge of Publications. If any reader of this newsletter is interested in participating in this conference, or more importantly, wishes to offer some assistance, please contact the appropriate individual.

KARST WATERS INSTITUTE EXPANDS ITS PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN

The KWI has produced a logo that will be the official stamp of the Institute. This logo is now on official KWI stationary, and will be used on all KWI promotional material. In addition, the KWI will shortly be sending to the printers a brochure that will use text, figures and photographs to explain the mission, goals, and objectives of the Institute. The KWI has also produced short vitae that detail the expertise of the KWI Board members in the fields of biology, geochemistry, hydrology, geomorphology, etc. These short vitae can be included on a selective basis in a pocket in the back of the new brochure, to specifically target the needs of entities that may choose to participate with the KWI in its karst initiatives. Board member Dr. Janet Herman directed this project.

KARST HYDROLOGY ATLAS OF WEST VIRGINIA

Interest in both the Karst Hydrology Atlas of West Virginia and the U.S. National Karst Map has been high. The West Virginia Association for Speleological Studies (WVASS) cave data base has been obtained and updated. Some field work has been accomplished in Hardy and Hampshire Counties to fill in important missing data. Bob Gulden and others working on the Pendelton County Cave Survey have sent a copy of their cave data base to the KWI. This data is now being entered into the Atlas data base. The data entry has been done by William Balfour, with over 3000 entries to date. His efforts are deeply appreciated. Jian Chen of the University of South Florida and Dr. Neven Kresic from Yugoslavia have sent outlines and suggestions concerning mapping classifications used in projects in China and Yugoslavia. Several sponsors have expressed interest in providing major funding for the Atlas, and work continues to fully support the project. A few preliminary numbers from the WVASS data base may be of interest. Chart 1 shows the number of reported caves from selected West Virginia counties in cave surveys dated 1949, 1965, 1974, and the current (1992) data base. A lot of these "caves", while short from the exploration viewpoint, may turn out to be significant in deliniating subsurface flow paths. Chart 2 shows the Greenbrier County cave list by total number, and by number of caves longer than 32, 300, and 3000 feet. Most state surveys have some minimum length or depth requirement for karst features to be listed as caves. A value of 10 m may end up being the cutoff point for the Atlas. A consensus for a national atlas may be more difficult to obtain. As noted above, the size of a karst feature as determined by exploration may not be relevant to the actual role the feature played in past or present hydrology. One of the functions of this KWI project is to try and remove this "explorational bias" from the data base, so that hydrologically significant features are not dismissed from the record. Chart 3 shows the distribution of caves in West Virginia.

KARST WATERS INSTITUTE ANNUAL MEETING

The Annual Board Meeting of the Karst Waters Institute Board of Directors has been tentatively scheduled for March 6 and 7, 1993 in Charles Town, West Virginia. KWI President, John Mylroie, will entertain suggestions concerning specific topics for Board discussion on the meeting agenda. Individuals interested in the mission, goals and objectives of the Karst Waters Institute should contact Dr. Mylroie if they wish to submit ideas, comments or criticisms.

KWI Board of Directors Address and Phone List

Mission Statement of the Karst Waters Institute

To improve fundamental understanding and increase knowledge of karst water systems for more effective management of water resources, and to assist in the education of professionals and the public.

Goals of the Karst Waters Institute

1.  
2. Interdisciplinary karst research.
   
3. Advance scientific knowledge by fostering state-of-the-art karst research.
   
4. Solution of environmental and land use problems in karst regions.
   
5. Education.
   

Objectives of the Karst Waters Institute

Establish basin-wide approaches to karst research.

Promote collaborative research through a program of resident and visiting scientists.

Develop long-term karst studies.

Increase karst research funding.

Cooperative graduate education with degree-granting institutions.

Publication of research in leading journals in each discipline, as_well as in karst journals.

Sponsor national and international conferences and symposia,

Develop new techniques and methods in karst research.

Cooperate with the public and private sector on prevention and solution of karst problems.

Develop a National Karst Library and Data Base.