SEMO FAIR EXHIBITS WILL STRESS CLEAN GROUNDWATER

Protecting groundwater is an effort everyone should be involved in, believe members of the Cape Girardeau County Groundwater Committee.

To help people understanding how easily groundwater can be contaminated, the committee is sponsoring a life-size illustration of a typical Cape Girardeau County well on the sidewalk in front of the A.C. Brase Arena at the Southeast Missouri District Fair, which begins on Sunday.

The illustration was drawn, and members of the Young Americans 4-H Club colored it with chalk on Thursday. It will be left throughout fair week.

"So many people, me included until a few years ago, are unaware of what happens underground," said Martha Vandivort, an initiator of the committee, a project of the League of Women Voters of Southeast Missouri. "We want to make people aware of what happens so they will work to make our water pure."

The illustration is a vertical cross-section of a well that reveals underground components not usually seen. It also shows geological features that are the source of the groundwater pumped from drilled wells.

Contaminants, everything from runoff from cow lots to hazardous chemicals, can seep into groundwater, Vandivort said. The illustration will show how this can happen.

"We want people to realize that what they dump on top of the ground can get into well water," Vandivort said.

To help people better understand the illustration, G. Lawson Penny of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' public drinking water program and Evan Kiefer of the MDNR's Division of Geology and Land Survey will be available during the fair to answer questions.

The last five years members of the committee, who call themselves groundwater guardians, took a table-top-size well model to the fair. "But it was small," Vandivort said.

She said she hopes the large illustration will help people better visualize what is happening underground.