The land down under

PERRY COUNTY, Mo. -- Thousands of sinkholes riddle the Perry County landscape. The natural formations range in appearance from shallow divots in the ground to dry creek beds, from small cliffs to miniature ravines and from excavated holes to sunken hillsides the size of a football field.

The sinkholes are the result of cracks in the earth's limestone that tunnel directly into the more than 650 caves beneath Perry County.

Landowner Joe Galeski gives them little thought as he and his daughter tend to his vineyard. Most of his sinkholes are concentrated on a square mile choked with trees and underbrush.

Likewise, he gives little thought to drinking from his 390-foot well. To his knowledge, Galeski says, his well is well-constructed, and the water is not contaminated with bacteria.

In July, the Missouri Department of Conservation began a four-year study of the cave system's water quality.

For some people, sinkholes are trash cans. For others, they are septic tanks. What few people know is what goes into sinkholes could eventually end up in well water and springs, says Brad Pobst, a fisheries management specialist with the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Historically, little data exists about the cave life and the water quality in Perry County, he said.

"There's a potential that there might not be a problem at all," Pobst said. But studies might prove otherwise.

The research was prompted by the sudden disappearance in 1999 of an entire population of a cave fish called the grotto sculpin, which lives in only six caves in Perry County. The fish died out in one of the six caves and has since repopulated it.

"There's always something going into a cave, and if you see problem indicators in the fish, it's either going to be in the habitat or with water quality," Pobst said.

Eastern Perry County is home to the state's largest karst cave system, the result of water carving formations through limestone. Rainwater drains into sinkholes and into the caves' streams. From there, water could seep into the well water below the caves or resurface as a stream or creek.

Most springs will be contaminated, said Norma Pratt, an environmental health specialist with the Perry County Health Department.

"As the population is growing, we are using more water," she said. "We're putting more contaminated water back into the cave systems."

Researchers at Southeast Missouri State University have recently tested 10 surface streams in Perry County for fecal bacteria and other contamination indicators. Dr. John Kraemer, associate professor of the Environmental Science Program, said it was no surprise that agricultural runoff was present.

"The bigger surprise for us is that we found e coli counts, which means that septic systems are running off into the streams somewhere," Kraemer said. "That is not a good thing."

Most of the city of Perryville's rainwater drains into some kind of cave system, Pobst said. Most of it will go into the Crevice Cave system, which is the longest cave in the state at more than 28 miles long.

Rain carries oil, gasoline, pesticides and fertilizers into the caves, which creates a potential pollution problem, Pobst said, because there is no filtering effect.

Researchers and casual cavers say some people intentionally dump garbage and septic systems into sinkholes.

During the 1970s, Scott House of Cape Girardeau avidly explored Perry County caves before the county required rural residents to install personal septic systems.

The county was also a haven for large hog operations, where hogs wallowed in closed sinkholes full of mud and feces. In several instances, the sinkholes would open and dump the sludge into the caves, said landowner John Galeski, father of Joe Galeski.

House said he spotted "the occasional piece of toilet paper floating past and the barnyard sewage every now and then."

One of Pratt's primary jobs is to test private springs and wells on request.

As county sewer and drinking water regulations tightened over the years, requiring on-site septic systems to be installed, fewer residents dump sewage into sinkholes, Pratt said. However, some residents are not required, because they lived there before the laws were in place. Many still dump, Pratt said.

Shallow wells that run between 20 and 40 feet deep could be contaminated with fecal coliform and e coli, which are bacteria present in the intestines of warm-blooded animals. Fewer shallow wells exist today, Pratt said, because in the 1980s, the county enacted regulations on the construction of deep wells, which run deeper than 350 feet. The majority of the private deep wells Pratt has tested are well-constructed and not contaminated, she said.

The university will wrap up its 18-month study this month and submit the data gathered to the Department of Natural Resources for consideration of a grant that will allow more in-depth and long-term studies of the water quality and cave systems.

Likewise, the conservation department will apply for the grant when it completes preliminary studies.

Until then, Pobst enters a cave about once a month through a nearly vertical opening that was once a narrow sinkhole. With basic equipment, he gathers data on the cave water's acidity level, temperature, oxygen content and sediment level. High sediment and acidity level could mean that too much silt, metals, fuel or chemicals were introduced, which is not suitable for cave life such as frogs, salamanders and the grotto sculpin.

jmetelski@semissourian.com