Water!

Hydrotech Ashley Rodman describes unique park geology.

I spend most workdays hiking to different places in the park to set up bat monitors but on the Natural Resources team there are several other projects ongoing.  Ashley and Kelly S. make up the Water Quality team.  Since visitors to the national park drink the thermal spring water that comes right out of the ground the park is obligated to test the water for contaminants and make sure it is safe to drink.  I got to work with Ashley for a few days collecting water quality data.  With a YSI water quality sonde we measured:

• Dissolved Oxygen
• pH
• Specific Conductivity
• Pressure
• Temperature

Kelly S. collecting a temperature probe from one of the springs

The springs dot Hot Springs Mountain and were covered several years ago to protect them from contaminants.  To prevent cross contamination each spring has it's own hose that we use to pump up a sample of water to measure.  Since the water that comes out of the springs was rainwater roughly 4,000 to 5,000 years ago and mixes with closer surface water it's important to get baseline data on the quality so that changes in the content of the water can be observed.

Dropping weighted tube into the Fordyce spring to collect a water sample.