GALENA, Ill. -- Conflicting information regarding the integrity of the land where a California dairy farmer hopes to build two 5,000-cow operations is turning "karst" into a buzz word in Jo Daviess County.
In general, karst refers to areas of irregular limestone in which erosion has produced fissures, sinkholes, underground streams and caverns.
Early last week, the Illinois Department of Agriculture was scheduled to make a decision on the applications for the two mega-dairies billed Tradition North and Tradition South. Instead, it sent letters to owner A.J. Bos asking for further information on a number of issues, including karst areas near the site.
A marketing service hired by Bos recently sent out a news release announcing that "extensive testing" of the proposed dairy sites in Nora found no evidence of karst.
"No karstified carbonate bedrock was found in an additional set of soil borings and rock corings completed on the site of the proposed Tradition Family Dairies near Nora," the release from Bos states.
The assessment did not come as comfort
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Matthew Alschuler lives and owns a business less than four miles from the proposed site. He said to his knowledge Bos' study is the only data that shows no evidence of karst.
"I think that in fairness those same studies and all of the borings should be given to the Department of Agriculture and the department should ask our state geologists to look at the results and say what they think those results show," he said.
Samuel Panno, a senior geochemist for the Illinois State Geological Survey, was asked by the Jo Daviess County Board shortly after Bos first announced his plans for the farms to compile a report regarding any possible karst features in the area. Panno later conducted further research and sent his findings to the Illinois State Attorney General's office.
"Given the thin nature of the overlying sediment and the likelihood of sinkholes on the sites, the karst aquifer underlying the proposed sites would be highly susceptible to groundwater contamination by spills/seeps of animal waste," he wrote in his report to the office.
While Panno has never visited the proposed sites, he said he was in Jo Daviess County when he helped produce a map of the state's karst areas in 1997 and has since studied aerial photographs of the site, water chemistry of wells in the area and other data. He said he found visual evidence of sinkholes nearby as well as indications that the water is easily contaminated down to considerable depths.
He said the information Bos released last week is only one piece of the karst puzzle. Drilling vertically to find vertical fractures may produce no evidence in one location and fractures just a few feet away.
"My position is that by looking at only drill core as evidence for it not being karst, you're not looking at all of the other evidence that has been done surrounding the area," Panno said.
Deep fractures can be especially harmful if livestock waste or other pollutants seep into them.
"If you have a contaminant that spills on an area that is covered with thin sediment, it can get directly into the aquifer and travel for miles in a matter of hours," Panno said.
But the Bos statement asserts that its testing shows no reason for concern.
"The additional borings were done at the request of the Illinois Department of Agriculture to a depth of more than 20 feet below the planned bottom of the livestock waste handling facilities to determine if karstified carbonate bedrock was present -- it was not," the release states.
Officials at the state department said Thursday it has not yet received a formal answer to its requests for more information from Bos.
In Illinois, the state Department of Agriculture has control over the siting of new livestock facilities, such as the ones Bos plans to construct.
Many Jo Daviess County residents publicly opposed the planned dairy operations but, like the county board, their opinions are considered recommendations to the state.
Alschuler said he is putting plans to build a new home on his land on hold.
"If this factory goes in, I will not build a house, I will not live there," he said. "I am not going to risk my family's health and my quality of life living three and a half miles away from it."
