Cavers clean sinkhole to protect Pocahontas water

Geoff Hamill
Staff Writer

More than 20 cavers descended into a sinkhole in northern Pocahontas County last week, but not for fun and adventure.

The spelunkers picked garbage out of the muddy sinkhole, near Durbin, that was used for years as a trash dump.

This is not the first time they’ve worked here, either. Basically the same group of cavers has returned five times to clean up the former dump site.

After a DEP contractor cleaned up the site in 2006, tons of buried garbage still remained.

The cavers realized the danger of the buried garbage, perhaps more than anyone else.

Spelunkers are particularly aware of how water moves underground and how a point source can pollute water over a large area. Underground rivers flow for miles, emerging above-ground as springs. Pollution can enter a subterranean system and contaminate water far from the source. The danger is greatly increased in areas of karst geology, like Pocahontas County, where the subsurface contains numerous voids like a block of Swiss cheese.

The Durbin sinkhole funnels water directly into a mostly inaccessible cave system known as pink helictite cave. The garbage clogged the funnel and polluted the water pouring through it.

Linda Tracy, geologist with the Monongahela National Forest and a member of Mountain State Grotto, a caving club in Elkins, said the club started a cleanup effort three years ago.

“This sinkhole has been full of garbage for a long time,” she said. “About three years ago, the Mountain State Grotto, which is the grotto out of Elkins, was looking around and said, ‘geesh – there’s water pouring into the sinkhole, running through garbage and into the springs.’ So the Mountain State Grotto decided to find a way to clean this up.”

The cavers made their case to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which agreed to hire a contractor to clean up the site.

“The instructions were to ‘take it down to dirt,’” said Tracy. “What nobody realized at the time was, all of the big items of garbage – tires, refrigerators, mufflers, car parts, couches – that were on the surface, were sitting on top of dirt and the dirt was not actually the bottom of the garbage.”

A sinkhole near Durbin more than three years ago, before cleanup efforts began. The state DEP cleaned several tons of surface trash from the site in 2006, but tons of buried trash remained. A dedicated group of spelunkers has returned five times to dig out and remove the buried trash. Photo courtesy of Linda Tracy

Tracy said a drainage ditch previously led directly into the sinkhole, carrying rain water and sediment that covered years of previous trash deposits. The Department of Highways has since re-routed the drainage and placed large boulders along the road to block vehicle access to the sinkhole.

Recognizing the danger of the buried trash, the cavers made it their mission to clean every bit of garbage out of the sinkhole.

“In order to accomplish the objective and remove the source of pollution to the groundwater, we needed to get all the way down through the garbage,” said the geologist.

Getting “through the garbage” would be no quick or easy task.

“This is the fifth cleanup we’ve had,” she said. “Up till now, more than two-and-a-half tons of garbage have been picked out by hand. Tens of tons were removed by the state.”

George Phillips, representing Eight Rivers Safe Development, said the dump posed a serious danger to anyone drinking from springs fed by water from the sinkhole.

Phillips led a group to a spring about 150 yards from the sinkhole, near the popular Allegheny Trail. The former garbage dump is completely out of sight from the spring and many hikers likely filled their canteens with what they thought was crystal clear spring water.

Conservationist George Phillips and National Forest employee Cynthia Sandino examine a spring near a previously garbage-filled sinkhole. Phillips said the spring water comes directly from the polluted sinkhole. Phillips and other cavers have made it their mission to clean buried garbage from the snkhole to prevent further pollution of the underground streams. G. Hamill photo

“Everybody would think, ‘look how clear the water is – it’s great clean mountain water,’” he said.

But Phillips said the water came directly from the sinkhole, which still contains toxic trash.

“It’s flowed through batteries and oil cans, which we’re still getting out,” he said.

The DEP and the US Forest Service provided supplies and vehicles and Elkins Distributing Company provided drinks for Friday’s cleanup. But the spelunkers did the grunt work.

The volunteers represented a variety of caving clubs, including the Mountain State Grotto; the Greater Randolph Organization for Speleological Science (GROSS); Eight Rivers; the Monongahela Grotto, from Morgantown and the D.C. Grotto, from Washington, D.C.

Last year, the Americorps program provided a workforce at the site, according to Tracy.

The cavers were holding a convention this weekend, the Old Timers Reunion, in Dailey, Randolph County. The event regularly attracts more than 1,000 cavers and visitors. The volunteers took an entire day out of their fun reunion activities to come pick trash out of a muddy hole.

The sinkhole is a beautiful spot now that the surface trash has been removed, but Tracy said the group’s work would not be completed on Friday. She estimated another day or two of work is necessary before the sinkhole would be completely clean.

“We’ve thought it was done every time we’ve come here,” she said. “But I think we have a lot of dirt to remove. We might be getting close to done on the far end but I don’t think we’ll be done on the deep end.”

William Dunk, district ranger for the Greenbrier Ranger District, said he greatly appreciated the hard work of the volunteers.

“I think it’s just great that they are willing to come out and spend their valuable time to help us clean up the sinkhole,” he said. “I can only commend them for coming out. I really appreciate it.”

For information on Mountain State Grotto activities, email James Van Gundy at jvg@dne.edu.