 When you’re walking hundreds of feet below ground, you could get lost easily. It helps when others who have gone before you have placed markers or signs that point the way.
Sometimes, a little bit of humor can help ease the nerves―like the Bullwinkle doll that someone placed on the ground in front of "Bullwinkle Boulevard." That's the name of a passageway inside one of Doug Boyer's favorite caves in Greenbrier County,West Virginia.
Boyer is an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) hydrologist who combines his job with his favorite hobby―walking for hours through caves beneath farmland.
As a hydrologist, he checks cave water for nitrate, pesticides, and other pollutants. Many people drink this water from their wells, or from springs when the water leaves caves. The information Boyer collects helps farmers find ways to keep pollutants from getting into this water.
 One farmer even went with along with Boyer on a caving trip. The farmer wanted to check out a pipe that supplied water to a well on his property.
To get to it, the farmer and Boyer crawled nearly 200 feet down, a trip that took them one and a half hours. |
