Chapter 11
Thursday, 2 December, 05:30
"You'll be drilling the well today, Jack?"
"More correctly, Sarah, I'm 'jetting' the well because I'm using a jet of water - from the pressure washer - to make that hole."
"Yes, Mister Shadetree Engineer."
"If someone else hears you say 'drill' and 'well' in the same sentence, they'll think I have the truck with the tall derrick on the back and can drill wells several hundred feet deep. The dowser was very specific about which areas of the property went to bedrock and which areas had sand or gravel water-bearing layers. I'll be working in his 'mostly sand' area where a 'sand point' well - or a DIY jetted well - is possible."
"The same as 'measure twice; cut once'?"
"Same idea - be in the right place before taking action. The dowser's map is very specific in directions in degrees and measured distances in feet and inches from more-or-less-permanent objects such as the foundation corners of the house and barn. I'll measure to be working in the center of that area."
"You said 3GPM?"
"Could be better but it depends on the water table and the type of material at that level. Bob Hanson obviously thought it was a good location as he guaranteed 3GPM if he drilled and primed the well - or no charge. Great deal at the time if private wells had been legal. I expect Bob will be busy for quite a while now that County Water is officially dead for months and people are again allowed to have wells. If I do the work, we should have a well today. No guarantees but I'll hope that the water table here hasn't changed since Morgan Lake started going dry. I guess it's possible for the local water table to be a little higher with multiple millions of gallons disappearing somewhere underground over the past month."
"How many millions of gallons?"
"Let me think. From memory, Morgan Lake covered about 50 acres at an average depth of about 25 feet and that gives us 1250 acre-feet of water. A quick check online tells me there are 325,851 gallons in one acre-foot so a ballpark number of something over 400 million gallons of water were in the lake. Most of that water has now run into the caves and mines and run out of any drainage outlets those areas may have. Any future rain or runoff will reach the lake's bottom and run out in the same manner until either the caves are filled or the holed end of Morgan Lake is patched or dammed off."
"So you'll only be digging 20 feet?"
"No, I'll go with Bob's number and take the hole down 30 feet to allow for seasonal variations in the water table. I have ten feet of the slitted sand point pipe to filter out the sand from whatever amount of water is down there. We'll start with his 3GPM assumption and that means we'll need to use the 150 gallon tank as in-house storage to always have water available. If the well delivers 8 to 10GPM, we could have two showers and the dishwasher running at the same time if I set up separate pumps for the kitchen and each bath."
"You could do that?"
"If
www.goldmine-elec-products.com still has the Rule IL280PG submersible pumps or something similar in stock, I can have them in a week or so. Cost is about $35 each including tax and shipping. I'm not aware of the internet, USPS or UPS being down, even if this county seems to be headed for third world status without clean drinking water."
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Ring! Ring!
'This is Jack.'
'Jack, it's Tom. We've opened up one entrance of the cave system and I could use your expertise if you're available.'
'Now?'
'If possible.'
'What gear should I bring?'
'Mostly your knowledge, but a spelunking setup would be helpful if you think a first-hand look would be better than my pictures.'
'Which entrance?'
'Off the parking lot on the North end of the lake.'
'About an hour OK?'
'I'm burning your time, so whatever works for you.'
'See you as soon as I'm kitted up.'
"You're headed where, Jack?"
"The caves under Morgan Lake. Tom Logan wants an opinion."
"You'll be exploring the caves?"
"He said to come prepared to do so if his pictures didn't provide enough info."
"Our well is delayed?"
"At least until after lunch. We have rain in the forecast for the afternoon and most of the day tomorrow, so that delay might be until Saturday afternoon. I won't be working on the well in the rain because that rain will be filling the big tank and we'll have some amount of running water as soon as I run the pipe from that tank to the house - maybe bury the pipe Saturday afternoon and start on the jetted well Sunday morning?"
"You do well with instant revisions to your work schedule."
"I had lots of practice in my former job."
"So you did."
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"Well, Jack? Evidence of old mining techniques or something else?"
"Definitely pick and shovel for about twenty feet in from the original entrance. Then what may have been hammer and star chisel work drilling holes for black powder, then dynamite, then more modern explosives put in place using a more powerful modern boring tool - maybe some type of hydraulic-powered drill mounted on a mini skidsteer starting about here? The mine shaft slopes down as it heads under the lake. I want some small chips from the walls and ceiling for assay. You can get the assay done quietly?"
"Absolutely."
"How much dynamite or C4 is needed to create a 2.8 on the Richter scale?"
"Not much... You think someone was mining down here that late at night and got too close to the lake bed?"
"No one at the lake after 8PM unless by special arrangement. Commission Chairman Lemuel Lepinski's family has 'always' been well off and his great-great-grandfather founded The Bank of Cherokee County. We need to check some property records going back well before the river was dammed and Morgan Lake created. Who owned which property and what did the deeds say about mineral rights?"
"You think there's gold down there?"
"More likely silver or something else, based on the historic mine info I've read about this area - the state's history tells us that the Confederate Army made bullets from lead mined in this county."
"OK. I know there are diamonds for the picking on the surface in Arkansas..."
"You're the 'ground layers' guy. What's the structure here and what valuable thing might be found up to 90 feet below the surface?"
"Looks like I have some research to do, but your 'lead mine' reference makes me think 'silver mine' as silver is often found with lead or copper or antimony. I have a couple of grad students who are curious about the area so I'll give them the task of running down property records in the dusty boxes in the basement of the County Courthouse. There's nothing newer than 50 years in digital format - the County Commission 'didn't think it was worth the cost to go back any further'."
"The entire Commission or just Lepinski?"
"That's also worth searching in the minutes of the Commission meetings where that was discussed."
"I'm bringing you to the 'spook' way of thinking?"
"Maybe it's just that you're pointing out what should be obvious. Lepinski inherited that big farm but all they raise appears to be enough corn, oats and alfalfa to feed their fancy horses. I doubt that the income from a small bank covers all their expenses. The County Extension Service might have records of who was growing what and when?"
"They probably have at least some narrative comments, if not official records with actual numbers of bushels or bales."
"How far back do the County Assayer's Office records go?"
"That office was closed about 1960 because 'it was no longer needed' per the County Commission and the records were boxed and moved to the basement of the courthouse."
"Maybe there's work for another grad student?"
"Maybe more than one. I have a Czur page scanner with a foot-operated 'scan' switch so two of them could scan a lot of documents in a day - one looking through the docs for names and locations and the other scanning any potentially useful docs."
"Remember to check for any name related to the Lepinski family - wife's maiden name, mother's or mother-in-law's maiden name, daughter's husband's name, son's wife's maiden name and so forth through each tree."
"Most of the Commission members appear to be proud of their families' long histories in the county so they have at least a five generation genealogy chart in the 'About Us' page online. Those other names should be easy to come by and each researcher will get a printed list in alphabetic order by first and last names."
"Then answer me this Tom: why are we in a dark, damp, cold cave in December?"
"Only until we can get back to the entrance. Thanks for the help, Jack. We keep this quiet until we have a solid case?"
"Yes. Until we know all the family connections to local law enforcement and the local judicial system. This is at least a State Bureau of Investigation case and it might be FBI. Would dynamiting the lake which powers a hydro plant be 'domestic terrorism' and a case for the FBI and/or Homeland Security?"
"Sounds like a good question for my friend who's the FBI's AIC in the next state. He's from New Hampshire, so I don't think he has any connections here. Based on your frown, we'll check his ancestry against those of the commissioners."
"Good choice."
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"You're back, Jack. The dust and 'sparkles' on your jacket tell me you were underground. Supper will be ready in ten minutes, so go wash up and change clothes and you can tell me while we eat."
"Sounds good, and 'while we eat' is a good time as it's a long story."
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"You said there were dead fish in the water?"
"That definitely points to Morgan Lake emptying out into the tunnels of that mine or possibly more than one mine - we may need a lot more exploration. Tom will have some grad students doing research in old dusty boxes of paper records in the Courthouse basement to look for assayer's records, old land records and anything else that might point to who has mineral rights where."
"Too much explosive that was too close to the roof of the mine/bottom of the lake?"
"That's the conclusion Tom and I came to. Keep it quiet; we'd like to get the FBI or Homeland Security involved in arresting whoever did that blasting. I don't know that the Lepinski family can cover the cost of a new dam at the North end of Morgan Lake but if they're the ones who've been mining down there, might they find it worth a million dollars a years to not be in prison? I'd guess the minimum sentence might be 30 years and $30 million could be a good start on design and construction."
"Making the punishment fit the crime - I love it! When will we know?"
"Tom took some pieces from the mine ceiling and walls for assay. That should tell us what they were mining. If there's a way to get to the hole at the North end of the lake, maybe see what's under that area and see if an explosion occurred there and get more samples?"
"Sounds good. When will you know more?"
"Whenever Tom does. Might be days to months."
"Then we wait."
"And work on finishing the barn's water collection system - and anything else we think may be needed with County Water possibly off for months."
"I made a list while you were working outside."
"Thank you."
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