CASSVILLE, Mo. — Two scientists who have been working to determine the size of the recharge basin for the largest spring in Southwest Missouri will present their findings at 6 p.m. Friday in the Riverview Room at the Emory Melton Inn and Conference Center at Roaring River State Park.
Roaring River Spring discharges an average of 20.4 million gallons of water a day.
Hydrologist Ben Miller announced in January that dye-tracing tests to determine the size of the spring’s recharge basin — the area from which it draws water — are complete.
Miller, a volunteer with the Cave Research Foundation, worked with fellow volunteer Bob Lerch and current and former Roaring River State Park naturalists to determine the extent of the spring’s recharge basin.
“This effort was the first major attempt to determine what areas contribute flow to Roaring River Spring,” Miller said recently.
The two have determined the recharge area is 47.34 square miles.
“Becoming aware of the sheer scope of Roaring River Spring’s recharge area will give people an idea of how easily our water supply is affected by contaminants located miles away from it,” Lerch said.
The northwestern corner of the recharge basin is upstream of the Missouri Highway 76/86 junction, just south of Wheaton.
The dye tracing has revealed the spring’s recharge basin shares water with upper Shoal Creek, near the Highway 76/86 junction. However, dye injected into the Exeter Sinkhole, located closer to Roaring River Spring, flowed in the opposite direction, southwest toward Thomas Hollow, which feeds into Mikes Creek, a tributary of Big Sugar Creek.
Dye released in Butler Hollow, south of Seligman, showed up at Blue Spring in Arkansas. Lerch says Roaring River Spring shares a portion of its recharge basin with Blue Spring, located west of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Blue Spring is the largest spring in Northwest Arkansas.
Some of the water tested in Butler Hollow flows southwest to Blue Spring, but some goes north to Roaring River Spring.
Lerch said: “The water that goes southwest actually has to run beneath the White River in order to reach Blue Spring.”
Miller says he and the other volunteers are writing up the results of their dye-tracing studies for an upcoming issue of Missouri Speleology.