Southwest Va. county starts cleaning out sinkholes

For eons, human beings have treated sinkholes as natural trash bins, where something no longer needed or wanted could be put out of sight, out of mind. But not out of nature's way. Sinkholes are created by water eroding away limestone, so they're open doors into underground drainage systems, which resurface as springs or well water. The workings of such karst areas were not widely understood until modern times, and some people still don't appreciate it.

In rural Virginia, about half the residents still get their water from springs or wells, according to Bill Keith, a district conservationist with the Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. He showed up in The Coalfield Progress this week, in a story about Wise County litter control officer Greg Cross (operating the backhoe in photo by Richard Jessee) starting a tough job that few local governments are willing to tackle: cleaning out sinkholes.

"Wise County workers, along with helpers from Buchanan, Dickenson and Russell counties’ litter control departments and inmates from the regional jail in Duffield, pulled several truckloads of twisted, rusting metal out of the sinkhole and away from the valley’s water table," Jodi Deal reports. "Removed from the sinkhole were three vehicles, including an old Volkswagen Beetle and a 1958 Chevy. Workers also found countless eroding gas tanks, mattresses, box springs, water heaters and other large items. Putting those kids of items — particularly the cars and gas tanks — in a sinkhole is very dangerous behavior, Bill Keith explained." (Read more; subscription required)