Helicopter flight data to be shown at July 13th meeting

Last summer, Northeast Nebraska residents may have seen a low-flying helicopter with a large “spider web” array of scientific equipment towed about 100 feet below it.  The equipment is designed to map geologic structures beneath the earth.  Flights were conducted over portions of the following counties:  Cedar, Cuming, Dixon, Knox, Madison, Pierce, Platte, Stanton, and Wayne Counties.  The helicopter flew lines spaced approximately 3 miles apart over most of the area.

The Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District (LENRD) will have the final report from these flights available at their committee meeting on Thursday, July 13th at 7:00 p.m.  The meeting will be held in the Lifelong Learning Center on the campus of Northeast Community College in Norfolk.  Technicians from Aqua-Geo Frameworks, LLC, will be presenting the information discovered during the exploration of the aquifers, hundreds of feet below the land surface.

LENRD Assistant General Manager, Brian Bruckner, said, “The geologic information available from the flights will improve the district’s understanding of the available groundwater resource and potential groundwater/surface water connections in an area of the state made more complex by the presence of glacial deposits.”  He added, “Understanding these isolated aquifers will help us to protect the resource and make better management decisions in the future.”

The LENRD planned these flights with grant assistance from the Nebraska Water Sustainability Fund.  If you would like to learn more, visit the ENWRA website at www.enwra.org under the “2016 AEM flights” tab.