News

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 113008 08-19-2012 11:49 PM

HARRISONBURG, Va. — Officials are trying to figure out what caused water levels to drop twice in a four-day span this summer along the Shenandoah River's North Fork.

The Daily News-Record (Sorry, no url shorteners/NNqPAK) reports the Shenandoah Riverkeeper advocacy group has sent letters asking about 800 landowners to report unusual observations about the river.

Data taken from a U.S. Geological Survey gauge near Strasburg shows the water level dropped more than 3 inches on June 29, the day a severe windstorm struck the region. The levels dropped again on July 3.

The river's level hit 1.7 feet on June 29 after being at about 2.4 feet around June 20. In the span of a few hours on June 29, the water flow went from 175 to 65 cubic feet per second.

Gauges throughout Shenandoah County and north to Winchester reported alarming water-level losses, while those in Rockingham County didn't show a severe drop.

Many towns draw water from the river, including Broadway, Timberville, Woodstock and Strasburg. Jeff Kelble, head of the Shenandoah Riverkeeper, sent out the letters to landowners and also has met with operators of water-withdrawal facilities along the North Fork.

"Nobody's ever seen anything like this," he said.

Scott Kudlas, director of water supply for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, said it's unlikely that agriculture operations using the North Fork to combat extreme heat would have caused the water levels to suddenly drop.

"It's not atypical during drought periods to see these unusual events, (but) most of the time we can explain them," Kudlas said. "In this case, it's one of those we weren't really able to find the smoking gun."

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/48...ow-Mystery

**CourtDude**

Were I betting, my money would be on a geological event, ie an earthquake openning a fissure in the riverbed and the water going there.

**Sunny**

sinky dinky hole.

**Goldilocks** · **Goldilocks** *sigh* User ID: 115608 08-20-2012 01:39 AM **Posts: 17,662**

This is not good Anon

**The Evil AC** I am not a number!!! User ID: 666 08-20-2012 02:08 AM

Sorry about that Hiding

**Emma Peel**

Sunny Wrote:

sinky dinky hole.

Sucks for them. Literally.

Quote:Notable caves

The Shenandoah Valley contains a number of geologically and historically significant limestone caves:

Crystal Caverns
Skyline Caverns
Luray Caverns, designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974
Shenandoah Caverns
Endless Caverns
Massanutten Caverns
Grand Caverns, designated a National Natural Landmark in 1973
Madison's Cave, visited by George Washington; mapped and published by Thomas Jefferson
Dixie Caverns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenandoah_Valley

**The Lucky AC** Everything in life is luck User ID: 888 08-20-2012 02:48 AM

the area is limestone
and sinkholes are common
i guess a really big one has opened up somewhere?
Hiding3

**AC488** I got no balls User ID: 488 08-20-2012 03:08 AM

fwiw
for perspective
that's about 30 miles of river
dropping 3 inches in hours
then dropping again a few days later
that water went somewhere
from harrisonburg to winchester it's about 60 miles but the length the article refers to is about 30 miles, maybe slightly more or less
it's a lot of water
has to be more than a sinkhole
that's like filling up a large underground cavern complex
Jhikpghf

**ULP UNKNOWN LUNATIC POSTER**

Dc quake now this.... Getting interesting btw do not forget the louisiana sink hole.

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 113008 08-20-2012 04:08 AM

Shouldn't there be air or gas bubbles rising up where the water is going down from the water displacing whatever was in the hole before a passageway opened? Anybody in the area looking for that?

**AC488** I got no balls User ID: 488 08-20-2012 05:01 AM

LoP Guest Wrote:

Shouldn't there be air or gas bubbles rising up where the water is going down from the water displacing whatever was in the hole before a passageway opened? Anybody in the area looking for that?

most of the area is extremely rural
it could easily go unnoticed
and that it dropped twice sounds like some kind of displacement
like perhaps a hole opened up over a cavern
as someone above noted, there are many and many more on private lands which aren't listed and difficult to guess how many have yet to be discovered
if it opened up over a cavern and that cavern is now "full" that would explain why it hasn't dropped since the initial 2 drops
but, what that's doing to structures underground remains to be seen

**ULP UNKNOWN LUNATIC POSTER**

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 115662 08-20-2012 06:10 AM

LoP Guest Wrote:

HARRISONBURG, Va. — Officials are trying to figure out what caused water levels to drop twice in a four-day span this summer along the Shenandoah River's North Fork.

OFFICIALS, OFFICIALS?

The quickest way to discover if a country is a police state or totalitarian in nature is to find how dispatches in the local media describe government employees.

America is truly a fascist state, now that lowly waterworks meter readers are being called "officials" in the local media.

OFFICIAL IS JUST A FEW LETTERS AWAY FROM OFFICER.

Soon Americunts will have to be saluting their meter readers and saying "Heil Obama".

nelson

**Son of the Widow**

They should drop a bunch of floating tracking devices in the river and see where they end up.

**............** · **............** INFP User ID: 27152 08-20-2012 06:27 AM **Posts: 15,734**

CourtDude Wrote:

Were I betting, my money would be on a geological event, ie an earthquake openning a fissure in the riverbed and the water going there.

Same region with earthquakes.
Same region with strange booming sounds.
Add water level dropping, and I'd agree that it's geologically based. Perhaps a newly opened underground cavern that is allowing the water once restricted to the river to drain into the direction of least resistance.