by Scott Schrage | University Communication and Marketing
Finding could guide sampling of groundwater for contaminant linked to health issues
Oh, we don’t have to worry about that area. They have red pivots.
On its face, the anecdote was clear enough. The “red” in question, Troy Gilmore knew, was rust. The pivots, meanwhile, were center pivots: elevated irrigation piping that rotates around a central point to distribute water in circular patterns most evident from 30,000 feet, where irrigated crops resemble massive green checkers crowding the pastoral checkerboard of the Corn Belt.
As for the worry? That would be nitrate, a fertilizer-derived compound that can leach into groundwater and, if consumed above certain concentrations via drinking water, pose threats to human health.
Still, the associate professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln found the offhand comment a bit surprising. Even with his extensive background in hydrology, Gilmore had never heard of any connection between rusty pivots and groundwater nitrate. But Marty Stange, the environmental supervisor with Hastings Utilities, was in the middle of explaining a reverse-osmosis water treatment facility that had recently gone into operation.
So Gilmore continued listening, filing the curiosity away in his head. Eventually, he would mention it to his then-doctoral advisee, Mikaela Cherry, who was working toward her doctorate in the School of Natural Resources.
“We’re like, ‘You know what? We should really look into that,’” recalled Cherry, who earned her doctorate from Nebraska U in December 2021. “‘Is that a thing? Where there are red pivots, there’s no nitrate?’”
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More details at: https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/rust-coated-irrigation-pipes-hint-at-lack-of-nitrate-in-groundwater/