Cavechat.org

fortunately we have already been to both those caves Bill. With the purchase of CRV by the State and the IKC gating of Endless as a "bat" cave and WNS on the horizon I wouldn't hold your breath on anyone seeing either of them again soon

Someone asked about the flush in Doghill Donahue. During the NSS Convention in 1973, I was leading a trip into Doghill. We were not too familiar with the cave, and we were in maybe an hour or so. Previously, we heard some whisper of water, sewage.. laugh laugh, but we didn't hear the whole thing. Then deep in the cave, we noticed a funny smell. A short time later, the water levels began to rise. The smell wasn't exactly like sewage, but it wasn't good either. Each of us decided that standing in the water was not a good idea, and we needed to quickly exit the cave. We stemmed the walls and sometimes the walls were far apart. Nevertheless, we did some amazing rock climbing moves to stay out of the water. One of us decided to brave the effluent to aid in a quickly exit the cave. We were able to exit the cave without any problem. The person who waded through the water suffered no post traumatic syndrome. I don't remember a culvert leading into the cave at that time. At no time, did we see enough water to concern us about flooding, but we were in walking passages and had not gone through anything small. If I recall correctly, the water rose about 1-2 feet. Perhaps that is enough to cause a serious problem in some areas of the cave.

One question is why is this wastewater treatment plant allowed to discharge effluent into local streams and specifically through a cave? Doesn't the local regional water quality control board have an interest in this?