Dr. Ralph Ewers has for many years applied his highly-sought expertise to water contamination projects nationwide.

Now, citizens closer to home have reason to thank the long-time EKU earth sciences professor.

Days after a Marathon Ashland pipeline ruptured and spilled about 500,000 gallons of crude oil - the biggest pipeline spill ever in Kentucky -- into the Clark County countryside in January 2000, company officials requested the services of Ewers, who has extensive experience with areas marked by a karst environment: limestone subsurface, underground springs, sinkholes, etc. His mission: to determine if the spill endangered the municipal water supply from a nearby reservoir.

His final report, presented to state officials this fall, confirmed that the municipal water supply was not adversely affected. Dye tracer investigations conducted by Ewers and graduate students in cooperation with Marathon Ashland Pipe Line and BHE Environmental Inc. at three locations revealed that the crude oil release probably affected groundwater only along the unnamed tributary of Twomile Creek where overland flow of the oil occurred and that adjacent valleys and that domestic wells appeared to be unaffected.

"We monitored all the springs and wells within miles for the dye," Ewers said. "Dye can be detected when it's one part per trillion. That's like one second in 6,000 years."

That's why Ewers can say "with great confidence that there was no impact and will be no impact outside the immediate valley and that the Winchester water supply was not and will not be affected."

And that's good enough for Joe Ray, with the Groundwater Division of the Kentucky Division of Water. "(Ewers) is certainly an international expert on karst water flow," Ray said. "Whenever he gets called in, I'm confident we'll learn what we need to learn."

Pami Sandhu, a project manager with Marathon Ashland, called Ewers "a great resource. We were fortunate to have him on the site."

Ewers credited the minimal long-term impact to the quick and "absolutely amazing" response of Marathon Ashland to clean up the spill.

Much as he has done through the years with dozens of similar projects, particularly in the Mammoth Cave and Fort Campbell areas, Ewers involved two graduate students in the Clark County project. One, Project Manager Peter Idstein, is pursuing a doctorate degree in geology in a joint doctoral program with the University of Kentucky, where Ewers is on the graduate faculty. EKU graduate student Kevin DeFossett, Louisville, also assisted. Some undergraduate students also were involved "peripherally," Ewers noted, but gained even more from class discussions revolving around the spill.

"It is a real interest simulator," Ewers said. "These practical problems, these applied situations are just the sort of thing out students will be involved with in the workplace. They see how emergency response people work and how we integrate our understanding of geology with that operation. They come to understand the delicate nature of a spill like this, the public relations involved as well the technical aspects related to groundwater flow. They see how an investigation is supposed to work. It's hands-on, applied science."

Idstein, who earned his master's degree in geology at EKU, called the experience "a spectacular opportunity to see an extremely large project from beginning to end. It supports but goes beyond what you experience in the classroom. Being able to see something in the field can't be compared to viewing it on a slide."

It was a Ewers-taught class where Idstein first "fell in love with karst and groundwater problems." Of course, it's hard for a student not to get excited when the professor speaks from such an abundance of first-hand experiences.

"All my research keeps me current," Ewers said. "It keeps me in touch with technological advances that are pertinent to my field, as well as their direct impact on groundwater studies. It provides a wealth of examples that I can sneak into lectures, and that's invaluable in the classroom. The students know I haven't just read about it."