Rob:  Well, moving now from water quantity to water quality.  Our Keith Smith has a look at how a new piece of equipment is helping the state get a better look at our soil, and what’s going into our groundwater.
Keith:  The hogs may be harmless, but if the lagoon started leaking it could turn into a dirty problem.
Kenny Naylor:  You could have groundwater that wasn’t drinkable, or you could have a major fish kill in a pond, or a lake.
Keith:  Drillers, like Kenny Naylor, go whereever water flows, even before they need to go.  Oklahoma Agriculture Food & Forestry’s Jack Carson says, it’s part of the state’s pledge to get to the bottom of any problem.
Jack Carson:  We take our job of protecting the environment, of
regulating agriculture very, very seriously.
Naylor:  We use the geoprobe to sample, and if there has been a contamination, then we clean that up.
Keith:  The Ag department’s newest tool, the geoprobe, has been a game-changer.
Naylor:  This machine pushes down.  It also has what we call a hammer, it kind of hits it real hard, and vibrates it, and helps it push its way down to the soil.
Keith:  Going faster and further than ever before.
Naylor:  When we were using a hand probe, you were limited to how many samples you could pull a day; two or three in a hard clay soil that was, really you know, a hard long day.
Jim Shirazi:  If we don’t hit anything real hard, we can easily go up to 60 feet.
Keith:  Soil scientist, Jim Shirazi, gets the dirt on what’s in the soil.
Shirazi:  Once you know where the pollution is, you can take care of it.
Carson:  We have some of the most qualified hydrologists, engineers, and technicians in the industry.  And this is a tool to help them do their job.
Keith:  With taking more samples comes an even better understanding.
Shirazi:  There’s no question.  You get the information on a science-specific basis; where the things are; how the geology is.
Carson:  If we have our ability to find a leak like this before it actually reaches the groundwater, we are that much better able to stop the problem before it really becomes something that will take years and years.
Keith:  Leading the way today, and tomorrow.
Carson:  We do promote agriculture.  And we are out there beating the drum for Oklahoma agriculture; not just here, but internationally.  But, we understand that if we’re going to continue to do that, we have to protect the environment.
Keith:  A daily drill, watching over our water, by going underground.