The ultimate goal of the project is to develop practices that will allow for the protection of groundwater from harmful nitrate contamination without unnecessarily reducing crop yields. The study is being conducted at Strathmere Farm, the county-owned research farm next to Strathmere Lodge. Technical assistance is being provided by the University of Calgary. There are very few sites with this level of instrumentation. Each fence is about 30 feet long and is placed at a right angle to the known flow pattern of the groundwater so that any changes must flow past it.
Tubing allows distinct samples to be taken from a variety of known depths.
By taking samples from each depth from all the columns in the line of the fence, researchers can determine what is happening through the whole upper level of the groundwater. By running the results through a computer program, an accurate picture of contaminants in the water can be graphed in an easily viewable form. While the sampling allowed the researchers to see accurately what chemicals were in the groundwater, they still needed to have a way to figure out where the chemicals came from, and how long ago they were applied. To gain this crucial piece of the puzzle, they mixed a harmless amount of potassium bromide in with the nitrogen fertilizer that was spread during planting. Since bromide is not normally found in the Strathmere area, all the researchers had to do was wait to see how long it took to show up in their samples.