Mystery aerial ‘dreamcatcher’ helps officials find groundwater resources

A Livewire Aviation helicopter prepares to lift the Sky TEM 304 off the ground to begin surveying the area for groundwater.

Bruce Crosby/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. — A dream catcher? A new chemtrail dispenser operated by the Deep State?

“We’ve been called a lot of things, some better than others.”

The speaker is Jared Abraham, a geologist/geophysicist working for Aqua Geo Frameworks LLC, who is in charge of an operation that has generated interest and more than a few queries from Southwest Nebraska residents observing a helicopter carrying a six-sided framework at the end of a long cable.

Living in eastern Wyoming, Jared Abraham of Aqua Geo Frameworks LLC says he understands how precious water can be.

Bruce Crosby/McCook Gazette

The Sky TEM 304 device covers 304 square meters of area, but thanks to its fiberglass construction, burdens the French helicopter carrying it with only 1,300 pounds of weight. Halfway down the supporting cable hangs a small engine and generator to power the device.

Like a giant metal detector, tuned to detect the clays or sands of aquifers, the four coils in its framework send out a pulse that returns to a rear double fin-like receiver that can detect electronic signals at the pico-volt range. “So point and nine zeros,” Abraham explained.

While he hails from eastern Wyoming, his crew includes a pilot from Florida and others from places like northern Quebec, Spokane and Hawaii. The device itself is from Denmark but is being leased from a Canadian company.

The sight of a helicopter carrying an unfamiliar device around the area has generated questions.

Bruce Crosby/McCook Gazette

Always a valuable commodity, irrigation water is especially precious in light of the Republican River Compact settlement with Kansas, which is what prompted the Middle Republican Natural Resources District to seek a way to inventory its supply.

While expensive, an aerial survey turned out to be a bargain compared to the alternative, drilling many test wells around the MRNRD district.

No new irrigation can be developed under the compact, so it’s important to know what groundwater is already available, MRNRD Manager Jack Russell told the Irrigation Leader in a recent issue.

The district lacked some information to create groundwater models and “subregional watershed models,” and after drilling a few test holes, discovered Aqua Geo Frameworks could do the same job through an airborne electromagnetic survey, Alex Boyce, engineering hydrologist at the MRNRD, told the magazine.

The project is funded in part by a grant from the Nebraska Water Sustainability Fund.