Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise

By Loring Bullard © Watershed Press Design by: Kelly Guenther Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise

By: Loring Bullard

Introduction

It is a bragging right that may be as old as This property of springs—their sudden land ownership itself. “I have a spring on my and hitherto unexplainable appearance— place that never runs dry.” The intimation is adds to their mysterious aura. Among that of all the springs around, there is some- our ancestors, speculation about spring thing unique—something special—about my origins formed a rather sizeable body of spring. Landowners have perhaps always folklore. While scientists can now explain viewed springs differently than nearby creeks. most of these formerly mystifying Unlike a creek that arises surreptitiously on the properties, the allure of springs remains. property of others before passing through their People will probably always be land, a spring begins on their property. They intrigued—even mesmerized—by springs. can say that they own it. From an unseen, un- The human attraction to springs is obvious source, it literally springs, full blown, extremely durable. Springs guided the from the depths of the earth. A spring can truly habitation patterns and movements of be the source of a creek. Native Americans, just as they did the

Marker at Liberty, Missouri

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 3 Introduction

An Ozark Spring

(Courtesy Western Historical Manuscript Collection)

later arriving settlers. Indian villages and hunting public water supplies. After all, these camps were usually located near perennial fortuitous emanations from the earth springs. One can easily imagine native children were considered the purest and most squealing in delight with a summertime plunge, healthful of waters available. just as our own kids would today. Later, European Our attraction to springs cannot be newcomers followed the Indian’s lead, building accounted for solely by their reliable their cabins near springs, their water supplies and production of cool water. There is refrigerators. more to it than that. Maybe springs With increasing settlement, business interests resonate with us as benevolent or even eagerly sought perennially flowing springs, virtuous manifestations of nature— particularly to power mills. Unlike streams, representing new beginnings, springs provided fairly constant flows that in the fountains of hope, promises kept. wintertime were free of machinery-obstructing ice. They are given to us freely as gifts of For decades, springs faithfully turned water what we call good land, demanding wheels or spun metal turbines to grind grain or nothing in return. We find comfort in saw wood. They also supplied feed water for the fact that they will be there commercial enterprises like tomato canneries, tomorrow, and the day after that. Day hide tanneries, and distilleries. Thus, springs in and day out, for generations, they became the nuclei of a variety of thriving have satisfied our basic needs, while at industries, driving the nascent machinery of our the same time refreshing and, at prosperity. times, inspiring us. Even as our direct It was only natural for people to congregate dependence upon them has waned, near these hydro-industrial centers. Many they continue to evoke in us nostalgia settlements grew around mills and springs, as of simpler, more leisurely times— evidenced by the fact that over sixty-five towns in swimming in spring-fed creeks and Missouri contain the word spring in their names. ponds, in numbingly cold water that Some towns depended on springs for their first needled the skin; or picknicking in the

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 4 Springs at Work

A Spring-fed Stream

(Photo by Author) cool shade of a lush spring glen, escaping the turning a wheel or turbine, for example. summer heat, feasting on watermelon and Historically, the value of a given spring homemade ice cream. was largely tied to its capacity to do work. This booklet is in no way meant to diminish Entrepreneurial zeal led people to assume our sense of wonder or curiosity about springs. that the work potential of a spring was its Instead, our intended purpose is to answer single most important attribute. Scenic some questions commonly asked about them: and ecological values tended to be ignored Why is this spring here? Where does the water or pushed aside. come from? Why is it so cool? Why are some This fact forever changed the Missouri springs so blue? You will also learn how our landscape, because springs became ill-conceived or uncaring manipulations on the magnets for development. Flows were land can sometimes have disastrous captured and re-directed, outlets consequences for springs—the very objects of modified, openings blasted or excavated. our affection. Hopefully, a deeper understand- Wood or rock or concrete dams and ing of the workings of springs will helps us to flumes and diversions intercepted spring more fully honor, preserve and protect these branches or crisscrossed their valleys. priceless natural assets. That would be our Sturdy mills were built on nearby rocky greatest gift to those who follow us to their prominences. People began to see everlasting waters. undeveloped springs as underutilized resources: “All that water, just going to Springs at Work waste!” was a battle cry for the industrious to get into gear and build The simple fact that springs flow has for something of practical use to society. centuries stirred the minds of men—set brain There is nothing inherently wrong with turbines to spinning. When the physical aspect this, of course. People simply saw springs of elevation is added, springs not only can as useful natural amenities—like good flow, they can tumble, cascade or even thunder timber or productive soil—agents downward, down to the level of rivers and provided for mankind to put to work for streams. Flow rates and elevation or “heads” of his own benefit. Beneficial uses changed fall are key factors in putting springs to work— and evolved over time. Springs that once

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 5 Springs at Work

Kimberland Mill at Silver Lake Spring, Stone County

(Courtesy History Museum for Spring- field and Greene County) served grist mills or sawmills were refitted for cable rolling over iron pulleys. After ten more modern applications like the generation of minutes of dodging boulders and electricity or raising of fish. Almost every large skidding down steep inclines, he arrived spring in Missouri, at some point in time, was at at the bottom of the valley and the end least considered for some type of development of the trail. He stopped and stood, project. It was not until large numbers of them staring, at the amazing boil of had been harnessed, throttled, diverted or greenish-blue water at his feet. otherwise exploited that we began to see them in a Churning vigorously from the stream different light. The story of our evolving bed, the spring looked even more relationship with springs, and our changing spectacular than he had remembered it. attitudes about them, can be exemplified by the A few hundred feet downstream a dam, tale of one spring, Missouri’s second largest. The now mossy and green, had been thrown year is 1905; the location, south-central Missouri. across the channel, forming a shallow pond. A slot in the dam allowed water to * * * sluice through a turbine. Shepard could Edward Shepard’s mind remained clear, his see the horizontal iron shaft spinning body relatively strong, in spite of his late middle and its grooved wheel, loudly rotating, age. He sported thick woolen breeches, tucked which held the moving cable. This into his lace-up boots, as protection against thorns transmitted the power of flowing water and brambles and even snakebite, although that up to the mill, a few hundred vertical was unlikely at this time of year. He wore round, feet higher and almost a quarter of a wire-rimmed spectacles. A neatly trimmed gray mile distant. moustache protruded below the shade of his Shepard knew that Samuel Greer wide-brimmed hat. He was wiry and trim and in bought this property near the Eleven spite of his fifty-two years of life, could still Point River in the late 1850s and had negotiate the rocky trails and terrain of the constructed the first mill here, near the Missouri Ozarks. spring, before the Civil War. But that He skirted the loudly banging grist mill and mill had burned about twenty-five years began hiking down the steep switch-back trail ago—an unfortunate event, but one behind it. The sky arched an intense blue, which provided the Greer family an cloudless and cool, over oaks and hickories just opportunity to solve a serious access now flush with tiny mint green leaves. Shepard problem. The rutted road from the ridge kept his head down, his eyes on the trail ahead. top down to the mill was treacherously Above him he heard constant chirping from a steel steep, making it difficult for loaded

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 6 Springs at Work wagons to negotiate. So when he began working pockmarks he had seen in the bedrock on a new mill in 1883, Greer’s son decided to above. He pulled a small field book from build it on the ridge above the spring and use the his pocket and recorded his power of flowing water, far below, to drive it. observations and drew lines on a hand After admiring the boil for a few more drawn topographic map. minutes, Shepard turned upstream and hiked a Later, Shepard would use these notes few hundred yards to the upper outlet of the for a report he would send to potential spring, gushing from a cave in a moss and investors in St. Louis. In the lichen-covered bluff. Although the volume of accompanying letter, he would tell them flow was not as impressive here, the setting was that he believed he had found a equally spectacular. Shepard lingered only a promising site for a new dam—one that moment, however, because his real interest lay would be much larger and more solid downstream, below the dam, where the spring than Greer’s feeble attempt. Unlike that branch threaded a narrow gorge over frothing flimsy little plug, this robust concrete rapids, dropping sixty feet in the mile before it dam would hold back a high percentage emptied into the Eleven Point River. One of the of the spring’s daily flow and back a Greer boys had died here several years earlier considerable lake into the upper canyon. when he lost his footing and fell into the Instead of sending power through a whitewater maelstrom (many years later, a steel cable, Shepard envisioned copper canoeist would also drown here). wires transporting a tantalizing new Shepard walked downstream, scouting the form of controlled energy—electricity. entire creek, forcing him at times to hike up and Electrification had arrived in Missouri over precipitous bluffs. At one point below the and Shepard, a consultant for dam, he found what he was looking for— hydropower interests, had arrived at the perpendicular rock faces rising from both sides spring as a geologic evaluator on the of the river nearly opposite each other. The hydroelectric frontier. bluffs were massive and unbroken, with few of By 1900, Missourians had become the bedding plane separations or solutional enthralled at the prospects of an

Dam and Turbine at Greer Spring

(Courtesy Missouri Department of Natural Resources)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 7 Springs at Work electrical future. The state already had a strong per day of “pure Ozark spring water.” agricultural base, with the demand for apples, The plan called for two pipelines strawberries, mules, swine and beef cattle on the running from the source, Greer increase. Electricity promised to add to the Spring, to the top of the ridge where prosperity with labor saving appliances and new the bottling plant would be located. jobs in milling, mining and manufacturing. A Not surprisingly, the plan stirred report from the Missouri School of Engineers in considerable controversy. Some 1901 noted that the state contained an abundance people thought it was a great idea, of potential hydropower sites. By 1905, when boosting the local economy and the Shepard inspected Big Ozark Spring (now called creation of jobs. Others considered the Greer Spring), engineers, consultants, speculators, very notion a travesty, particularly and businessmen were crawling all over Missouri’s given the spring’s breathtaking beauty backwoods, searching for places to harness the and proximity to and ecological power of flowing water. influence on the nearby Eleven Point, Shepard’s dam was never built at Greer Spring, a federally protected Wild and Scenic possibly preempted by the large one begun on the River. In the end, Greer Spring was White River in Taney County in 1911. In the 1920s spared again. Leo Drey, a St. Louis the property around Greer Spring was acquired by businessman and avid conservationist, the Dennig family, who operated it as a sort of stepped in and bought the Dennig guest ranch for many years. But the copious flow property for $4.5 million. He of the spring continued to entice outsiders. In subsequently resold it to the federal 1985 the family patriarch, Louis Dennig, passed government at a reduced rate away. His heirs seriously considered an agreement ($500,000 less). Anheuser-Busch with the Anheuser-Busch Corporation, which kicked in $500,000, the feds coughed wanted to bottle and sell about two million gallons up $3.5 million, and the 6,900 acres

Greer Spring Main Boil

(Courtesy Missouri Department of Natural Resources)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 8 Springs at Work

Boat Ride at Sequiota Spring, Greene County

(Courtesy History Museum for Springfield and Greene County) around Greer Spring became a part of the seemed determined to manipulate and Mark Twain National Forest, designated as control nature’s powers, a few of Missouri’s a natural area and special preserve. citizens argued that our most magnificent In retrospect, we shouldn’t unduly natural features deserved some level of criticize Shepard or Anheuser-Busch for benevolent oversight and protection. eyeing Greer Spring with speculative Luella Owen, one of these early hunger. That prodigious quantity of clean, protagonists, was a curly-haired, cold groundwater issuing directly from the bright-eyed amateur geologist from rock almost begs to be “used,” somehow. St. Joseph. In the 1890s, she explored and But there have also long been advocates for wrote about the caves of the Black Hills and preserving natural wonders like Greer the Ozarks, including Marvel Cave near Spring in an undeveloped condition. Even Branson and Grand Gulf near Koshkonong. in the nineteenth century, when mankind She endured a long, bumpy wagon ride from

Steury Spring and Natural Bridge, Greene County

(Courtesy History Museum for Springfield and Greene County)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 9 Spring Anatomy

West Plains to Greer Spring, where she was use to its inhabitants—but they were captivated by the spring’s beauty and awesome also mysterious. The workings of the grandeur. While there, she noticed that rocks were underworld held a profound being collected for the intended construction of a fascination for our forefathers, just as larger dam. While recognizing the commercial it does for many of us today. Many importance of the mighty spring, she also people find it difficult to believe that lamented the loss of “artistic” value that would springs continue flowing, day after inevitably result from further damming it. day, between infrequent rainfall Owen could be characterized as an early events, without some massive eco-tourist. Like many later Missourians, she additional input of water, such as a appreciated the scenic as well as the pragmatic distant river, somehow diverted into potential of springs. Of course, the dynamic the system. The frigidity of springs has tension between urges to exploit versus efforts to led many people to believe that their preserve continues today. But the legacy of springs water must originate in lands far to as industrial centers now resides more comfortably the north—from the Great Lakes, with the native scenery, as old mills and dams and perhaps, or massive glaciers. Some of ponds have themselves become historic and these notions held sway until the nostalgic icons. For the most part, springs no sciences of geology and hydrology longer do work for us. But they do continue to pro- began to provide reasonable vide many other services that are equally alternative explanations. But even in valuable. the face of scientific evidence, some people remain unconvinced. Spring Anatomy The Ozarks of southern Missouri boasts one of the highest Missouri’s springs were obviously of great practical concentrations of springs in the world,

A Cascading Spring

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 10 Spring Anatomy

Markham Spring on the Black River

(Photo by Author)

as well as some of the planet’s most powerfully subterranean water only dissolves and flowing springs. Big Spring, Missouri’s largest, enlarges existing openings—it does with an average flow rate of 275 million not create new openings. The gallons per day (and measured high flows of over downward flowing water follows a 800), ranks among the top handful of largest pre-existing network of cracks, single outlet springs in the world. By way of whether they are vertical fractures comparison, the entire city of St. Louis uses on through the rocks created by tilting or average about 125 million gallons of water per day, warping, or bedding planes, less than half of the daily flow of Big Spring. How horizontal separations between do we account for the impressive numbers and different layers of rock. As water flows of Missouri’s springs? At heart, the answer dissolves these cracks wider, more and lies in the unique nature of the land. Springs are more water can funnel through, products of karst topography; a type of terrain allowing the embryonic spring system that forms on carbonate bedrock—rocks of oceanic to grow. origin that will dissolve in acidic water. The amount of rock dissolved by Acidity is a key, because limestone and its large springs is truly prodigious. Jerry cousin dolostone, common components of Vineyard, co-author of Springs of Missouri’s bedrock, won’t dissolve to any extent in Missouri, has calculated that pure water. But as rainwater percolates down Missouri’s largest spring, Big Spring, through the soil, it comes into contact with carbon flowing at an average rate of 275 dioxide, the gas we exhale with every breath. In million gallons per day, in that same the soil, CO2 comes from the breathing of day dissolves and removes from the earthworms and insects and millions of other underground 175 tons of rock. Over a animals. Under higher pressure in the soil than in year’s time that amounts to 64,000 the atmosphere above it, the gas is forced to tons, equivalent to the creation of a dissolve into the downward percolating rainwater, new cave passage ten by ten feet in creating a weak carbonic acid solution (the same cross section over a mile long. as in carbonated beverages), which can then eat It could be a slightly unsettling away at the walls of the cracks in the rock. thought to some people that flowing It is important to realize that percolating springs have been continuously

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 11 Spring Anatomy

A Spring Recharge Area

undermining the land, day after day, for many thou- county. That’s a lot of real estate, but sands of years (although, realistically, the dissolving it’s not huge, and most springs are action is spread over many square miles and the much smaller than Big Spring and proportion of volume in conduits and cracks is small therefore have much smaller in comparison to the total rock mass, even in well recharge areas. Between rains, most developed karst). of this water resides in the Hydrologists point out that we can account for the subsurface, moving at different rates continuous flows of Missouri’s springs without through subterranean cracks and invoking water from the Great Lakes or arctic conduits or temporarily stored in glaciers. They assure us that the ultimate source of underground pools, making its way water is precipitation on the land surface, mostly rain toward the spring outlet. that has fallen nearby. The area of land that Spring flow networks form within contributes water to a given spring is called its a three dimensional landscape, with recharge area. Missouri gets an average of about depth as well as breadth. The forty inches of precipitation a year (thirty-five in the thickness of the host rocks, the karst northwest corner to forty-five in the southeast), forming layers, help to determine equivalent to about 700 million gallons per square how large spring systems can mile per year. If we assume that about one-fourth of become. In the thick limestone and this rain recharges the groundwater system (a fairly dolostone layers of the Salem common percentage in well developed karst), we Plateau, underlying the bulk of arrive at a number of about 500,000 gallons per southern Missouri, there is plenty of square mile per day. room and fracturing in three Using this number with our state’s largest spring, dimensions to allow really gigantic Big Spring, we can calculate that to maintain its spring systems to form. On the average flow of 275 million gallons per day, we would Springfield Plateau, in the southwest need about 550 square miles of recharge area, part of the state, with its thinner roughly equivalent to the size of a small Missouri sequence of karst forming rocks, the

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 12 Spring Anatomy

Cave Spring, Salem Plateau, Shannon County

(Photo by Author)

Hoffmeister Spring, Springfield Plateau, Greene County

(Photo by Author)

springs are generally smaller. Still, some rather average refrigerator. Scientists have large springs have developed on the Springfield found some variation from spring to Plateau and thousands of smaller springs dot both spring, and season to season, but the Springfield and the Salem Plateaus. most hover in the 55 to 60 degree As most people know, springs are generally range. Bedrock, being a poor found in valleys, not on hilltops. The plumbing conductor of heat, does not gain or systems of really big springs develop within thick lose heat rapidly, so remains year masses of rock, and therefore these springs drain round at nearly the average annual air into some of the deepest valleys in the state. temperature, about 58 degrees in Rivers, as they continually erode downward into Missouri. Water flowing through the the land, increasingly cut into pre-existing spring ground eventually becomes the same networks and conduits. It has taken a long time, temperature as the surrounding rock. probably millions of years, for springs as large as In spite of these explanations, some Big Spring to form. Over such long time spans, Missourians continue to insist that rivers can change course. Cave conduits can spring water comes from the far north. collapse and detours be created. The systems are They would challenge anyone wading extremely dynamic—ever changing. This ongoing into a spring branch on a hot summer interplay between river downcutting and spring day to arrive at a different conclusion. conduit enlargement accounts for the wide variety People are also amazed at the of sizes and settings of springs that we see today. striking blueness of some of our It also determines why any given spring happens springs. Scientists explain that this to emerge where it does. remarkable azure color is due Geologists also have an explanation for the primarily to the depth of water at the constant cool temperatures of springs. Most spring outlet. Blue Spring, on the people would say that Missouri’s springs are cold. Current River, perhaps Missouri’s Cold, however, is a relative term. Our state’s bluest, is also, at 300 feet, the deepest springs are not ice cold, nor are they as cold as the of those which have been measured.

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 13 Going with the Flow

But subtle variations in hue are also affected by about the “old days” when Missouri particles in the water and the angle and intensity had a deficit of karst scientists and of sunlight. The fact that this optical phenomenon even the word karst had hardly can be explained by the physics of light and its entered the vernacular. In fact, Tom scattering by particles doesn’t diminish the age old entered the field through a side door fascination. The sheer intensity of the blue color in himself. certain springs nearly overwhelms human senses, In the late 1950s, he received a touching neurons deep in the brain that must degree in forestry from the University surely register indescribable beauty. of California at Berkley. He became attracted to forestry, he said, because Going with the Flow it was held out as the “premier discipline of renewable resource While science has explained a lot about springs, management,” although in practice, many questions remain about their origins and he jokes, it was often regarded as “the ages and how they work. One Missourian who has profession where you make sawdust.” devoted the greater part of his life to unraveling Knowing that the National Forests the mysteries of springs is Tom Aley. Tall, lanky, had been set aside for both timber and with a long white beard and prominent forehead water management, Tom went to work where he often rests his palm when thinking, Tom for the Forest Service, hoping from the can sometimes be found at his home, which also beginning to incorporate into a serves as offices for the Ozark Underground Labo- forestry career his burning interest in ratory near Protem, Missouri (which is not really caves and springs. Prior to this time, near anywhere, Tom likes to say). He speaks he suggests, water had been given slowly, in measured tones, occasionally wrinkling “short shrift” in forest management. his nose in a nervous tic. He loves to tell stories Tom eventually left the Forest

Round Spring

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 14 Going with the Flow

Service and went on his own, purchasing “What would I be doing?” Tumbling Creek Cave in southern Missouri in the “Do you know what karst is?” mid 1960s, where he planned to establish an Tom’s nose must have wrinkled at unusual research facility—an underground that point, as he patiently explained laboratory. But the mortgage left him scratching that he actually knew quite a bit for income, and he walked into the local Forest about karst. The supervisor went on Service headquarters in Springfield one day, ready to mention that the Forest Service to take any kind of forestry job to support his cave had authorization to establish the lab project. Unbeknownst to him, during his type example study for watershed absence the Forest Service had begun to take management in karst terrain. It was watersheds more seriously, and had placed an music to Tom’s ears, and he took the increased emphasis on forest hydrology. The job, even though it would pay only Service, in fact, was under a Congressional forty percent of what he was making mandate to hire people with professional water at his previous professional gig, expertise, and the agency currently had fourteen working as a hydrologist for a openings for hydrologists in the eastern U.S. Upon California consulting firm. hearing that Tom had a forestry background, the Tom’s new job was based in Supervisor in Springfield tried to convince him to Winona, Missouri, where in 1966 he rejoin the agency. But Tom had just bought the was assigned to the sixteen square cave, and intended to put down roots in mile Hurricane Creek topographic Missouri—roots that would surely find their way basin. He began driving around his into the cave lurking below his rocky, overgrazed watershed and discovered that only land. the lowermost mile of the creek, just “Is there a job on this forest—here in Missouri?” upstream of its confluence with the he asked the supervisor. Eleven Point River, had any water in “Yes. But we’re not at the top of the list.” it. It was a bit of a conundrum—how “If I put on the form that I’ll only work, here, do you conduct a water flow study what would happen?” without water? Tom recognized, of “You’d get the job.” course that Hurricane Creek was a

Old “Stereo” Card of Jones Spring

(Courtesy History Museum for Springfield and Greene County)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 15 Going with the Flow classic losing stream, with most of its flow moving particles or pieces small enough to fit underground a good part of the time. through the flow network of a spring He went to work getting ready for times of flow, could theoretically be used as a tracer. supplying the basin with rain gages and weirs to This, in fact, has happened during measure surface flows, when they occurred— some rather unscientific installing these devices himself, since no experiments, as when people threw technicians were available to help. In his spare cornstalks into the big sinkhole at time, he even repaired, without authorization, the Grand Gulf and later watched them old mill at Falling Spring (the Forest Service had emerge at Mammoth Spring. recently acquired this property), rebuilding the old Even a spring suddenly flume and overshot water wheel. Tom didn’t get becoming muddy right after a much of a lecture about his well-intentioned sinkhole has collapsed in the vicinity misdeed, however, other than “that’s not supposed constitutes a sort of trace, confirming to be the way we do things here.” For their part, the an underground connection. Alley locals applauded the Forest Service for showing Springs on the Jacks Fork River some interest in the decaying property and for suddenly quit flowing in the 1930s, a saving the historic mill from ruin. disconcerting event which the locals Tom decided that he needed to do dye tracing to had never witnessed before. After a see where the lost flow of Hurricane Creek went. few hours, flow resumed, but the He studied dye tracing techniques, consulting a water was muddy. Eventually, it was United States Geological Survey (USGS) discovered that a sinkhole had publication from 1906 as well as more recent collapsed fifteen miles away shortly literature from Yugoslavia, at the time a hotbed of before the spring ceased flowing. A karst research. Dye tracing, he discovered, was not similar thing happened at Roaring all that simple. First, there is the matter of what River Spring, in the far southwest part dye to use. Of course, any substance composed of of the state, when the spring became

Sander Spring, Greene County

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 16 Going with the Flow murky after a lake bottom collapsed on the nearby even before the tracing experiment upland. begins (some man-made materials, Of course, one doesn’t need a geology degree to like anti-freeze, can contain the make educated guesses about where water lost from same dyes). Hurricane Creek is a the surface might go. Take a look at topographic fairly large basin, so Tom knew he maps of Missouri and in the Ozarks you will see would need to monitor springs over many streams named “Dry Creek” or “Dry Hollow” or a considerable area for the possible “Dry Fork” and the like. Simple intuition will tell you reappearance of his dye. that streams which rarely contain flow, even after He next needed to decide how rains, are leaky, and many people could put two and much dye to use. From his study of two together when they see a flowing spring a fairly maps and the local geology, he short distance away and down gradient from these suspected that Hurricane Creek’s losing streams. It is deductive tracing, and there is a lost water went to Big Spring, about fairly good change that it’s correct. 18.5 miles to the east as the crow To confirm underground connections, scientists flies. If true, this would mean that have largely settled upon fluorescing dyes, which can water lost from a tributary of the be used in small amounts and detected by Eleven Point River went under a instruments in the laboratory, avoiding the potential major surface watershed divide and embarrassment of turning springs bright green or resurfaced at a spring on the red. The water tracing scientist must also make sure Current River, in a different basin. that he or she carefully consults geologic maps and If Tom was right, this would be a monitors any possible outlets for the emergence of long trace attempt, so he would tracer dye. This usually means “bugging” many need a significant amount of dye. springs and sometimes wells. The bugs (usually Using one of the equations he charcoal packets) are set in the spring and checked found in the literature, he frequently to make sure they have not absorbed dyes calculated that he should use 740

Sequiota Spring, Red with Mud after Sinkhole Collapse

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 17 Going with the Flow

Big Spring

(Photo by Author)

pounds! That seemed like an awful lot, more than instrumental analysis, he knew he had he really wanted to dump, and besides, he didn’t a positive trace. Soon, newspaper even know where he could get his hands on that headlines read, “Forest Service much dye or whether he could afford to buy it if he Discovers Source of Big Spring.” Tom found it. and his work made the Sunday Tom started working in small spring systems Features section of the New York with tiny amounts of dye to perfect his technique. Times. The sudden glow of success He used activated carbon samplers to capture and reflected well on the Forest Service concentrate the dye, so he could use a lot less. The and its hydrologic work, and didn’t dye would be absorbed in a charcoal packet, hurt Tom’s career either. Tom proudly washed free of the charcoal in the laboratory, and recalls that of the twenty special study then detected in the wash water with instruments, watersheds in National Forests even when invisible to the naked eye. He spent around the country, several were still only $60 of Forest Service money on materials in very preliminary stages at the time, that first fiscal year. Finally, he bought ten pounds but his was “up and running and of fluorescein dye and looked for the ideal producing results, and even had an injection point, which he found at a conspicuous honest-to-goodness hydrologist losing section of Hurricane Creek where he could running it.” actually hear water roaring underground. This Why is it so important to know would be like injecting dye directly into a where Big Spring, or any spring for jugular, enhancing the prospects of success. Tom that matter, gets its water? For one also talked to Jerry Vineyard in Rolla, who agreed thing, spring water is not always as to examine his sample packets using the pure as we would like to believe. instruments of the Geological Survey. Springs can have serious pollution Tom injected the dye and to his satisfaction, the problems, sometimes with significant packets collected at Big Spring, when the dye was public health and financial ramifica- washed free or eluted from the charcoal, tions. Hundreds of Missouri springs, colored the water a bright green. Even before at some point in their histories, have

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 18 A Question of Purity

Warning Sign at Small Spring, Greene County

(Photo by Author)

been used for drinking water supplies or supported of spring water. When Tom is not some type of business—and for the most part, water out consulting on karst issues pollution is bad for business. When springs get polluted, around the world, he can people using or living near them, as well as agencies sometimes be found leading tours charged with groundwater protection, want to know of his own cave. He describes for where to look for the cause of the problem. Regulations his subterranean visitors how may have been violated, or are too weak to adequately karst works and how caves form protect groundwater and therefore need to be and especially, how easily springs strengthened. And thoughtful, responsible citizens and groundwater in the Ozarks want to know how to prevent such a thing from can become contaminated. He happening again. tries to get his listeners to think three dimensionally about the A Question of Purity landscape, something we surface dwellers have a hard time doing. Nowadays, many people realize that drinking On a cave tour, he points to a untreated spring water could constitute an unhealthy crack in the ceiling. practice. It was not always that way, of course. Up until “We’re forty feet below the relatively recently, springs were considered the purest surface. If you’re standing here sources of water available—much cleaner than streams, twenty minutes after it starts lakes, or even wells. This commonly held notion of the raining hard, you’ll see water purity of springs is reflected in a 1910 University of come gushing out of that Missouri publication, which informs us that spring opening.” water is generally “palatable, wholesome and free from This, he explains, makes the organic impurities” due to “natural filtration in the spring that runs through his cave subterranean strata.” Based on findings about the wide a classic example of a discrete open nature of underground flow systems, scientists flow spring. That is, there are would later challenge this assumption. very direct and open connections A visit to Tom Aley’s Ozark Underground Laboratory between the spring and the will tend to confirm suspicions about the vulnerability surface of the ground. Other

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 19 A Question of Purity

Sinkhole Collapse, Barry County

(Courtesy Missouri Department of Natural Resources)

springs, usually smaller ones, derive their in 1877 to teach geology and chemistry flow from systems that are less open, with classes at Drury College in Springfield. In tighter cracks in the rock. These are called 1915, he wrote a book about Greene County diffuse flow springs. They rise more slowly in which he noted that sinkholes (funnel or when it rains but also drain more slowly. The bowl-shaped depressions where soil has openness of the spring network has a direct slumped into underground solution bearing on how quickly and how easily the openings in the bedrock) often appeared in spring can become contaminated by pollu- clusters. Shepard deduced, correctly, that tion in the recharge area. sinkholes reflect the presence of fissures Of polluting events, Missouri springs have underground, with lines of sinkholes and had their share. One of the first scientists in their elongations mirroring the prevailing Missouri to investigate the contamination of directions of subterranean fractures. He springs was Edward Shepard, the man who theorized that cases of typhoid fever in explored Greer Spring in 1905. Shepard eastern Greene County originated at a arrived from the northeastern United States cemetery near a cluster of sinkholes. Later

Cave in Greene County

(Courtesy Springfield-Greene County Parks Department )

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 20 A Question of Purity scientists would confirm suspected So with the help of Jerry Vineyard, who connections like this via dye tracing, a tool agreed to serve on his committee, Jim set Shepard lacked, but his work suggested that in up a project to study karst hydrology in the karst terrain, a spring or well could be North Fork River basin of south-central contaminated from pollution sources a Missouri. In 1978, he moved to Dora, considerable distance away. Missouri, but soon had a problem. His Another man who has investigated his share fellowship ran out, and he needed to find of spring pollution, and continues to do so paying work while finishing his project. He today, is Jim Vandike, an employee with the had earlier earned a teaching certificate in Missouri Department of Natural Resources. science and math from Northeast Missouri Jim wears a beard and a wide grin and is an State in Kirksville, and signed up as a accomplished blacksmith and woodworker. He substitute teacher in Dora. When the grew up in northeastern Missouri, in Schuyler secretary at the school district office found County. As a kid he collected glacial erratics, that he held a science certificate, she foreign rocks carried down from the north by sprang from her chair. glaciers during the Ice Age. His interest in “You’re a science teacher? Don’t move.” geology led him to the South Dakota School of Soon, the superintendent appeared and Mines where, as a thesis subject, he decided to took Jim into his office, where he focus on the hydrologic properties of water explained that the district was already a wells in that state. But his Chair detected a month into the school year and still had no lack of enthusiasm for his proposal. science teacher. Jim was offered and “That’s okay. But what do you really accepted the full-time job at $5,200 a year. want to do?” But the next year, Jerry Vineyard called “Well, I’d really like to do something in with an offer to work for the Missouri karst.” Geological Survey in reservoir yield “Then why don’t you?” analysis. That summer, Jim moved to Rolla “I didn’t know I could.” and has been there ever since. His first “Look, we have students doing their experience with spring contamination work in Iran. I think you could at least actually occurred right before he left the go to Missouri to study karst.” teaching job at Dora. In 1978, a sinkhole

Edward Shepard , front row center with Drury Chemistry Class, 1885

(Courtesy History Museum for Springfield-Greene County)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 21 A Question of Purity suddenly opened up in the bottom of the West fairly wide area and concentrate the flow Plains wastewater lagoon, emptying most of into one or a very few well defined flow its contents, about thirty to forty million paths, rather than stuff in the flow path gallons of sewage, into the shallow going out into the aquifer. So unless you groundwater. Because Jim had worked in the were unlucky enough to have your well go North Fork basin, immediately west of West into over very near the conduit, there was a Plains, and had produced new maps from dye good change you didn’t see any tracing and other geologic field work, he was impact.” called in to help. In the fall of 1981, Jim got a call from Not surprisingly, at least to geologists, the Mr. Gallagher, the hatchery manager at most serious problems from the leaking lagoon Meramec Spring in central Missouri, who showed up at Mammoth Spring, which told him that dissolved oxygen levels in the previous dye tracing had shown to be spring had dropped precipitously and the hydrologically connected to the West Plains fish were getting sick. Fall is normally a area. This gigantic spring, pouring from the fairly quiet time of the year, when water ground right on the Missouri-Arkansas line, quality doesn’t change much, and there supports a fish hatchery and gives birth to the hadn’t been any recent rain. Jim checked Spring River, a popular canoeing stream. After with his DNR cohort, Jim Williams, who the lagoon collapse in West Plains, bacterial recalled that a pipeline had ruptured on levels jumped and dissolved oxygen slumped the Phelps-Dent County line the week in the spring. As strange as it might sound, before, near the little town of Lake Spring. however, the situation could have been worse, The old oil pipeline had been converted to illustrating one slightly redeeming feature of carry liquid fertilizer, a mix of ammonium wide open groundwater flow systems. The lost nitrate and urea containing about 32% sewage followed a beeline trajectory toward nitrogen by weight. The product had also Mammoth Spring, seemingly polluting very been tagged with fluorescein dye, so that a few wells along the way. leak would tint any contaminated water a “Springs,” Jim explains, “take water from a sickly yellowish green.

Meramec Spring, Phelps County

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 22 A Question of Purity

Trout in Meramec Spring

(Photo by Author)

That is exactly what happened. A landowner the more sensitive fish had been moved saw a bright, unnaturally green pool of water to another hatchery and aerators had in the creek on his farm and immediately been brought in. Most of the trout were called the pipeline company, which responded saved. promptly to repair the leak. The company The mishap did, at least, provide calculated that about 1,200 gallons of fertilizer useful information on how groundwater had spewed out through a pencil-sized hole in systems function in the area. By carefully the estimated four to five days before it was watching the levels of dissolved oxygen, discovered. The fertilizer flowed into a pool on ammonia and nitrates in the spring over Dry Creek, “in a little gaining section of a time, Jim and other scientists were able notoriously losing stream” as Jim described it. to piece together a more precise picture The tainted pool was definitely “hot,” of when the spill first occurred, how long containing over 100 milligrams per liter of it took the fertilizer to reach the spring, nitrate, and the company planned to quickly even how much product was actually pump the water onto adjacent fields for lost. After several weeks of monitoring, fertilizer. But before they could act, it rained, they determined that closer to 24,000 flushing the nitrate-laden water downstream gallons of fertilizer leaked, twenty times into a losing section, where it promptly the original estimate. Luckily, of the 238 submerged and traveled at least 12.8 miles wells in the vicinity sampled by the underground to Meramac Spring. Health Department, not one was without Bacteria use up oxygen in the water as they doubt affected by the spill. break down organic matter like ammonia and Again, Jim attributes the small urea. Below 5 milligrams of dissolved oxygen number of affected wells to the way per liter of water, trout become stressed, and discrete flow systems work. In wide open below 4 they can quickly go belly up. After the flow networks, contaminants can flush leak, the dissolved oxygen at Meramec Spring through fairly rapidly. In a diffuse dipped to near zero, but by that time some of setting, where cracks are smaller,

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 23 A Question of Purity

Heavily Polluted Spring

(Photo by Author)

contamination moves a lot more slowly and the majority of seventy-five springs can remain in the ground much longer. But the sampled for optical brighteners (fabric degree of damage also depends on what is dyes used in laundry detergents whose leaked or spilled. Fertilizer like that which presence in springs usually indicates leaked into Dry Creek is water soluble, moving septic tank contamination, since most in solution with water and thus transported washing machines in rural areas are rapidly through the subterranean flow system. plumbed into the septic system) were Light hydrocarbons like gasoline, on the other tainted by septic systems leaching poorly hand, float on top of the water. When leaked treated effluent into shallow into groundwater, these fluids reside on top of groundwater. Since then, tighter pools in pockets in the bedrock. Some product regulations on home sewage can flush out with each rain, providing a systems have helped to reduce negative continuing source of contamination. Vapors impacts on groundwater and improve rising from subsurface pockets can also create spring quality. explosion hazards. For these reasons, chemical Mining operations can also be spills into karst groundwater create serious problematic in karst. Lead mining has long-term problems and even dangerous occurred for many years within the situations. recharge area of Blue Spring (the deep, Pipeline leaks and lagoon collapses can intensely blue spring mentioned earlier). produce spectacular cases of spring pollution. Runoff from the Sweetwater Mine, at the Much more commonly, mundane sources such southern end of the Viburnum Trend (a as septic tanks or leaking underground storage buried reef containing lead ore), enters tanks are to blame. In the Ozarks, where thin Logan Creek, a losing stream and a and rocky soils barely cover porous bedrock in tributary of the Black River. Dye tracing, many areas, groundwater is especially including work by Tom Aley, showed that vulnerable to pollution from these smaller but the lost flow of Logan Creek leaves the more widespread sources. A study in Greene Black River Basin and goes to the south, County over two decades ago indicated that to Blue Spring on the Current River. In

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 24 A Question of Purity

1977 and 1978, flooding caused mine dams to assumed that about 14 inches of the 40 be breached, allowing tailings to flow into inches of rainfall over the basin was Logan Creek, muddying it for over forty miles being recharged to karstic groundwater. downstream. USGS scientists monitoring Blue Jim Vandike’s work in the Meramec Spring found elevated levels of sodium, sulfate watershed suggested that only about 9 and chloride. Other contaminants, such as inches of water was being recharged metals, might have been elevated, but there there. There is less karst was insufficient background data on the spring development in the Meramec Basin and to know for sure. This illustrates another therefore, more surface runoff is difficulty with monitoring Missouri’s springs. produced. Thus, the surface/subsurface Most of them are infrequently sampled, if ever, water budget for a basin of interest must so baseline information is often lacking. be adjusted to fit its particular geologic It is very helpful to know the recharge area characteristics. of a spring before pollution occurs, allowing a Performing these kinds of calculations more immediate and effective response. This is can prove helpful in looking at one of the main reasons to perform dye large-scale flow patterns of rivers and tracing. But even in the absence of such springs. Karst watersheds often exhibit tracing, geologists, using their understanding inter-basin transfers, where water moves of local geology and the transmissivity (the in the subsurface from sinkholes or rate at which water can pass through rock) of losing streams in one surface watershed the karst bedrock, can estimate the to springs and streams in another approximate size of a given spring’s recharge (sometimes even flowing under major area based solely on its volume of flow. For surface streams). In southern Missouri, example, Tom Aley calculated that for springs the Eleven Point, Current and Black in his Hurricane Creek study area, one square River basins are situated side by side. mile of recharge area should produce a The Current, the middle watershed of the springflow of roughly one cubic foot per three, delivers about 19 inches of surface second (650,000 gallons per day). This runoff per year at Doniphan (basically,

Black River

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 25 Mineral Springs the equivalent of nineteen inches of rain over grace this scenic, well-watered section of the the entire basin leaving as runoff). The state. Eleven Point, to the west, delivers only 12 to 12.5 inches and the Black, to the east, 12 to Mineral Springs 13 inches. Obviously, it doesn’t rain on average seven inches more on the Current When Missourians think of springs, they Watershed. Instead, the Current steals, or usually picture cold, clear, good tasting water pirates, water from the basins on either side. issuing from holes in the rock. This could Losing streams and sinkholes in the fairly describe most Ozarks springs. But not Eleven Point and Black basins funnel water all of Missouri’s springs are of this type, to springs along the Current River, particularly in areas outside the Ozarks. bolstering its flow and supporting year Some springs have strong sulfur smells and round fishing and canoeing. Big Spring on taste salty or bitter or otherwise disgusting. the Current River, Missouri’s largest, steals Where they flow, they leave orange stains on half of its water from the Eleven Point rocks and leaves. They sometimes contain basin—from places like Hurricane Creek, long, slimy growths of algae or strands of where Tom Aley did his studies. As we white or purple bacteria wafting in their learned earlier, the Black River Basin currents. These springs are not the deep supplies water to Blue Spring, also on the blue, picturesque beauties shown in travel Current River, and the Meramec Basin, to magazines—the ones people plan vacations the north, loses some of its water to springs around. They are for the most part shunned like Welch Spring on the upper Current or ignored. But in times past, some of them River. The Current seems to be greedy, but were of great commercial interest. In fact, we are the beneficiaries of that plunder in they formed centerpieces of some of the the magnificent and beautiful springs that state’s early and, in some cases, highly successful business enterprises.

Mineral Spring Outlet, Jerico Springs

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 26 Mineral Springs

buy salt in Missouri produced in New York * * * or on the Ohio River. Locally manufactured Like many pioneers, Nathan Boone, salt became a highly sought after Daniel’s son, was a businessman. In commodity, and entrepreneurs eagerly Missouri, he tried to support himself and sought salt springs where they could set up his family by hunting and trapping, as befits manufacturing operations. a true frontiersman. But that line of work Settlers frequently referred to salty became difficult as more settlers poured in, springs or seeps as “licks,” because depleting the game. Furthermore, buffalo and elk and deer went there in large indigenous people began to push back more numbers to lick the salt (along with fiercely against the tide of settlement. mastadons, at one time, such as at the salt Nathan, in fact, was escaping from a close springs near Mastodon State Park in encounter with hostile Indians while Kimmswick). These animals wore deep trails trapping in 1804 in what would become to the licks and gouged out wallows long western Missouri, far from his home, when before any humans arrived. Indians were he stumbled across a salty spring near the said to have visited certain of these springs Missouri River. To him, this wasn’t so odd, and carried caked salt back to their villages. since his father had introduced him to By the mid 1700s Frenchmen and others similar waters in Kentucky. Nathan realized were boiling spring water in French the business potential of this find and later Louisiana (later, Missouri) to make salt, returned, with his brother and a few other often hauling it long distances downriver to men, to manufacture salt. sell. Salt springs had been worked in the Illustrative of the importance of salt to region for many years before the Boones Missouri’s early economy, the state at its for- arrived, but the saltworks at “Boons Lick” mation in 1821 reserved for its own use large became famous, serving the needs of tracts of land around at least a dozen salt Missouri River settlements for years. Salt springs, primarily in Ralls, Boone, Howard was a frontier necessity, especially useful and Saline Counties. Saline County once for preserving food. But it was expensive to boasted the largest salt spring in the state,

Boone’s Lick, ca. 1890 Salt Spring at Boone’s Lick Today (Photo by Author) (from Schweiter, Report on Mineral Waters, 1892 )

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 27 Mineral Springs

Pertle Springs Camp Meeting

(Courtesy State Historical Society of Missouri-Columbia) discharging from a round outlet forty feet in days and besides, common sense might diameter thousands of gallons per day of prevent someone from putting effervescent, white colored water. Today, there something that looks or smells that way is virtually nothing left of this spring but a low, into the mouth. And yet, at one time, marshy spot. thousands of people came here to do just No saltworks survive in the state, either. that. They were led to believe, and many Salt production in Missouri was never large in did believe, that these waters could heal comparison to other states, and as interstate them. transportation became more economical, the Standing in the quiet valley by Pertle state’s salt simply could not compete in a Spring today, it is hard to imagine the national market. Salt produced in New York hubbub that once surrounded this place. and shipped via the Erie Canal or even hauled In its heyday, the Pertle Springs resort from overseas became very cheap, even in catered to thousands of health seekers. Missouri. But by the mid 1800s, when In addition to the medicinal water, there Missouri salt production was already in were amusements of all sorts and for decline, the state’s mineralized springs were special events, huge gatherings—Fourth supplying water for new kinds of enterprises— of July picnics, Chatauquas, temperance business founded upon the search for health, rallies, free-silver conventions, camp or even the quest for relaxation and fun. meetings. So heavy was visitation on summer weekends that a special train * * * hauled patrons several times a day from A person visiting Pertle Springs in central the nearby city of Warrensburg. Missouri today would probably not be Pertle Springs was one of the better impressed with the old mineral spring there. known and more successful mineral Gurgling out into its concrete basin, the spring water resorts in Missouri. But during the is somewhat repulsive—smelling of rotten eggs height of the medicinal water craze, from and imparting oily iridescent sheens and about 1880 to the 1930s, nearly eighty orange stains to surfaces over which it flows. A mineral water health resorts and person might be hesitant to even taste it. There sanitaria were in operation around the is a heightened awareness of pollution these state. These were prominent social

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 28 Mineral Springs

Van Bibber Tavern

(Courtesy State Historical Society of Missouri- Columbia) landmarks, drawing clients from near and far. founded a mineral spring resort on the Most offered mineral waters for both drinking River des Peres near St. Louis. This and bathing “cures,” healing patients from the Sulphur Spring Resort enjoyed a long outside as well as the inside. At some, visitors and colorful history, including ownership could relax in communal mineral water by a Utopian Society, before being swimming pools, sporting the newest fashions polluted and engulfed by the encroaching in “bathing” suits. city of St. Louis. Not surprisingly, promoters of the era made By the 1850s, Missouri had several far-fetched claims about the healing powers of spring resorts attracting at least regional mineral springs. But their pitches were no clienteles, including Monegaw Springs in more exaggerated than those for the St. Clair County, Sweet Springs in Saline immensely popular patent medicines of the County, White Sulphur Springs in time. Despite the medicine-show like aura of Benton County, Elk Lick Springs in Pike advertising, belief in the medical benefits of County and Choteau Springs in Cooper mineral waters was not confined to the County. The resort business suffered in uneducated. Respected doctors prescribed the troubled years immediately before mineral water treatments and prominent and after the Civil War, but an upturn scientists advanced theories to explain their occurred in the late 1870s and by the end well-known and commonly accepted medicinal of the 1880s, the number of effects. operating resorts in Missouri had Loutre Lick, fifty miles west of St. Louis, reached a peak. In the period of 1881 to was probably the first mineral spring in the 1890 alone, twenty-eight new resorts state to anchor a sort of health resort. Here, opened their doors. Daniel Boone and Thomas Hart Benton sought Because of the public interest in relief for their ailments and Isaac Van Bibber, mineral springs and their chemical Boone’s adopted son, built a rambling tavern constituents, scientists examined many and boarding house that in the 1820s became of them and tested their waters. One of a famous landmark on the Boonslick Road. In the prominent researchers in this effort the 1830s William Sublette, noted mountain was Paul Schweitzer, a red-haired man, fur trapper and Oregon Trail pioneer, chemistry professor at the University of

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 29 Mineral Springs

Missouri (Schweitzer Hall is named for him). of shale, coal, sandstone, and limestone, He later worked for the Missouri Geological dissolving minerals as it goes. At the Survey and in 1892 completed a meeting zone of these two water types, comprehensive survey of the state’s mineral freshwater recharge at certain points springs and spas—the first and, as it turned sweeps the underlying, mineralized out, only one of its kind. Schweitzer groundwater toward the surface at analyzed spring water from over one-hundred mineral springs. sites around the state and with results in hand, Mirroring the locations of these could see no reason why Missouri’s mineral springs, many of the state’s mineral spring resorts wouldn’t stack up favorably water resorts were clustered in a broad against the best European spas. Unbeknownst arc from Vernon and Cedar Counties on to him at the time, his report came out near the state’s southwestern border, the peak of mineral water popularity. After the northward through Johnson County, early 1900s, resorts suffered a gradual decline then bending eastward through Saline in use and prestige. and Howard Counties toward Pike and Mineral springs are not evenly spaced Ralls Counties on the Mississippi. Local around the state. Rather, there is a geologic geologic factors such as fault zones gave context to their distribution. Many are found rise to unique situations, as in Saline near the fresh water/saline water interface, a County, where heavily mineralized fairly distinct line separating these two types springs, containing dissolved solids in of groundwater that snakes diagonally across the range of 10,000 parts per million or Missouri from southwest to northeast. To the above, occurred in close proximity to south and east of the line, in the hilly Ozark “sweet” springs with dissolved solids in region, the predominantly limestone and the few hundred parts per million. In dolostone terrain produces fresh water some locations, the close proximity of springs. North and west of the line, highly these distinctly different types of springs mineralized groundwater is created as amazed and baffled the early settlers. rainwater percolates downward through beds There are only a few places in

Paul Schweitzer

(Courtesy State Historical Society of Missouri-Columbia)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 30 Life in the Cold (and Dark)

Missouri where historic mineral springs can structure that stands as a lasting tribute still be experienced in natural or nearly natural to the belief that natural mineral waters states. One such place is the Blue Licks could heal us. Conservation Area near Marshall, featuring a cluster of springs with varying levels of Life in the Cold (and Dark) mineralization. There, a person can literally see physical differences, such as transparency Not just humans are drawn to the life- and color, between closely spaced springs. At giving waters of springs. All animals need Spalding Springs, Choteau Springs, McAllister water, of course, and predators follow Springs and Randolph Springs, artifacts and their prey. Herbivores like the lush vege- ruins remain from that bygone era when tation found in or around springs. That is mineral water resorts represented prominent why ancient spring bogs are good places peaks on the cultural landscape. These to look for bones of extinct leaf browsers historically significant sites probably warrant such as mastodons, the remains of which some level of preservation and interpretation. have been found at some of Missouri’s One spa in the state was able to weather the springs. Obviously, the animals found in ups and downs of public perception and cycles or around Missouri’s springs today are of mineral water popularity. At Excelsior not nearly so conspicuous. Springs, Missouri’s self-proclaimed “Haven of For example, several species of darters Health,” a visitor can still take a hot, relaxing frequent springs and spring-fed streams. mineral water bath or sip a variety of mineral It is fun to watch these small fish while waters at the “world’s longest water bar.” But snorkeling in spring branches where, even here, the local mineral waters have during the breeding season, they can be become a relatively minor part of the as brightly colored as tropical aquarium attraction. Never-the-less, the medicinal fish. Hidden in the gravel and cobbles of springs seeping out along the Fishing River in a spring branch you might also find Excelsior gave birth to the ornate and sculpins, mottled brown fish with impressive “Hall of Waters,” a monolithic grotesquely wide heads and wing-like

Hall of Waters, Excelsior Springs

(Courtesy State Historical Society of Missouri-Columbia

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 31 Life in the Cold (and Dark)

Niangua Darter, found in Spring-fed Streams

(Courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation)

pectoral fins. Springs may also harbor several an observer might also see the feathery kinds of amphibians such as pickerel frogs, fronds of water milfoil or spindly gray-bellied salamanders or even the big, starwort or fleshy green pondweed, along baggy skinned hellbender (although these with algae and diatoms covering the strange creatures are usually found in large rocks or wafting in the current. spring-fed rivers rather than in springs). Astonishing creatures can sometimes On a smaller scale, myriad invertebrates be found in springs. Some are totally inhabit springs, including mayfly and stonefly blind and strangely pale, even white. larvae clinging to rocks in the current. These These bizarre types are usually found are favorite foods of fish. Several species of near the entrances to caves or in water crayfish, isopods (the aquatic version of flowing inside caves (caves are merely roly-poly bugs), amphipods (resembling tiny spring conduits that have become freshwater shrimp) and flatworms, including partially or completely drained and that the tiny cross-eyed planarian, roam among humans can now enter). In days past, it and over the rocks and aquatic plants in a was not that uncommon for Ozarkers to spring branch. While animals can be to come across tiny white fish, no more numerous, the most conspicuous life in a than a few inches long, living in their spring is often its flora, with clumps of brilliant water supplies. These fish seemed to green watercress a well known and easily require clean water to survive, so when recognized hallmark of Missouri springs. But people occasionally pulled them up from

Ozark Cavefish

(Courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 32 Life in the Cold (and Dark) a shallow well they figured the water had to be Biologists are still trying to answer good. Thus, the miniature piscids became some of these questions. Reclusive and known as “well-keepers.” rare, the Ozark Cavefish is a difficult A fearless female explorer first introduced subject for study. In spite of that, its’ some of these strange spring and presence in isolated caves and shallow cave-dwelling creatures to the scientific wells in southwestern Missouri and community. Ruth Hoppin, an amateur northwestern Arkansas has been taken to biologist living near Sarcoxie, Missouri, found mean that the local groundwater is some tiny white fish in a cave near her home in relatively unpolluted. The cavefish has the late 1880s. She sent a specimen of this fish thus been likened to the “canary in the to a national scientific expert, Samuel Garman, coal mine,” in that its disappearance who announced that it was a cavefish, a kind of from previously known habitat would fish highly adapted to life in the total indicate some kind of problem. There are darkness of caves and groundwater. He some difficulties with this concept, declared that this species was new to science, however. Scientists have discovered that the first cavefish of its kind identified west of the metabolism of cavefish is very low. the Mississippi River. It was similar to cavefish This allows the fish to survive on meals previously discovered in Mammoth Cave, that can be few and far between in un- Kentucky, but its eyes had degenerated even derground waters. Unlike many other further. The identification of the Ozark species, cavefish might be able to simply Cavefish raised all sorts of interesting “wait out” some episodes of pollution or questions. If it was descended from the temporarily move into cleaner water Mammoth Cave (Southern) Cavefish, how did further back in the bedrock. it get across (or under) the Mississippi River? Many kinds of creatures inhabit caves How does it spread from cave to cave? How and cave streams (which are actually does it find food in the total darkness? How springs, of course), some of them, like long does it live? the cavefish, with special adaptations to

Spring-fed Fen, Grasshopper Hollow

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 33 Life in the Cold (and Dark) the total darkness. For example, several the state. species of blind, white salamanders, crayfish Springs are natural magnets for life. and crustaceans inhabit cave streams. But But their influence on the native because of the limiting environment of the landscape extends far beyond their cave (no green plants, for example) there tend immediate outlets. Their ecological to be fewer kinds of creatures and less total significance cannot be overstated. They biomass in caves than in aquatic habitat above provide life-sustaining flows to rivers ground. Just as in regular streams, the and streams and lakes that would numbers and kinds of animals found in cave otherwise be bone dry during Missouri’s streams, as well as in springs and spring long, parching summers. Without branches, can be good indicators of their springs to cool and bolster flows, the relative health. But because these unique state’s waters would be much habitats have not been as thoroughly studied, impoverished in habitat, fish and wildlife indices are not yet as refined as those used to in general. And as we have seen, spring measure the health of surface streams. water flowing underground supports When people think of springs, they often entire unique ecosystems, complete with think of trout. Trout are not native to creatures known from only a few Missouri’s waters, but they do thrive in the locations in Missouri and found nowhere cold water of springs and spring-fed streams, else in the world. It is remarkable to and even in dam tail waters and deep think that there are creatures like these reservoirs. Raising trout in large springs and living out their entire lives in the total spring-fed ponds has become a major industry darkness beneath our feet. It is also in Missouri at both public and private exciting to imagine that unknown facilities. These fish do not typically reproduce biological curiosities could remain in the state’s waters, so regular stocking is hidden in the subterranean realm of necessary to support active fisheries. springs, waiting to be discovered by a Never-the-less, angling for trout has new generation of intrepid explorers. become a major source of tourism dollars in

Spring-fed Wetland, Greene County

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 34 What Good are Springs?

product of his times. His answer to the What Good are Springs? problem was not to halt pollution, which he may have considered the inevitable Hardly anyone would deny that Big Spring, price of progress, but to turn away from churning out a full-fledged, crystal clear river, the use of springs for drinking water is an amazing sight. But it is difficult to sources and instead exploit the deeper quantify its actual value. Is it measured by the groundwater, which he knew to be less dollars generated from gawking tourists? What vulnerable to pollution. That is exactly about other springs, most of them much less what we have done. We no longer depend impressive than Big Spring? What is their on springs, to any major extent, for worth? Can it be determined from the sales of drinking water supplies—or, for that food, ice and beer to floaters using spring-fed matter, to drive mills or cool food or rivers? Is it calculated from the gear bought or brew whiskey or can tomatoes. pounds of fish caught by anglers—fish Unfortunately, because of our lessened requiring cool spring water to survive? Yes, direct reliance on springs, the constitu- obviously, to all of these. Springs provide ency for their protection has become valuable and quantifiable recreational benefits, somewhat muted. especially at state parks like Meramec, There is no doubt that magnificent Montauk, Roaring River and Bennett Spring, blue springs (Jerry Vineyard refers to where they sustain hatcheries and fisheries them as the “jewels” of the Ozarks) and canoeing and tourism. But these are attracts large numbers of visitors to human-centered benefits. It is much more Missouri’s state parks and natural areas difficult to place a dollar value on the every year. But what about the thousands ecological services delivered by springs. of lesser springs? We pay much less Even with his utilitarian slant, Edward attention to these smaller springs, Shepard understood something of the especially to the land at the upstream importance of springs. Late in his career, he ends of their plumbing systems—their warned that springs could easily become recharge areas. We have been slow to contaminated in the country “where the karst carefully manage our activities on the topography prevails.” But Shepard was also a land where the rain falls and, as a result,

Mountain Springs Trout Farm, Montague Spring, Christian County

(Photo by Author)

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 35 What Good are Springs?

Diver in Spring Conduit

(Courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation) have often failed to adequately safeguard the come to more fully understand these quality of water that seeps into the ground, deep watery caverns. Their great depths feeding into springs. Because of this, many of (at least 300 feet as now known) and the our springs, at some point in their histories, particular geologic strata through which have become polluted. the conduits pass could tell us a lot about In some ways, springs can be thought of as how, and how long ago, these mighty gigantic organisms, living underground with springs formed. only their mouths exposed to view. Their There is much yet to learn about circulatory systems pulse with hydraulic springs. But with what we already know, energy beneath the rocky skin of the earth. we should at least respect their Sampling a spring is a little like sticking a important contributions to our cultural thermometer in someone's mouth. It may tell history, prosperity and way of life. We us there’s a problem, but it won’t tell us exactly should acknowledge that their flows and what or where the problem is. However, such quality remain vital to the health of our measurements can serve as early warning wildlife and fish and aquatic ecosystems. indicators, placing us on alert. A polluted And we should advocate development spring tells us that we have improperly rules and land-use practices that help to managed some type of activity in its recharge protect them. At a higher level, springs area. It could also alert us to problems that also contribute to landscape diversity, could eventually impact the deeper helping to define the character of groundwater aquifers, threatening our critical Missouri. Without them, our state would drinking water supplies. be a much less interesting place. Its Given their largely obscured metabolisms, personality would be altered—less some secrets about the inner workings of sparkling, less dynamic, and much drier. springs could elude us for a long time to come. Springs not only refresh and renew us. Jerry Vineyard suggests that the deep phreatic Their promise of everlasting water gives (water-filled) conduits feeding large springs us hope for the future. could comprise the last outposts on the hydrologic frontier. Eventually, using new techniques in high-tech mapping and deeper penetration by cave divers (by using underwater habitations, for example), we will

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 36 Sources

Springs at Work 1. Website, http://umsl.edu/~joellaws/ozark_caving/sprinsgs/greer.htm (Greer Spring). 2. Letter, Edward Shepard to Louis Houck, September 19, 1905; folder 5, Edward Martin Shepard Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri-Columbia (Greer Spring Dam) 3. University of Missouri School of Engineers, Water Power of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. 1901. 4. Luella Agnes Owen, Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills, the Editor Publishing Co., Cincinnati 1898. 5. Columbia Daily Tribune, August 2, 1987 p. 29 (Bottling Water at Greer Spring).

Spring Anatomy 1. Jerry D. Vineyard and Gerald L. Feder, Springs of Missouri, Missouri Geological Survey and Water Resources, Water Resources Report No. 29, Rolla 1974.

Going with the Flow 1. Tom Aley, Ozark Underground Laboratory, personal interview, January 9, 2009. 2. H.C. Beckman and N. S. Hinchey, The Large Springs of Missouri, Missouri Geological Survey and Water Re- sources Report No. 29, Rolla 1944.

A Question of Purity 1. Karl McVey, Water Supply for Country Homes, University of Missouri Engineering Experiment Station, Bulle- tin No. 2, University of Missouri, Columbia 1910. 2. Edward M. Shepard, Prehistoric Races, Early Explorations and the Geology of Greene County, Missouri, A. W. Bowen and Co. Publishers, Indianapolis 1915. 3. Jim Vandike, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, personal interview January 22, 2009. 4. United States Geological Survey, Hydrologic Investigations Concerning Lead Mining Issues in Southeastern Missouri, Scientific Investigations Report 2008-5140, Reston, Va. 2008.

Mineral Springs 1. Douglas R. Hurt, Nathan Boone and the American Frontier, University of Missouri Press, Columbia 1998. 2. Loring Bullard, Healing Waters: Missouri’s Historic Mineral Springs and Spas, University of Missouri Press, Columbia 2004. 3. Paul Schweitzer, A Report on the Mineral Waters of Missouri, Geological Survey of Missouri, Vol. III, Jefferson City 1892. 4. John C. Miller, Groundwater Resources of Saline County, Missouri, Water Resources Report No. 26, Missouri Geological Survey and Water Resources, Rolla 1971.

Life in the Cold (and Dark) 1. William L Pflieger, “Fauna of Missouri Springs,” in Springs of Missouri (Vineyard and Feder, 1982). 2. Website, http://members.socket.net/joschaper/luella.html, (Luella Owen). 3. Samuel Garman, “Cave Animals from Southwestern Missouri,” in Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zool- ogy at Harvard College, Vol. 17 No. 6, 1889. 4. Rick Horton, Missouri Department of Conservation, personal interview March 3, 2009.

What Good Are Springs? Jerry D. Vineyard, personal interview, February 13, 2009.

Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 37