history of springs and water supplies in Missouri

1. Missouri Springs:
Power, Purity and Promise
By Loring Bullard
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise

2. © Watershed Press Design by: Kelly Guenther
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 2

3. 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

4. Introduction
Dillard Mill on Huzzah
Creek
(Photo by Author)
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

5. Springs at Work
A Spring-fed Stream
Kimberland Mill at Silver Lake Spring, Stone
(Photo by Author) County
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 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

6. 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 form 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 feet higher and almost a quarter of a
round,wire-rimmed spectacles. A neatly trimmed mile distant.
gray 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 1840s 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

7. 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

8. 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 1920’s 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 Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 8

9. Springs at Work
Orleans Mill, Polk County
(Courtesy Polk County Historical Society)
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 18890’s, 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

10. 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 water must originate in lands far to
springs as industrial centers now resides more the north—from the Great Lakes,
comfortably with the native scenery, as old mills perhaps, or massive glaciers. Some of
and dams and ponds have themselves become these notions held sway until the
historic and nostalgic icons. For the most part, sciences of geology and hydrology
springs no longer do works for us. But they began to provide reasonable
continue to provide many other services that are alternative explanations. But even in
equally 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,
Round
Spring
(Photo by
Author)
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 10

11. Spring Anatomy
Markham
Spring on
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, wont’ 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 millions of gallons per day, in that
the soil, CO2 comes from the breathing of same day dissolves and removes from
earthworms and insects and millions of other the underground 175 tons of rock.
animals. Under higher pressure in the soil than in Over a year’s time that amounts to
the atmosphere above it, the gas is forced to 640,000 tons, equivalent to the
dissolve into the downward percolating rainwater, creation of a new cave passage thirty
creating a weak carbonic acid solution (the same by fifty feet in cross section and a mile
as in carbonated beverages), which can then eat long. 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

12. Spring Anatomy
A Spring
Recharge Area
undermining the land, day after day, for many county. That’s a lot of real estate, but
thousands of years (although, realistically, the it’s not huge, and most springs are
dissolving action is spread over many square miles much smaller than Big Spring and
and the proportion of volume in conduits and cracks therefore have much smaller
is small in comparison to the total rock mass, even in recharge areas. Between rains, most
well 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

13. Spring Anatomy
Ha Ha Tonka
Spring
(Photo by
Author)
Spring
Branch with
Jewelweed
(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

14. 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 1950’s, 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
Big Spring
(Photo by
Author)
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 14

15. Going with the Flow
Service and went on his own, eventually land. “Is there a job on this forest—
purchasing Tumbling Creek Cave in southern here in Missouri?” he asked the
Missouri in the mid 1960’s, where he planned to supervisor. “Yes. But we’re not at the
establish an unusual research facility—an top of the list.” “If I put on the form
underground laboratory. But the mortgage left that I’ll only work here, what would
him scratching for income, and he walked into the happen?” “You’d get the job.” “What
local Forest Service headquarters in Springfield would I be doing” “Do you know
one day, ready to take any kind of forestry job to what karst is?”
support his cave lab project. Unbeknownst to him, Tom’s nose must have wrinkled at
during his absence the Forest Service had begun to that point, as he patiently explained
take watersheds more seriously, and had placed an that he actually knew quite a bit
increased emphasis on forest hydrology. The about karst. The supervisor went on
Service, in fact, was under a Congressional to mention that the Forest Service
mandate to hire people with professional water had authorization to establish the
expertise, and the agency currently had fourteen type example study for watershed
openings for hydrologists in the eastern US. Upon management in karst terrain. It was
hearing that Tom had a forestry background, the music to Tom’s ears, and he took the
Supervisor in Springfield tried to convince him to job, even though it would pay only
rejoin the agency. But Tom had just bought the forty percent of what he was making
cave, and intended to put down roots in at his previous professional gig,
Missouri—roots that would surely find their way working as a hydrologist for a
into the cave lurking below his rocky, overgrazed California consulting firm.
Jones Spring
Jones Spring
(Courtesy)
(Courtesy)
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 15

16. Going with the Flow
Tom’s new job was based in Winona, Missouri, Tom decided that he needed to
where in 1966 he was assigned to the sixteen square do dye tracing to see where the lost
mile Hurricane Creek topographic basin. He began flow of Hurricane Creek went. He
driving around his watershed and discovered that studied dye tracing techniques,
only the lowermost mile of the creek, just upstream consulting a United States
of its confluence with the Eleven Point River, had any Geological Survey (USGS)
water in it. It was a bit of a conundrum—how do you publication from 1906 as well as
conduct a water flow study without water? Tom more recent literature from
recognized, of course, that Hurricane Creek was a Yugoslavia, at the time a hotbed of
classic losing stream, with most of its flow moving karst research. Dye tracing, he
underground a good part of the time. discovered, was not all that simple.
He went to work getting ready for times of flow, First, there is the matter of what
supplying the basin with rain gages and weirs to dye to use. Of course, any substance
measure surface flows, when they occurred— composed of particles or pieces
installing these devices himself, since no technicians small enough to fit through the flow
were available to help. In his spare time, he even network of a spring could
repaired, without authorization, the old mill at theoretically be used as a tracer.
Falling Spring (the Forest Service had recently This, in fact, has happened during
acquired this property), rebuilding the old flume and some rather unscientific
overshot water wheel. Tom didn’t get much of a experiments, as when people threw
lecture about his well-intentioned misdeed, however, cornstalks into the big sinkhole at
other than “that’s not supposed to be the way we do Grand Gulf and later watched them
things here.” For their part, the locals applauded the emerge at Mammoth Spring.
Forest Service for showing some interest in the Even a spring suddenly
decaying property and for saving the historic mill becoming muddy right after a
from ruin. sinkhole has collapsed in the
Sander Spring,
Greene County
(Photo by Author)
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 16

17. Going with the Flow
vicinity constitutes a sort of trace, confirming an fairly good change that it’s correct.
underground connection. Alley Springs on the Jacks To confirm underground
Fork River suddenly quit flowing in the 1930’s, a connections, scientists have largely
disconcerting event which the locals had never settled upon fluorescing dyes,
witnessed before. After a few hours, flow resumed, which can be used in small
but the water was muddy. Eventually, it was amounts and detected by
discovered that a sinkhole had collapsed fifteen miles instruments in the laboratory,
away shortly before the spring ceased flowing. A avoiding the potential
similar thing happened at Roaring River Spring, in embarrassment of turning springs
the far southwest part of the state, when the spring bright green or red. The water
became murky after a lake bottom collapsed on the tracing scientist must also make
nearby upland. sure that he or she carefully
Of course, one doesn’t need a geology degree to consults geologic maps and
make educated guesses about where water lost form monitors any possible outlets for
the surface might go. Take a look at topographic the emergence of tracer dye. This
maps of Missouri and in the Ozarks you will see usually means “bugging” many
many streams named “Dry Creek” or “Dry Hollow” or springs and sometimes wells. The
“Dry Fork” and the like. Simple intuition will tell you bugs (usually charcoal packets) are
that streams which rarely contain flow, even after set in the spring and checked
rains, are leaky and many people could put two and frequently to make sure they have
two together when they see a flowing spring a fairly not absorbed dyes even before the
short distance away and down gradient from these tracing experiment begins (some
losing streams. It is deductive tracing, and there is a man-made materials, like
Sequiota Spring,
Red with Mud
after Sinkhole
Collapse
(Photo by Author)
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 17

18. Going with the Flow
A Cascading
Spring
(Photo by Author)
anti-freeze, can contain the same dyes). Hurricane even when invisible to the naked eye.
Creek is a fairly large basin, so Tom knew he He spent only $60 of Forest Service
would need to monitor springs over a considerable money on materials that first fiscal
area or the possible reappearance of his dye. year. Finally, he bought ten pounds
He next needed to decide how much dye to use. fluorescein dye and looked for the
From his study of maps and the local geology, he ideal injection point, which he found
suspected that Hurricane Creek’s lost water went at a conspicuous losing section of
to Big Spring, about 18.5 miles to the east as the Hurricane Creek where he could
crow flies. If true, this would mean that water lost actually hear water roaring
from a tributary of the Eleven Point River went underground. This would be like
under a major surface watershed divide and injecting dye directly into a jugular,
resurfaced a at spring on the Current River, in a enhancing the prospects of success.
different basin. If Tom was right, this would be a Tom also talked to Jerry Vineyard in
long trace attempt, so he would need a significant Rolla, who agreed to examine his
amount of dye. Using one of the equations he sample packets using the instruments
found in the literature, he calculated that he of the Geological Survey.
should use 740 pounds! That seemed like an awful Tom injected the dye and to his
lot, more than he really wanted to dump, and satisfaction, the packets collected at
besides, he didn’t even know where he could get Big Spring, when the dye was washed
his hands on that much dye or whether he could free or eluted from the charcoal,
afford to buy it if he found it. colored the water a bright green. Even
Tom started working in small spring systems before instrumental analysis, he knew
with tiny amounts of dye to perfect his technique. he had a positive trace. Soon,
He used activated carbon samplers to capture and newspaper headlines read, “Forest
concentrate the dye, so he could use a lot less. The Service Discovers Source of Big
dye would be absorbed in a charcoal packet, Spring.” Tom and his work made the
washed free of the charcoal in the laboratory, and Sunday Features section of the New
then detected in the wash water with instruments, York Times. The sudden glow of
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 18

19. A Question of Purity
Warning Sign at Small
Spring, Greene County
(Photo by Author)
success reflected well on the Forest Service and its hy- practice. It was not always that
drologic work, and didn’t hurt Tom’s career either. Tom way, of course. Up until relatively
proudly recalls that of the twenty special study recently, springs were considered
watersheds in National Forests around the country, the purest sources of water
several were still in very preliminary stages at the time, available—much cleaner than
but his was “up and running and producing results, and streams, akes, or even wells. This
even had an honest-to-goodness hydrologist running it.” commonly held notion of the
Why is it so important to know where Big Spring, or purity of springs is reflected in a
any spring for that matter, gets its water? For one thing, 1910 University of Missouri
spring water is not always as pure as we would like to publication, which informs us
believe. Springs can have serious pollution problems, that spring water is generally
sometimes with significant public health and financial “palatable, wholesome and free
ramifications. Hundreds of Missouri springs, at some from organic impurities” due to
point in their histories, have been used for drinking “natural filtration in the
water supplies or supported some type of business—and subterranean strata.” Based on
for the most part, water pollution is bad for business. findings about the wide open
When springs get polluted, people using or living near nature of underground flow
them, as well as agencies charged with groundwater systems, scientists would later
protection, want to know where to look for the cause of challenge this assumption.
the problem. Regulations may have been violated, or are A visit to Tom Aley’s Ozark
too weak to adequately protect groundwater and Underground Laboratory will
therefore need to be strengthened. And thoughtful, tend to confirm suspicions about
responsible citizens will want to know how to prevent the vulnerability of spring water.
such a thing from happening again. When tom is not out consulting
on karst issues around the world,
A Question of Purity he can sometimes be found
leading tours of his own cave. He
Nowadays, many people realize that drinking describes for his subterranean
untreated spring water could constitute an unhealthy visitors how karst works and how
caves form and especially, how
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 19

20. A Question of Purity
Entrance to Tumbling
Creek Cave
(Photo by Author)
easily spring and groundwater in the Ozarks direct and open connections between the
can become contaminated. He tries to get spring and the surface of the ground. Other
his listeners to think three dimensionally springs, usually smaller ones, derive their
about the landscape, something surface flow from systems that are less open, with
dwellers have a hard time doing. On a cave tighter cracks in the rock. These are called
tour, he points to a crack in the ceiling. diffuse flow springs. They rise more slowly
“We’re forty feet below the surface. If you’re when it rains but also drain more slowly.
standing here twenty minutes after it starts The openness of the spring network has a
raining hard, you’ll see water come gushing direct bearing on how quickly and how
out of that opening.” easily the spring can become contaminated
This, he explains, makes the spring that by pollution in the recharge area.
runs through his cave a classic example of a Of polluting events, Missouri springs
discrete flow spring. That is, there are very have had their share. One of the first
A Tour Group Inside Tom
Aley’s Tumbling Creek Cave
(Photo by Author)
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 20

21. A Question of Purity
scientists in Missouri to investigate the accomplished blacksmith and woodworker.
contamination of springs was Edward He grew up in northeastern Missouri, in
Shepard, the man who explored Greer Spring Schuyler County. As a kid he collected
in 1905. Shepard arrived from the glacial erratics, foreign rocks carried down
northeastern United States in 1877 to teach from the north by glaciers during the Ice
geology and chemistry classes at Drury College Age. His interest in geology led him to the
in Springfield. In 1915, he wrote a book about South Dakota School of Mines where, as a
Greene County in which he noted that thesis subject, he decided to focus on the
sinkholes (funnel or bowl-shaped depressions hydrologic properties of water wells in that
where soil has slumped into underground state. But his Chair detected a lack of
solution openings in the bedrock) often enthusiasm for his proposal. “That’s okay.
appeared in clusters. Shepard deduced, But what do you really want to do?” “Well,
correctly, that sinkholes reflect the presence of I’d really like to do something in karst.”
fissures underground, with lines of sinkholes “Then why don’t you?” “I didn’t know I
and their elongations mirroring the prevailing could.” “Look, we have students doing
directions of subterranean fractures. He their work in Iran. I think you could at
theorized that cases of typhoid fever in eastern least go to Missouri to study karst.”
Greene County originated at a cemetery near a So with the help of Jerry Vineyard, who
cluster of sinkholes. Later scientists would agreed to serve on his committee, Jim set
confirm suspected connections like this via dye up a project to study karst hydrology in the
tracing, a tool Shepard lacked, but his work North Fork River basin of south-central
suggested that in karst terrain, a spring or well Missouri. In 1978, he moved to Dora,
could be contaminated from pollution sources Missouri, but soon had a problem. His
a considerable distance away. fellowship ran out, and he needed to find
Another man who has investigated his share paying work while finishing his project. He
of spring pollution, and continues to do so had earlier earned a teaching certificate in
today, is Jim Vandike, an employee with the science and math from Northeast Missouri
Missouri Department of Natural Resources. State in Kirksville, and signed up as a
Jim wears a beard and a wide grin and is an substitute teacher in Dora. When the
Outfall of Fulbright
Spring, Greene County
(Photo by Author)
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 21

22. A Question of Purity
secretary at the school district office found that hydrologically connected to the West
he held a science certificate, she sprang form Plains area. This gigantic spring, pouring
her chair. “You’re a science teacher? Don’t from the ground right on the Missouri-
move.” Soon, the superintendent Arkansas line, supports a fish hatchery and
appeared and took Jim into his office, where gives birth to the Spring River, a popular
he explained that the district was already a canoeing stream. After the lagoon collapse
month into the school year and still had no in West Plains, bacterial levels jumped and
science teacher. Jim was offered and accepted dissolved oxygen slumped in the spring. As
the full-time job at $5,200 a year. strange as it might sound however, the
But the next year, Jerry Vineyard called situation could have been worse, illustrat-
with an offer to work for the Missouri ing one slightly redeeming feature of wide
Geological Survey in reservoir yield analysis. open groundwater flow systems. The lost
That summer, Jim moved to Rolla and has sewage followed a beeline trajectory
been there ever since. His first experience with toward Mammoth Spring, seemingly
spring contamination actually occurred right polluting very few wells along the way.
before he left the teaching job at Dora. In 1978, “Springs,” Jim explains, “take water
a sinkhole suddenly opened up in the bottom from a fairly wide area and concentrate the
of the West Plains wastewater lagoon, flow into one or a very few well defined
emptying most of its contents, about thirty to flow paths, rather than stuff in the flow
forty million gallons of sewage, into the path going out into the aquifer. So unless
shallow groundwater. Because Jim had worked you were unlucky enough to have your well
in the North Fork basin, immediately west of go into over very near the conduit, there
West Plains, and had produced new maps was a good change you didn’t see any
from dye tracing and other geologic field work, impact.”
he was called to help. In the fall of 1981, Jim got a call from
Not surprisingly, at least to the geologists, Mr. Gallagher, the hatchery manager at
the most serious problems from the leaking Meramec Spring in central Missouri, who
lagoon 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
Mammoth Spring, Arkansas
(Courtesy City-Data. com)
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 22

23. A Question of Purity
Trout in Meramec Spring
(Photo by Author)
fish were getting sick. Fall is normally a fairly The company planned to quickly pump
quiet time of the year, when water quality the water onto adjacent fields for fertil-
doesn’t change much, and there hadn’t been izer. But before they could act, it rained,
any recent rain. Jim checked with his DNR flushing the nitrate-laden water down-
cohort, Jim Williams, who recalled that a stream into a losing section, where it
pipeline had ruptured on the Phelps-Dent promptly submerged and traveled at
County line the week before, near the little least 12.8 miles underground to
town of Lake Spring. The old oil pipeline had Meramac Spring.
been converted to carry liquid fertilizer, a mix
of ammonium nitrate and urea containing
about 32% nitrogen by weight. The product
had also been tagged with fluorescein dye, so
that a leak would tint any contaminated water
a sickly yellowish green.
That is exactly what happened. A landowner
saw a bright, unnaturally green pool of water
in the creek on his farm and immediately
called the pipeline company, which responded
promptly to repair the leak. The company
calculated that about 1,200 gallons of fertilizer
had spewed out through a pencil-sized hole in
the estimated four to five days before it was
discovered. The fertilizer flowed into a pool on
Dry Creek, “in a little gaining section of a
notoriously losing stream” as Jim described it.
The tainted pool was definitely “hot,” contain-
ing over 100 milligrams per liter of nitrate, and
Missouri Springs: Power, Purity and Promise 23