The pipe before its removal.

I drove by King Phillip’s Spring last weekend. Yes, it really is closed. Strange to see the absence of the pipe that used to attract so many people carrying water bottles and jugs.

 In my original post on this subject, I reported that the state Department of Environmental Conservation removed the pipe after conducting a general test for coliform bacteria. Since not all coliform indicate the presence of harmful pathogens, some people wondered why the agency did not perform a more specific test, so I did a little more digging.

 DEC had said that it was following protocol set forth by the state Department of Health (DOH). But couldn’t it have gone beyond the protocol?

 ”Nothing prevented us from doing a more specific test,” DEC spokesman David Winchell  told me. “However, it would not have altered the decision because we are following DOH regulation. They are the authorities and the regulatory agency when it comes to drinking water.”

 I also contacted DOH to ask why the agency does not recommend performing the more specific coliform tests for roadside springs. I wondered if it had to with cost. Here’s the e-mailed reply from Juan Merino, an agency spokesman:

 “The DOH does not regulate roadside springs. Since the springs have no long-term periodic testing [and] they have no protection and no treatment, the DOH recommends that people do not use that water.

 ”It has nothing to do with expenses, the tests are not expensive. It would simply be impractical, since the quality of the water could fluctuate from one day to another. Even if a sample shows that the water is fine one day, the next day it could make you sick.

“A coliform test could be a good indicator of contamination, while the E. coli test [which is more specific] could also indicate fecal contamination.

“The Department strongly discourages drinking water from roadside springs. The main concern is that since that water is not protected it can have all kinds of pathogens that make people sick, caused among other things by human and animal waste. There’s a number of water-borne illnesses, due to different pathogenic bacteria, among them giardia, escherichia coli, and cryptosporidium.

“In the event that we get an illness outbreak and in the history of the people affected we find out that many of them drank water from a particular roadside spring, we would ask the property owner to put [up] a sign advising people not to consume water from that source.

“Other than that, there are no regulations in place and the Department doesn’t routinely sample those springs.”

 I didn’t think this quite answered the question. If a test shows a high level of coliform bacteria, that doesn’t necessarily mean the spring is contaminated. Whether or not the results might be different on a different day, why not order the more specific test?

 I gave DOH another chance to answer the question, but Juan Merino’s reply again failed to satisfy: “Neither DOH nor DEC regulates roadside springs. DOH makes every effort when possible to discourage the public from using them as a source of drinking water.”

 I tried one last time to get a direct answer to the question, but Merino wrote back that DOH officials “feel they have made their position clear on the matter.”

The King Phillip's Spring before the pipe was removed. Photo by Phil Gallos.

Phil Gallos has a thing for springs. He has visited more than sixty of them in the Adirondacks, often taking photographs and recording his observations. In ancient times, he says, springs were sacred places–they sustained life.

“There’s an aesthetic and spiritual quality to going to the spring to get your water,” he says. “It is a connection to the natural pattern of our species. It is what we have been doing for millennia.”

Gallos, who lives in Saranac Lake, was upset when the state Department of Environmental Conservation closed King Phillip’s Spring on Route 73, just off Northway Exit 30. King Phillip’s was one of the most visible and most popular springs in the Adirondacks. Driving past on a hot summer day, a motorist often could see people lined up to fill bottles from a pipe sticking out of a chain-link fence. The water seeps naturally to the surface in the woods, where it had been captured in a spring box and piped downhill to the fence.

DEC decided to remove the pipe in late April after detecting high levels of coliform bacteria in water samples taken over six months. Generally, coliform bacteria are not harmful in themselves, but they can indicate the presence of pathogens. People who drink contaminated water may experience diarrhea, cramps, nausea, jaundice, or fatigue.

Given the risk to public health, DEC felt it had no choice. The spring is on the Forest Preserve. In a news release, the agency said building a permanent structure to protect the spring and disinfect the water would violate Article 14, the clause in the state constitution that mandates that the Preserve shall remain forever wild.

Gallos contends the state overreacted, saying that people have been drinking water from King Phillip’s Spring for generations without any apparent ill effects. It’s possible that the bacteria were growing in the pipe or the spring box. If DEC replaced the pipe and disinfected the spring box, he says, the problem might have gone away.

DEC spokesman David Winchell counters that even if the state followed Gallos’s suggestion, the pipe and/or spring box could become contaminated again. In fact, he said DEC did disinfect the pipe and box on several occasions, but tests continued to show high levels of coliform.

Gallos also thinks DEC should have done more testing. Many forms of coliform bacteria occur naturally and do not indicate a threat. The general coliform test, unlike more specific tests, fails to determine whether the bacteria found indicate the presence of harmful pathogens. “If any of these bacteria are present, then they consider the water is not safe to drink, and to me that is a crude approach,” he said.

Winchell confirmed that DEC performed the general coliform test, but in doing so the agency was following the requirements of the state Department of Health.

The origin of the bacteria is uncertain. The fence was erected years ago to keep people from defecating near the spring, but Winchell said DEC continues to find evidence of human waste. “We closed the spring because we can not ensure the quality of the water and the safety of the public that drinks it,” he said.

Gallos sees the closure as part of a wider state campaign. The state also has closed roadside springs in the southern Adirondacks, he says, and posted warning signs at others, including Lumberjack Springs outside Tupper Lake and another along Route 3 near the hamlet of Gale. At the Gale spring, Gallos says, “I met a guy in his eighties who said he had been drinking this water all his life, and yet there’s a sign right there: ‘Unfit for human consumption.’”

Do you think the state was right to close King Phillip’s Spring? Before deciding, you might want to read the attached documents: DEC’s news release, a state leaflet on coliform bacteria, and Phil Gallos’s essay (it’s 8,000 words) on Adirondack springs.

DEC news release pdf

DOH leaflet PDF

Phil Gallos essay PDF