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Disclaimer & Cautions
| A Brief Note from the Page Author/Website Owner
This page is offered as a public service only, as
an
informational and educational webpage. This is not a
marketing site,
nor is it a "preachy" site -- I have nothing to sell to you, and there
is nothing I am trying to get you to believe, and rather, this page (or
set of pages) is simply offered freely out of love and appreciation for
the many gifts of God/Being/Source with which we are blessed on this
planet.
All information offered is simply reported to the best of my ability,
and
my reportage, opinions and preferences as stated in this page remain my
own. If you choose to drink or use water from this spring or
from
other wild springs, you do so only at your own risk and you take sole
responsibility
for your choices and your actions. I take no responsibility for any
outcomes
you or others may encounter from drinking or using water from this
spring
or other wild springs, nor from streams or creeks, etc. If
you have
any questions or concerns about the safety of, or use of, water from
any
wild source (spring, stream, creek, lake, etc.) please consult with
your
licensed healthcare professional.
I hope you enjoy this page! Have fun!
To learn more about the author, please
click here to go to the Vinny Pinto Central Directory website.
Brief Introduction
In rural Emitsburg, Maryland, just off Route
15
(a north/south artery), lies a small cluster of Roman Catholic shrines
and places of worship, at least two of which attract visitors from
around
the nation. Several are connected with the Blessed Mother,
aka Blessed
Virgin Mary. The best known of these is the National Shrine
Grotto
of Our Lady of Lourdes, located on a hillside above Mount St. Mary's
University
on the western side of Route 15. The Shrine was built years
ago as
a devotional shrine replica of Lourdes, a place in France where the
Blessed
Mother is said to have appeared to a young woman repeatedly; a healing
spring was eventually discovered at the site as well -- tens of
thousands
flock to Lourdes yearly seeking healings. The replica shrine
at Emmitsburg
originaly started in the early 1900s, starting very informally when
several
devotional Catholics found a large tree on the hillisde about Mount St.
Mary College (it changed it's name to "Mount St. Mary University" in
May
2004) -- at a site currently occupied by the shrine -- whose
roots
and lower trunk formed a perfectgrotto or shrine. They
eventually
placed a statue of the Blessed Mother (Our Lady) in that hollow, and
thus
the devotional pilgrimages started. When the tree died and
the natural
tree/root shrine disappeared, the current shrine was eventually built
at
the site from stone and mortar.
More About the "Spring"
The location of the
shrine grotto happens to
be mere feet from a small creek which meanders just in front of the
current
shrine, flowing from roughly west to east. And, just to the west of the
shrine, the creek water drops abruptly about three feet, forming a tiny
waterfall. The persons who constructed the shrine erected a
fence
and gate near the creek and waterfall in such a fashion that visitors
to
the site can, if they wish, approach the waterfall where the creek
drops
as it meanders to the east, and collect water in containers such as
jugs
and buckets. This small waterfall draws visitors from many
miles
around, many of then Asian-Americans, and many of them non-Catholics,
who
come for the the express purpose of collecting water in containers to
bring
home for daily use. And, for some obscure reason, almost all
of these
visitors, some of whom come from as far as DC and Northern Virginia,
and
also many locals, for at least 20 miles around, insist upon referring
to
this waterfall/drop in the creek as a "spring", and inded, they usually
refer to it simply as "...the spring at the Grotto of Lourdes in
Emmitsburg".
It is not a spring, it is a small, slow-flowing, relatively low volume
surface creek, which travels along the surface of the mountainside from
the west/southwest for at least a quarter mile or more from its point
of
origin. I cannot determine from the topographic maps exactly what its
point
of origin is, but the spource appears to be one or more springs located
at least a quarter-mile from the grotto. Thus, it is true in some sense
that the water ultimately does come from a spring, as is true of the
wate
in almost every creek and brook on the planet's surface, but it is also
true that the water from that spring or cluster of springs has then
traversed
the surface of the earth thru a wooded area for at least a quarter-mile
before hitting the tiny (likely man-made) waterfall to the left of the
grotto. Who
Visits the Creek Source
at the Grotto? Locals
tell me that the primary visitors to the
"spring" are locals who live within about 20 miles of the spring, and
also
a relatively large volume of visitors from further away, primarily the
DC/VA area, and these later folks seem to be largely Asian-Americans,
often
Korean or Chinese. What
Do We Know the Water Source
and Safety? According to local
old-timers, the
creek does seem to flow year-round, but even in the wettest seasons
(those
of highest rainfall) the flow in the creek is rather slow and
low-volume
-- in other words, it is a very shallow, low-flow creek. As
mentioned
earlier, the springs which feed the creek seem to be located at least a
quarte-mile away, and the the creek meanders thru a largely
near-wilderness
area before encountering the small waterfall/collection point to the
left
of the grotto. From a water potability (drinkability) and
safety
point of view, the problem is that the water is not collected as soon
as
it emerges from a spring, but rather from a creek -- and a slow-flowing
one at that -- which has meandered thru a wooded area for at least a
quarter-mile,
exposed to the air and to varous sources of manmade pollution
(cigarette
butts, empty bottles and cans, empty packages and wrappers) which may
have
found their way in to the creek, as well as any animal wastes which may
enter the creek. The only problem here is simply that the water, by the
time it forms a waterfall at the collection point, may contain some
minor
level of contaminants from the above-named sources.
So,
is the Water Safe for Humans
to Drink? Simply put, I do not
know if the
local county health department has ever tested the water at the
collection
point near the groto; I have never heard any reports of such tests or
their
results, even though I live not far away and know several frequent
users
of the spring. And, none of the locals whom I know are aware
of any
such tests or results either. Since this is not really a spring at all,
but rather water collected from a stream at a point where it makes an
abrupt
drop of a few feet, it could potentially bear any of hazaards of such
surface
water collected from any stream or creek, such as fecal coliform
bacteria
from animal waste, giardia (which can make some people quite ill), or
even
various ameoba such as Entamoeba histolytica, which can cause amebic
dysentery.
So, for now, until and unless more information about the safety of the
water becomes available, I recommend that you drink this water only at
your own risk. On the other hand, apparently numerous visitors to the
Grotto
have been drawing water from this source for many years, and apparently
withou harm. By the way, I do recommend that you may wish to consider
avoiding
collecting or drinking water from the waterfall during
and immediately
after heavy rainfall -- such rainfall will have washed lots of derbis
from
the forest in to the stream. Care
of the Parking Lot and
the Area Around the Spring If you are someone who
uses the
spring, please realize that both the parking area and the spring are
located
on private church National Shrine property. The church
parking lot
and the water source near the grotto spring are made available to the
public
only by the goodwill and courtesy of the church, which could easily
choose,
if they it wished, to seal off access to the snmall
waterfall. So,
please be extra careful to treat the properties with care, and not to
litter
or to leave behind old containers or other debris. Do not use soaps or
bleaches or other cleansers on any containers at the the stream or
grotto.
Please also be respectful of folks who are at the grotto for devotional
religious or spritual reasons, although I have never heard anyone
complain
that the visitors who go to the grotto mainly for water are anything
other
than very respectful and considerate!
Professional
Photos of Flora and Fauna in the
Surrounding Catoctin Mountains
The
shrine and Grotto are located a wilderness area in Maryland called
the Catoctin Mountains. If you are interested in
seeing some
photos of the landscape, animals and plants from the Catoctin mountains
immediately surrounding the grotto, you may wish to check out some
professional
photographs taken by Bob Cammarata, a wildlife photographer based in
Baltimore
who spends much of his time shooting photographs in these mountains --
Bob is also a frequent visitor to a local wild spring mentioned
elswehere
on this site! To see some of his photos of the local area in
his online photo gallery, please click here.
A
Solicitation and Note At this time, this page
is one of the first spring-specific pages on
my Fun Springs website, devoted to interesting wild springs and healing
springs from across North America. If you know of other
interesting
wild springs such as: -
healing springs or mystical springs
-
wild springs which produce high-quality water
-
springs
which are reputedly fed from extremely deep
water sources which are claimed to supply primordial water or primal
water
in North America in which you think other folks might be interested,
please
feel free to drop me a line at -- I
will be happy to
incorporate such information.
Donations
and Support for this Website
This freely-offered educational website has been totally
self-supported by the author, Vinny Pinto, since its inception (and
many of my websites were started between August 2000 and June 2003).
While I offer the content on this website freely, as a gift to all from
my heart, it is quite obvious that not only did my research in these
realms (and also my training, including formal education, that allowed
me to offer this material in the first place) incur costs, but there
are also monthly and yearly costs associated with web hosting, domain
registration, etc. As you have likely noticed, I have chosen not to
accept any advertising on any of my websites. As a result of all of
these factors, any funds that you might choose to donate toward
supporting my research work and this site will be very much
appreciated.
Thus, I am seeking donations to help me to support
this site -- even two dollars helps! If you wish to donate, you may do
so by using your credit card, ATM card, debit card, or transfer from
your bank account, via fully secure means. To make a
donation, please go to the Donations
and Support page ! All
transactions are secure; in all cases, you get to choose the donation
amount!
Thank you very
much! Vinny
A Brief Note from the Page Author/Website Owner
This page is offered as a public service only, as
an
informational and educational webpage. I have nothing to sell
to
you, and there is nothing I am trying to get you to believe, and
rather,
this page (or set of pages) is simply offered out of love and
appreciation
for the many gifts of God/Being/Source with which we are blessed on
this
planet. All information offered is simply reported to the
best of
my ability, and my reportage, opinions and preferences as stated in
this
page remain my own. If you choose to drink or use water from
this
spring or from other wild springs, you do so only at your own risk and
you take sole responsibility for your choices and your actions. I take
no responsibility for any outcomes you or others may encounter from
drinking
or using water from this spring or other wild springs, nor from streams
or creeks, etc. If you have any questions or concerns about
the safety
of, or use of, water from any wild source (spring, stream, creek, lake,
etc.) please consult with your licensed healthcare
professional.
I hope you enjoy this page! Have fun!
To learn more about the author, please
click here to go to the Vinny Pinto Central Directory website.
A
privacy notice ,
about the Traffic Analyzer for this web site and privacy.
|