A Brief Look at the "Spring" at the National Shrine 

Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Emmitsburg, MD

a creek adjacent to the grotto at the National Shrine Grotto replica


 
 

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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.


 
 


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