Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell in Page Arizona from Bureau of Reclamation files
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation just issued a Record of Decision on hydrologic management of the Colorado River. It establishes a framework for operation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The framework is outlined in the Bureau’s Post-2026 Operational Guidelines and Strategies for Lake Powell and Lake Mead https://www.usbr.gov/ColoradoRiverBasin/post2026/final-eis/index.html. This document will replace the expiring Colorado River management agreements at the end of 2026.
Reclamation was hoping that the seven states which the Colorado River runs through and who are the primary users of the water from the river would come together and produce their own consensus-based agreement but of course that never happened, so the Bureau stepped in to make sure there was something to replace the existing agreements. The Bureau of Reclamation operates the dams on Lake Powell and Lake Mead so that is their main focus. There has to be enough water in the lakes to operate the dams. Period.
The west has been in drought conditions for years now and water levels in the lakes and in the whole reservoir system that the Bureau operates are dangerously low. Yet the lower basin states (California, Arizona, and Nevada) go blissfully on like nothing is happening. Out of control growth and overpopulation. It’s no wonder that the upper basin states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico can’t make an agreement with these water hogs. Wallace Stegner the great American author wrote a book called Beyond the Hundredth Meridian that tells the tale of the whole development of western water management policy in the United States. It’s the story of John Wesley Powell whose first navigation of the whole of the Colorado River is legendary. Few people know though that Powell was the one who pushed for the western water management system that we have now. He told the idiots in Washington that there wasn’t enough water beyond the 100th meridian to support future western expansion and the idiots basically said, “so fix it.”
Now after years of drought and changes in climate conditions the truth of it all is apparent. It cannot be fixed. Even the new “operational guidelines and strategies” is admitting this because it relies on adaptive management practices. If you haven’t heard this term before, it means “an iterative method of decision making in the face of uncertainty.” Previously known quantities of water were scheduled for release on a yearly basis so water managers in states could plan. No longer. Now The ROD establishes operating guidelines through 2036 that will be determined in 2-year increments. What you get in 2027 may not be what you’re going to get in 2029, unless a broader consensus among the Colorado Basin States supports a longer duration (I’m personally not waiting for that to happen).
From what I can tell, 2027 will start with a range of possible releases of water from Lake Powell to the downstream Lower Basin States of 5.0 million acre-feet (maf) to 12.0 maf. This entails shortages for the Lower Basin of up to 3.0 maf. The Bureau plans water storage in Lake Powell of up to 8.0 maf and 3.0 maf in Lake Mead. The Bureau also is planning for voluntary Upper Basin conservation of up to 200,000 acre-feet (good luck with that).
I wrote a blog post many years ago about the poor old Colorado River and the stress that it was undergoing. You can read that post by clicking here An American River in Distress . I have been writing a lot about Water Bankruptcy recently. The definition of water bankruptcy is “the critical condition in which water resources are depleted or so severely mismanaged that they can no longer meet the essential needs of populations, ecosystems, and economies”. To read my post on Water Bankruptcy click on this link Is the World Really in Global Water Bankruptcy? . Is the Colorado River in Water Bankruptcy? This is a very good question. I’m going to attempt to answer that question in the next few months by looking at the recent hydrologic studies of the river. So as they say in the biz: “Stay tuned.”
Manatees enjoying a spring fed by the Upper Floridian aquifer
The 2026 United Nations University Report Global Water Bankruptcy frightened a great many people by declaring much of the world is currently in water bankruptcy – the state of water resources being so overused and degraded that they cannot be restored to their original condition and function. It caused me to contemplate how much of our water resources in the United States are in this state of collapse. Might as well start with our most prolific, so I took a look at the Floridian aquifer in Florida. It is probably the country’s greatest aquifer and supports human consumption, agricultural irrigation, and industrial needs.
The Floridian aquifer underlies Florida, the southern parts of Georgia into coastal South Carolina, and parts of southern Alabama. It is a limestone aquifer and if you want to know something of its geology in Florida you can check out my blog post here ( The Floridian: An Aquifer is All About its Geology )The geology of an aquifer is important as it will tell you about flow, chemistry and a host of other important parameters. The Floridian aquifer through most of its’ extent is divided into an Upper Floridian aquifer and a Lower Floridian aquifer. The Upper aquifer is the good one which everyone likes to tap as the water quality is generally excellent and recharge from the surface and through karst features produces tons of flow. The Lower aquifer is confined in most areas by overlying thick formations of marls and siliclastics that restrict water flow into It from above. The water quality is also not very good and it is pretty deep, so drilling into it is costly for well development My attention then is solely on the Upper Floridian as to whether it is overused and degraded to the point where Floridians are going to be in trouble with water supply in the future.
The two major issues that could affect this mighty aquifer are karstification and salinization. Let’s look at the condition of karstification first. Karstification problems are most often caused by overuse. In other words, too much water in a concentrated area is being pumped out of the aquifer. Over pumping leads to increased solutioning of the limestone. Fractures, vugs and caverns all increase in size. In addition, over pumping causes the groundwater table to lower which can lead to collapse of the limestone formation. These collapsed areas are called sinkholes. Every once in a while you will see one on tv where a sinkhole has swallowed a house or road.
Most large cities in Florida have groundwater well fields where a number of wells have been drilled into the Upper Floridian. When water is pumped from these well fields it produces what is known as drawdown. Water rushes into the screen of the wells and is pumped up to be stored above ground. As the water is pumped from near the well, water further from the well is drawn toward it. A cone of depression around the well is formed. The more the well is pumped the greater the cone of depression becomes. The water table will begin to lower, and the limestone once supported at the surface by the water begins to collapse.
One of the classic examples of well-field-related sinkhole problems comes from the municipal well fields north of Tampa. The U.S. Geological Survey documented that this Gulf Coastal Plain area was already densely pitted with natural sinkholes and sinkhole lakes, and yet water authorities continued over pumping from the municipal well fields causing abrupt drops in groundwater levels. The surface began to collapse. Eventually many of the wells in the field were abandoned and to prevent further collapse pumping levels were curtailed. Alternative sources of water had to be added including river water, stored reservoir water and desalinated seawater to restore water supply to the city.
Salinization of the Upper Floridian is the other big threat to the aquifer. Salinization is the fancy scientific name when saltwater either from the ocean or from lower saline aquifers begins to intrude into a freshwater aquifer like the Upper Floridian. I’m always saying that every drop of water connects to every other drop of water on Earth, so salinization in coastal areas is quite common. The ocean and nearshore aquifers interact. If there is tidal flooding or a drought then salt water from the ocean can intrude substantially into a fresh water aquifer.
But by far the greatest cause of saltwater intrusion into the Upper Floridian is once again over pumping. When water is withdrawn faster than it can be replenished, the pressure differential allows saltwater to migrate inland. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in highly populated areas and agricultural areas undergoing extensive irrigation.
Saltwater intrusion compromises the quality of drinking water by increasing salinity levels. Elevated salt concentrations pose health risks and can render groundwater unsuitable for consumption without costly treatment. Using saline water in agricultural operations can damage crops sensitive to salinity and in the long term result in salinization of soils rendering them infertile as nothing will be able to grow there.
Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties in south Florida are among the most severely impacted by saline intrusion. Dense urban development, high water demand, and proximity to the coast have accelerated salinization of the Upper Floridian aquifer. In southwest Florida the cities of Naples and Fort Myers face salinization of both potable water supplies and agricultural irrigation wells. In Miami-Dade County, saltwater intrusion has led to the closure of several municipal wellfields and the construction of inland wells. Similarly, in Tampa Bay, increased salinity in groundwater has necessitated investment in desalination facilities.
Unfortunately once saline water intrudes into an area, it can’t be reversed. Prevention is the only management strategy available. The state of Florida’s Environmental Protection Division and its’ five water management districts have teamed up with the U.S Geological Survey to put a prevention plan in place. A major component of their plan is to set Salt Water Intrusion Minimum Aquifer Levels, often called SWIMALs, for vulnerable areas of the Upper Floridan aquifer. These levels are designed to maintain enough freshwater pressure in the aquifer to slow or prevent regional saltwater movement. Another part of the state’s response is reducing dependence on fresh groundwater. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection recognizes that groundwater withdrawals cannot continue to grow indefinitely without unacceptable impacts, including saltwater intrusion, reduced spring flows, lower lake levels, and wetland losses. As a result, the state promotes alternative water supplies such as reclaimed water, brackish groundwater, seawater desalination, stormwater, surface water, conservation projects, and aquifer storage and recovery. Florida is also experimenting with aquifer recharge projects that can help slow saltwater intrusion by increasing freshwater pressure in the aquifer. Hillsborough County provides a practical example. Working with the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the county has developed coastal recharge projects that inject highly treated reclaimed water into a non-drinking-water portion of the aquifer near the coast. The goal is to create a freshwater barrier between saltwater beneath Tampa Bay and the freshwater inland, while also supporting higher groundwater levels upstream of the recharge area.
So having examined the facts about damage to the Floridian aquifer in Florida can we say that the aquifer is in water bankruptcy. I think not. Salinization is localized and management strategies are in place. The Floridian aquifer will continue throughout most of its extent to be a prolific water resource.
Is The Floridian Aquifer in Florida in Water Bankruptcy?
United States Geological Survey: Crosseection of the geology of the Floridian aquifer
Florida is a big state of some 66,000 square miles and it has a lot of people, nearly 25 million. About half of them depend on the Floridian aquifer as a water source. The interesting thing is most of the people who live in Florida are not from Florida. They are from big cities up north that primarily get their water from rivers. The majority of people in Florida if asked would probably not be able to say where their water comes from and after all why should they worry, as good grief, it seems to be plentiful. It’s not like California where there are all sorts of water restrictions and you have to landscape your yard with ugly white stones instead of grass. No when a Floridian turns on the tap they let it run.
The water may be plentiful but it is deemed hard by water treatment specialists. That’s because of the geology of the Floridian aquifer. To understand an aquifer you must understand the geology. Looking at Florida on a map you see that it looks like a tail wagging the dog of the North American continent. If you look at it from the air, it looks very, very flat. This is a result of how it was formed. Some 200 million years ago the supercontinent of Pangea began to break apart. As the North American continent slowly headed towards its present day position a shallow sea developed between it and the African continent. This shallow sea was an optimum place for the deposition of carbonate rocks and siliciclastic sediments. Thick sequences of interbedded limestone, clays and sandstones accumulated throughout the Cretaceous and on into the Cenozoic geologic time periods as the continents moved further apart.
During the Paleogene, about 60 million years ago, movement of the continents began to settle into what we might recognize on our current world map and the area where Florida exists today was a shallow marine platform beginning to form the tail of the North American continent. The era was characterized by rising and subsiding seas. Geologists call these transgressive and regressive sequences. So when the seas were high carbonate and siliciclastic rocks formed and when the seas were low the rocks were exposed, leading to what is called karstification – an interesting type of erosion where limestone is slowly dissolved by water as it percolates through the rock creating, vugs, channels and caverns.
Thick cumulation of sediments were continuously being buried by further deposits of sediments. As a result the underlying sediments began to compact. The low temperatures and pressure from this compaction as well as the infiltration of meteoric waters altered the rock. In some cases the rock would become dolostones as magnesium replaced calcium in the mineral structure and in other cases secondary porosity such as fracturing and solutioning would develop.
Lack of any substantial movement of the carbonate platform through faulting, or subduction/abduction of the continental plates led to only minor amounts of deformation of the area. There are only a few gentle geologic highs, like the Peninsular Arch which trends northwest to southeast and the Ocala Platform in north central Florida.
The major stratigraphic units of the Floridian aquifer were formed during the Cenozoic from about 60 million to 20 million years ago. From oldest to youngest they are the Oldsmar Formation, the Avon Park Formation, the Ocala Limestone, and the Suwannee Limestone. The Oldsmar formation is mainly dolostone and clayey carbonates that were deposited in the shallow restricted depositional basin. The Avon Park Formation is composed of interbedded limestone and dolostones with abundant karstification denoting its formation in the era of transgressive/regressive seas. The Ocala Limestone is the most continuous formation throughout Florida of the units that compose the Floridian aquifer. It Is composed of thick limestone layers formed in the offshore environment. The Suwannee Limestone is characterized by a fossil laden limestone formed in the shallow marine environment. These rock units are variable in thickness but reach greater than 1000 feet in north and central Florida.
This is a lot of aquifer. In north and central Florida where the aquifer is at its thickest, it transmits a ton of water throughout its continuous expanse. Recharge of the aquifer is direct and extensive. Some of the most prolific springs in the world are in this area. People today flock to the beaches in Florida but at one time the springs were one of its biggest tourist attractions. Go today and you can often see manatees making the springs their home.
Southern and Coastal Florida have a thinner sequence of the carbonate rocks and more siliclastic units forming thick sequences of rock where there is little recharge to underlying aquifer units. These barriers to water transmission are called confining zones and the Hawthorn Formation is its greatest representative. In the panhandle of Florida and along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts these siliciclastic rocks units dominate.
So the Floridian aquifer is a product of its geologic formation. Its thick sequences of interbedded sedimentary rocks and karstification is why it is so prolific in some areas and not others. Its dominance by limestone and dolostone is why the water is contains so much calcium and magnesium bicarbonate and is dubbed “hard”. Its predomiantly siliclastic nature near coastal areas and at depth result in fresh groundwater mixing with more saline or brackish waters making it less productive as a water source. But without the Floridian aquifer the state of Florida would not be able to maintain a population of its size. It is one of the greatest aquifers in the world.
The recently issued United Nations University Report Global Water Bankruptcy says: “The world is already in the state of “water bankruptcy”. In many basins and aquifers, long-term overuse and degradation mean that past hydrological and ecological baselines cannot realistically be restored. While not every basin or country is water-bankrupt, enough critical systems around the world have crossed these thresholds.”
Strong words and new words. What do they mean by “water bankruptcy?’ The term is defined in the report as the critical condition in which water resources are depleted or so severely mismanaged that they can no longer meet the essential needs of populations, ecosystems, and economies. The conclusion that we are now bankrupt is based on statistics. Very interesting. Not scientific proof, just statistics.
For example, the report says that nearly three-quarters of the world’s population live in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water insecure. Insecure is the mumbo jumbo word now used to mean insufficient. So, there is basically insufficient water for the population of these countries. The report also cites that about 4 billion experience severe water scarcity for at least one month a year.
Groundwater is reported to now be the source of 50% of global domestic water use and over 40% of irrigation water and that around 70% of the world’s major aquifers are showing long-term declining trends. Excessive groundwater extraction has in turn led to significant land subsidence because when you extract water and lower the water table, aquifer materials such as sand and silt compact. Compaction basically destroys the ability of the affected acquirer to recharge itself with water. The report says that over 6 million square kilometers—almost 5% of the global land area— is subsiding due to groundwater extraction.
Our biggest source of water though is surface water – rivers, streams, and lakes. They cite that a growing number of major rivers now fail to reach the sea (like the Colorado River – see my blog post here An American River in Distress ) or fall below environmental flow needs for significant parts of the year. No statistics are provided here; it’s just based on anecdotal observation. The report goes on to say that more than half of the world’s large lakes have lost water since the early 1990s, affecting around one-quarter of the global population that depends directly on them for water security.
Very interestingly the report states that about 70% of the world’s global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture and that more than 170 million hectares of irrigated cropland are under high or very high-water stress meaning again that there is insufficient water for irrigation at times.
So, what does the report say is the cause of global water bankruptcy? People. Of course, they couch it in terms of the “Anthropocene” the word now used to mean the period of time since humans have started affecting their natural environment with their activities.
The chart I like best in the report is this:
The chart shows the increase in freshwater use from the early 1900’s to today. Use rose precipitously starting in the 1960’s. They should have put the chart below right next to it because it shows an identical increase in population:
Trends indicate that by 2030, demand for water is expected to outstrip supply by 40 percent, driven by population growth, urbanization, and increased agricultural and industrial use. Apparently water bankruptcy will be the norm. However, the report provides no scientific measures for determining when a water system is in bankruptcy. Case studies are cited but there is no definitive presentation of a way to classify a system as bankrupt. In my view this is the big failing of this report. It only coins a new term and attempts to define it but lacks rigor in its presentation. So, the question still remains: are we in the midst of global water bankruptcy?
I will attempt in my blog to look into large water supply systems and determine if they are indeed in a state of bankruptcy. I will start with one of the most prolific aquifers in the United States – the Floridian.
No, regulation of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) is not my favorite topic to write about, even though I’ve now completed seven posts on the subject. The most I have written on any topic, because it has been and will ever be a never ending battle between the forces of science and the forces of development. Developers want to limit the application of Clean Water Act (CWA) regulations to “nonproductive” wetlands and upstream waters so they can infill them and use the land for houses, mines, agricultural fields, etc. Scientists though understand that the hydrologic cycle pretty much means every drop of water on earth is connected to every other drop of water and development in these supposedly disconnected wetlands and upstream waters will impact downstream waters considered to be WOTUS.
Scientific investigations continue to confirm the scientists viewpoint, including the recent Technical Support Document (TSD) for the 2023 WOTUS Rule now on top of the ash heap of Supreme Court Decisions. See my post from earlier this year if you want to know more (Supreme Court Decision on Waters of the United States ). I took up the TSD to see what new investigations have been conducted in support of the scientific viewpoint since the last great U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) treatise on the subject in 2015 entitled “Connectivity of Streams and Wetlands to downstream Waters: A Review and Synthesis of the Scientific Evidence.” Here’s a link to my post on the 2015 Report (A Review of the EPA’s Connectivity of Streams and Wetlands ) if you want to do some catching up.
It has been eight years now since the 2015 Report so let’s see what recent studies the 2023 TSD cites in support of the global connectivity of water. EPA found 2,022 peer reviewed scientific papers published since 2015 relevant to the 2023 rulemaking. Scientists have been busy. Nothing spurs scientific investigation like a controversy and there was a lot of that after the 2015 Report was released. The 2015 Report supported a widely unpopular WOTUS Rule regulating upstream waters and wetlands. The 2023 TSD documentation mirrors the earlier 2015 report. It is divided into three areas of scientific investigation:
Ephemeral, intermittent and perennial streams
Floodplain wetlands and open waters
Non floodplain wetlands and open waters
The largest number of new investigations (986) concern ephemeral, intermittent and perennial streams. There’s a reason for this. It was the most controversial part of the 2015 regulation. Ephemeral streams are those that flow only briefly usually as a result of localized rainfall. Intermittent streams are those that flow seasonally. Perennial streams have continuous flow. It seems natural to most people that ephemeral and intermittent streams are not impacting downstream WOTUS much, but the people who live near these types of streams and are dependent on them think otherwise. Many of these water bodies are in the western part of the U.S. and they are often important upstream waters for protecting downstream water quality. When the Rule supported by the 2015 Report was pulled by the EPA, the first groups to sue were Indians tribes. As a result many scientists wanted to investigate how these ephemeral and intermittent streams are acting as headwaters for downstream flows and water quality. Ephemeral streams make up 48 percent of the stream length of all streams in the lower 48 states. That’s a pretty big number. The flow in ephemeral streams from precipitation events can have major effects on downstream waters due to abrupt increases in water that transport sediment, wood and other materials.
Although their stream beds may visually appear dry, they still have water flow in the hyporheic zone (the stream bed lying below the surface.) EPA cites Gallo and others in a 2020 study showing ephemeral and intermittent streams are providing valuable groundwater recharge from the hyporheic zone. Although ephemeral and intermittent streams might have observable flow only 1 to 82 % of the time, the presence of water in the hyporheic zone exists 4 to 33 times longer.
Other studies cited by EPA include those of Covino and Magliozzi in 2018 showing ephemeral and intermittent steam without surface flow have complex and abundant hyporheic flow that maintain a downgradient hydrologic connection by supplying surface flows and maintaining habitat.
The second largest number of publications covered investigations of floodplain wetlands (660 scientific papers). The 2015 Rule pretty much included all floodplain waters as being WOTUS. in its definition of what an adjacent covered wetland to a WOTUS is. Of course that Rule was pulled in 2020 and the new rule that came in restricted what could be regulated as an adjacent wetland.
Floodplain wetlands are actually part of stream and river systems with intricate connections, interactions and exchanges with them. For example when river banks overflow during floods, floodplain wetlands serve as overflow storage. Also there is a groundwater connection between a surface water body and it’s floodplain wetlands.
EPA cites a paper by Webb and others published in 2017 that shows how flood inundation of wetlands surrounding a surface water body contributes 72 to 76 percent of groundwater discharges to rivers. Simultaneously these inundated wetlands are being provided nutrient rich waters from the flooding stream systems. It’s a sort of symbiotic relationship. One can’t be disconnected from the other without impacts to both. So if you infill a wetland, the flows that feed downstream surface waters are diminished and the nutrient sink that is the wetland is gone. Nutrients like nitrogen and phosphate are free to flow into surface waters where they can, as we all know, create a bunch of havoc. In fact Gordon and others in 2020 showed that floodplain wetlands remove an average of 200 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare over a years time and 21 kilograms of phosphate.
Non floodplain wetlands had the fewest number of scientific investigations at a disappointing 491 published papers Non floodplain wetlands are often dismissed by just about everyone as unimportant and “nonproductive”. These are waters like prairie potholes. The research that has been conducted since 2015 is pretty conclusive as to the connectivity of these isolated wetlands with WOTUS even if a great part of the connection is to keep surface runoff from reaching downstream waters.
These non floodplain wetlands comprise 16 percent of all wetlands in the lower 48 states by areal extent. A huge number still considering how many have been infilled for all types of development. EPA cites a literature review by Lane and others of all studies of non flood plain wetlands. Their paper shows these isolated waters are all interconnected in some way to river systems, either through storing storm waters so they aren’t washed along with a bunch of nutrients downstream or serving as a source of base flow of groundwater to rivers during dry periods. Another study cited by EPA is that by Thorslund and others who conducted an investigation in 2018 using chloride tracers to study how non floodplain wetlands in Florida contribute surface water to downstream river and streams. The study showed nonfloodpain wetlands are a watershed scale source of flow for 90 percent of Florida’s headwater streams.
The TSD also cites Brooks and others who performed a similar trace study using isotopes in North Dakota. The researchers found significant amounts of water from isolated wetlands are providing water to downgradient perennial streams. Rains and Cohen both published papers in 2016 showing how non floodplain wetlands can attenuate surface water flow and provide storage on a watershed scale that helps prevent devastating floods.
Also like the floodplain wetlands, studies have shown non floodplain wetlands to be a dramatic reducer of nitrates, phosphates and carbon. Cheng and Basu in 2017 showed that 50 percent of nitrogen removal across all water bodies occurs in small wetlands and Evenson and others. in 2021 found through watershed modeling that restoring just 2 percent of non floodplain wetlands in the Upper Mississippi basin would result in a 12 percent nitrate reduction. This would be an amazing achievement if it could be done to help eliminate the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico caused by unchecked nutrients washing off farm lands into the Mississippi River.
So I guess I can say in summary that scientists have advanced the state of knowledge of how ephemeral and intermittent streams as well as non floodplain and floodplain wetland are connected to traditional downstream WOTUS. EPA goes as far as to say that “after analyzing the abstracts of all 12,659 papers published since 2014, the evidence is conclusive that ephemeral, intermittent and perennial stream, floodplain wetland and non floodplain wetlands are hydrologically, chemically, biologically and functionally connected to downgradient waters.” The EPA has also calculated the value of these type of headwaters through their benefits to society including fishing, hunting, boating, bird watching, religious uses, production of fuel, forage and fibers, extraction of materials for biofuels, food such as shellfish, and medical compounds. The dollar value assigned to headwater streams is $15.7 Trillion annually and that calculated for non flood plain wetlands is $673 Billion annually. This looks to me like a pretty significant economic contribution from a bunch of upstream waters that people have been dismissing as “non-productive”.
What is the difference between “adjoining” and “adjacent”? The difference in the definition of the two words is what it all came down to in the May 2023 Supreme Court decision on the inclusion of wetlands in the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) definition of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS). The letter of the law in the CWA is “it is unlawful to discharge dredged or fill material into “navigable waters” of the United States, tributaries of such waters and adjacent wetlands.”
Judge Alito in his Opinion says “adjacent wetlands must be a relatively permanent body of water connected to traditional interstate navigable waters and the wetland has a continuous surface connection with that water, making it difficult to determine where the water ends and the wetlands begin”. This interpretation of the meaning of adjacent is consistent with the Supreme Court decision made years ago in a case commonly referred to as Rapanos. However Justice Kavanaugh in his Opinion writes that the word “adjacent” is used incorrectly by Judge Alito. Kavanaugh says Alito is defining the word “adjacent” as meaning “adjoining” wetlands and that “adjacent” and “adjoining” have two different meanings.
According to Justice Kavanaugh, “adjoining” means wetlands contiguous to or bordering a navigable water and “adjacent” includes adjoining wetlands and wetlands separated from navigable waters by manmade dikes or barriers, natural river berms, beach dunes and the like. Judge Kavanaugh points to the fact that these types of wetlands have been regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since 1977 and there has been a consistent meaning for “adjacent” over the last 45 years.
If you’ve been keeping up with my series of blog posts on the definition of WOTUS over the last seven years you will know that the EPA has been trying to write regulations on what WOTUS means and how to apply that definition. There have been three rewrites now – one for each of the past three presidential administrations. You can read my post on the latest version published last year here https://waterblogger.org/category/water-quantity/ . EPA attempted to include the “significant nexus test” in its last rewrite of the regulation. This test came from a conflicting opinion by Judge Kennedy that muddied the waters of the so called Rapanos decision mentioned above. He wrote that the “CWA jurisdiction over adjacent wetlands requires a “significant nexus” between wetland and navigable water which exists when “the wetland, either alone or in combination with similarly situated lands in the region, significantly affect the chemical, physical and biological integrity of those waters.”
EPA has been using this test for quite some time now and has an extensive guidance document for field personnel to use in deciding whether a wetland meets the criteria for “significant nexus”. They came upon a bit of difficulty with implementing this test though when they issued Mr. and Mrs. Sackett of Priest Lake, Idaho a violation for infilling wetlands on property where they were trying to build a home. The Sacketts sued. The Sacketts property is located across the street from a ditch that leads into a creek which eventually feeds into Priest Lake, a navigable intrastate lake that is considered a WOTUS. The EPA’s contention was that the wetlands on the Sackett’s property were similarly situated with the Kalispell Bay Fen wetland nearby and therefore constituted WOTUS.
The Ninth District Court ordered summary judgment for the EPA in the lawsuit saying that “the CWA covers wetlands with an ecologically significant nexus to traditional navigable waters and the Sackett’s wetland satisfied the standard.”
The case was appealed by the Sacketts and arrived last year (nearly 20 years after they bought their land on Priest Lake), to be argued in front of the Supreme Court. All nine Supreme Court justices ruled in favor of the Sacketts, saying their property did not meet the definition provided in the CWA for being considered “adjacent wetlands” and that EPA’s “significant nexus” test is not covered by the CWA.
This ruling must be a huge blow to the Office of Water at EPA and fill its corridors with woe. A lot of time has been taken up over the last 12 years writing and rewriting regulations. Now their latest rule on definition of WOTUS has been thrown out by the Supreme Court and regulatory jurisdiction over many traditionally regulated wetlands has been called into question. Lots of people warned them about this potential outcome when they proposed writing regulations on WOTUS back during the Obama Administration. Now it has all come to fruition.
Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In the last eight years there have been three rewrites of the definition of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act (CWA) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its co-regulator The Department of the Army who administers part of the law through the U.S. Corps of Engineer (Corps.) For some history on the subject seek out my blog post at this link ( Environmental Protection Agency Announces Clean Water Act Rule.)
The first rewrite was in 2015 and it was termed the “Clean Water Rule” but should have been titled the “Clear as Mud Rule” (see Environmental Protection Agency Announces Clean Water Act Rule .) This was replaced in 2020 by the “Navigable Water Protection Rule” which should have been titled “The Do Anything You Want Rule” (see Waters of the United States .) Now we have the new 2023 “Revised Definition of the Waters of the United States.” You could call this insanity or use my word for it – silly. The pre 1985 regulations were working just fine until in 2006 the Supreme Court – well known as an august scientific body – stepped in with a criticism of the process. Their beef was that they kept getting cases challenging the decision of the Corps on administration of the part of the law they are responsible for – the CWA 404 (d) rules regulating the disposal of materials into waters of the U.S. including wetlands.
There is a long history of disputes through the court system on application of the CWA regulations and sometimes they reach the Supreme Court. This is what happens when you have a poorly written law, however no one wants to rewrite the CWA as these days that might result in wholesale slaughter of the Act or, so I was told a few years ago by senior officials at the Department of Justice. So now we get these silly continuous rewrites of the regulations.
The 2023 rendition started out well as it purported to go back to the original 1985 regulations, but then the regulators decided wouldn’t it be just dandy if we include two different tests to determine if nearby wetlands or upstream tributaries to traditional (a)(1) WOTUS are WOTUS too.
The definition of (a)(1) waters is straight from the CWA:
Waters of the United States
(a) Waters which are:
(i) Currently used, or were used in the past, or may be susceptible to use in interstate or foreign commerce, including all waters which are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide;
(ii) The territorial seas; or
(iii) Interstate waters, including interstate wetlands
The two tests included in the new regulations are:
the “relatively permanent standard,” and
the “significant nexus” standard (which has been informally used for a number of years after a 2006 Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice Kennedy wrote that this was the test an adjoining water body should pass to be considered a WOTUS.)
The “relatively permanent standard” is a fairly understandable test whereby a wetland or upstream tributary will be considered a WOTUS if it is: “a relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing waters connected to (a)(1) waters and waters with a continuous surface connection to relatively permanent waters.”
But what in the world is a significant nexus? The new rule defines it as tributaries or wetlands that “either alone or in combination with similarly situated waters in the region, significantly affect the chemical, physical, or biological integrity of waters identified in paragraph (a)(1) of this section.”
This means if you want to develop a property within a tributary or wetland in a wide vicinity of one of these (a)(1) waters then CWA regulators must decide if the water on your property is affecting them. If the wetlands or small steams from your property are filtrating or reducing sediment, contaminants of other sorts, or harmful biological matter from the (a)(1) waters than you’re likely not going to be able to develop there. Or say the waters on your property provide for the extant water sources of (a)(1) water that support biological resources such as fish and the chain of biological organisms they feed on then you’re not going to be able to develop there either.
Welcome to the water wars. They’ve been going on for over a hundred years in the U.S. The wars are just getting larger due to increased population growth and consequent development. The current rewrite of the definition of WOTUS will do nothing to solve the legal challenges. It throws the problem back again on the regulators to make the decision of whether a particular property is a WOTUS or not, just as it always has been.
There is already a challenge to the “significant nexus” standard as defined in the new regulation. The case of Sackett vs. the EPA was taken up by the Supreme Court in late 2022. In brief this is an old dispute dating back to 2007 where a property owner was attempting to infill a wetland for development and was stopped by the EPA for violating the CWA. That’s why I started this blog post with the definition of insanity. Depending on the Supreme Court decision, we may yet see another rewrite of the WOTUS regulations. You can probably tell by the tone of this blog post that I’m getting fed up with the whole issue but I’ll continue to update my readers on this ongoing silly saga.
Here we go again. Possibly the most frustrating and boring occupation on the face of the earth is being a regulation writer for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These poor suckers can spend an entire career writing and rewriting the same regulation. I don’t know what sad soul is stuck with yet again rewriting the regulation for the definition of the Waters of the United States but if I were them I’d start looking for another job, because this won’t be the last time. This regulation is way beyond controversial. For a synopsis of the history of the regulation check out my 2018 post here.
On June 9, 2021 the EPA and the Department of the Army (under which resides the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE or Corp) that administer the Clean Water Act 404(d) permit program) once again announced their intention to revise the definition of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS.) In 2020, the Trump administration revised a 2015 Obama era WOTUS regulation, so the Biden Administration has decided that it needs to revise the regulation too, because just too many projects impacting ephemeral streams and ditches are moving forward. Ephemeral streams being those that only flow briefly during and after localized rainfall. Ditches are simply man-made structures carrying runoff. Ephemeral streams and upland ditches were exempted from regulation in the 2020 version of the rule. The EPA was sued in 2021 by the Pueblos of Laguna and Jemez in New Mexico because just about every contributing stream to their water supply is ephemeral. It is very dry in their part of New Mexico and they have valid concerns about projects off reservation that might be impacting their water supply. The pueblos want ephemeral streams to be redesignated as WOTUS for protection of the waters they use for domestic and agricultural purposes. There’s a bunch of other lawsuits too from an assortment of state governments, including New Mexico, and from the Conservation Law Foundation and other environmental groups. This is all standard procedure now after a regulation is issued. There were lawsuits after the 2015 regulations were issued as well.
This is really all about the Clean Water Act 404 (d) program. The EPA is responsible for revising regulations under the CWA but the ACOE is charged with administering section 404 (d) of the CWA and issuing permits for any construction or dredging in areas that are considered WOTUS. The ACOE supported the EPA’s intention to revise WOTUS by assessing how the 2020 regulations have impacted their permitting program. They filed a Memorandum for the Record on June 8, 2021 with 165 pages of supporting documentation of their analysis.
Here’s a little bit of background for you so you can understand their analysis. Before a member of the public submits a permit application, they can seek a determination of whether their project is actually within a WOTUS and receive what is called a jurisdictional determination. There are two types of determinations: 1) approved jurisdictional determinations and 2) preliminary jurisdictional determinations.
An approved jurisdictional determination is an actual official document giving the ACOE’s view of whether WOTUS exist within a project area. A preliminary jurisdictional determination allows an applicant to waive the jurisdictional decision-making process of the ACOE and go right to the permit decision. In the case of a preliminary jurisdictional determination, the ACOE is not making any determination of whether a WOTUS exists in a project area and they issue a general or individual permit based on the permit application. In other words, the project proponent is assuming there’s WOTUS within their project area when seeking a preliminary jurisdictional determination. It’s not at all necessary for a project proponent to request a jurisdictional determination in cases where the project isn’t regulated under the CWA or is exempt and indeed the ACOE issues many general permits that have no jurisdictional determination. I know this may sound like your typical government bureaucratic bullshit, but it’s how the Corp does things and they keep track of it. So as part of their analysis of how the 2020 regulations were impacting their permitting process, the ACOE checked how many approved jurisdictional determinations they’d made versus preliminary jurisdictional determinations then compared them to the numbers issued under the Obama regulations and the pre-Obama regulations.
Here’s what the ACOE found:
1) Under the 2020 regulations 71 percent of approved jurisdictional determinations found there were no WOTUS within the project area. Under the 2015 regulations 46 percent of these types of determinations found no WOTUS within a project area. Most of the waters being assessed and not meeting WOTUS criteria were ephemeral streams or wetlands excluded under the new adjacency requirements in the 2020 regulations. Ditches were a smaller percentage of water resources not determined to be WOTUS.
2) Since the 2020 regulations became effective the number of approved jurisdictional determination requests has gone up by 116 %, meaning that permit applicants are no longer assuming that WOTUS exists within their project area.
3) Based solely on examination of approved jurisdicational determinations, the number of permits required to be issued has greatly decreased compared to the numbers issued prior to 2020. There were 338% more permits issued under the Obama regulations and 412% more under the pre-Obama regulations.
As you can see the 2020 regulations have had some big impacts and they are obviously not ones that the new Administration is comfortable with maintaining. I will be following, as I’ve done in the past, the writing of the new regulations, so look for future updates in this blog.
On December
11, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers made available their proposed rewrite of the 2015
“Clean Water Act Rule.” This revised rule will be posted in the
Federal Register, however the EPA has already made it available on their
website for advance review. The new revised Rule is entitled simply
“Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Definition”, which is what this Rule
was about from the beginning. I always thought that the previous title of
“Clean Water Act Rule” was simply a ruse to confuse people about the
intention of its contents.
The Clean
Water Act (CWA) applies to “navigable waters of the United States.”
The definition of what is a “navigable water of the United States” prior
to 2015 was so obtuse that enforcement often ended up in litigation. Several of
these cases have made their way to the Supreme Court for resolution.
EPA’s
rewrite of the Rule in 2015 was supposed to clear up the inconsistencies in the
application of the regulations. EPA’s idea at the time was to use science to
define a “WOTUS.” The Agency conducted a science review of the
physical, chemical and biologic connections between water bodies and used the resulting
report in providing a definition. The problem is that the natural world is a
messy sort of place where pretty much everything connects with everything else.
The natural world does not fall into a neatly laid out legal scheme such as the
Clean Water Act. So the 2015 Rule encompassed almost every drop of water in the
United States into the definition of a “WOTUS.”
Back in 2015, I posted quite a bit on the “Clean Water Rule” (check out this link to read past posts https://waterblogger.org/water-quantity/a-review-of-the-environmental-protection-agencys-connectivity-of-streams-and-wetlands-to-downstream-waters-post-1/) and I have been following the subsequent litigation over that Rule. I would put the 2015 rule making process in the category of one of the most disastrous examples of federal regulatory efforts ever. It has resulted in a patchwork of 22 states across the country where the 2015 “Clean Water Rule” is in effect, while the rest of the states are still using pre-2015 regulations and guidance of what constitutes a WOTUS. This is because the chief plaintiffs in the lawsuits against EPA were the other 28 states. These states consider waters within their boundaries as mostly state waters to be managed by them. A federal court set aside implementation of the regulations in the states that sued until litigation was complete. Below is a map taken from EPA’s website that shows where the two different regulations are in effect.
The revised
2018 Rule tries to simplify the definition of a “WOTUS” by making it
a legal definition instead of a definition based on science. Hence my warning above saying there is no
science in this post. The preamble to the 2018 Rule says it best and I quote:
“The line between Federal and State waters is a legal distinction, not a
scientific one, that reflects the overall framework and construct of the Clean
Water Act.”
In brief EPA
has defined “WOTUS” to be: “traditional navigable waters,
including the territorial seas; tributaries that contribute perennial or
intermittent flow to such waters; certain ditches; certain lakes and ponds;
impoundments of otherwise jurisdictional waters; and wetlands adjacent to other
jurisdictional waters.”
The new
revised Rule does not include ephemeral tributaries which flow only as a result
of precipitation. This is a major change from the 2015 Rule. The 2015 Rule
considers all tributaries, including ephemeral ones, as WOTUS if they
contribute flow directly or through another water body to a WOTUS and have the
physical indicators of a bed and banks and an ordinary high water mark. I
consider this the make work for hydrologists provision of the 2015 Rule. Each
decision would have to be made by a hydrologist. In the case of ephemeral
streams, it could result in an argument between any two reasonable hydrologists
as to the above mentioned physical indicators. It could all end up back in
court again.
In fact
much of the 2015 Rule relies on case specific analysis of a particular water to
determine if there is a clear connection to another water which is a “WOTUS.”
The writers of the 2018 Rule have taken the stance that anyone should be able
to identify what a “WOTUS” is from the regulation. The 2015 Rule was
9 pages. The 2018 Rule is 60 pages. I suppose this is in hopes that a farmer or
developer can take all those extra pages with them and stand next to their
ditch or wetland and see if it fits within the definition. I joke of course.
Most of the extra pages are just references to sections of various laws which
need to be amended with the new definitions. The Rule does little to help your
average non-scientist or non-lawyer to clearly differentiate between what is
covered and what isn’t.
There are
some definitions which could help the average Joe in determining if they have a
WOTUS. For example, ditches constructed in uplands are not regulated under the
2018 scheme. This is a major victory for the farmers as they are the ones who
probably have the most ditches on their property and who were some of the
people most upset by the 2015 “Clean Water Rule”. Upland is defined
as any land area above the high water mark or high tide line that doesn’t satisfy
wetland criteria of having wetland hydrology, hydrophytic vegetation (plants
that live in submerged conditions), and hydric soil (saturated soil) under
normal conditions. Unless it’s a ditch like the Erie Canal that you can
navigate, a ditch altering a tributary or built in an adjacent wetland to a
WOTUS then you can be pretty confident that you are not going to have to get a
federal permit under this new Rule.
There’s also
a fairly sharp line drawn for what lakes and ponds qualify as a WOTUS. A lake
and pond has to have a clear surface water connection to a WOTUS or be flooded
by a WOTUS during a typical year for them to be considered as regulated under
the CWA. Isolated ponds even though they
might have some hydrologic connection via groundwater to a WOTUS are excluded.
What is
surprising and to me not clear at all is the application of the 2018 Rule to
wetlands. The only wetlands to be considered WOTUS are those that are adjacent
to waters regulated under the new 2018 Rule. Adjacent means the wetland must
abut a WOTUS. Abut in the regulations is defined as where a wetland actually
touches a WOTUS at either a point or a side. The wetland also must have a
direct surface connection to the WOTUS. No subsurface groundwater connections
allowed. Any wetland that is physically separated from a WOTUS by upland, or by
dikes, barriers or similar structures is not regulated. The preamble says that
this will end the need to make case specific evaluations of wetlands to
determine if they have a hydrologic connection to a WOTUS.
I doubt it.
This is going to be far more difficult than the writers of this Rule imagine. Property
owners will neither be able to make the determination themselves that there is
a direct surface connection which occurs either from a wetland being inundated by
a regulated water such as a tributary, lake, pond/impoundment, or ditch, nor in
many cases are they going to be able figure out if there is surface flow from
the wetland to the regulated water. No that is going to take a professional
determination.
There are a
number of other exclusions to the application of the Rule specified in the text
including groundwater, prior converted cropland, artificially irrigated areas
for rice and the like, stock ponds, settling basins, log cleaning ponds, water
filled depressions as part of a mining or construction, gravel and fill pits,
storm water ponds and waste water treatment systems.
I suspect once the Federal
Notice comes out there will be quite a few comments made to the public record
and we will see another rewrite, but it is unlikely in my opinion that we will
see anything that can satisfy the EPA Administrator’s desire for a set of
regulations whereby the average person will be able to make a determination of
whether a water body is a WOTUS. Trying to regulate natural hydrologic systems
is about as clear as the mud in a wetland.
Hot springs are rather an unusual topic for this blog since they don’t have widespread environmental impacts, but today’s post is written specifically for a friend of mine who is a hot springs addict. I’ve been trying for some years with no success to keep her from immersing herself in thermal springs that are outside of a controlled environment such as a spa or water park. So today’s post covers my litany of concerns with the practice of dipping oneself in a local hot spring found in an uncontrolled environment such as government managed forests or land. For the purposes of this post I will designate such hot springs as “uncontrolled hot springs.” Most uncontrolled hot springs are located in the west where my friend lives. In the east, hot springs generally are associated with spa resorts.
There are basically two ways hot springs become hot. Most often the water in the spring has been heated as a result of the natural thermal gradient of the earth. “Thermal gradient” is a fancy way of saying temperatures within the earth get warmer as depth from the surface increases. An example of a hot spring formed in this manner is Berkeley Springs, West Virginia where a young George Washington famously soaked his tired body after surveying the lands nearby. There are similar hot springs found along the valleys and walls of the Appalachian mountain chain from New York State to Georgia. The mechanism attributed to the formation of the thermal springs in these locations is the percolation of surface and ground water deep into the earth through fractures and faults in the highly folded rocks of the Appalachians. According to calculations by the U.S. Geological Survey, subsurface water descends through massive layers of rock reaching depths of up to a mile. These superheated waters then flow along and through the dipping layers of the rock formations until they make an exit to the surface along a convenient fault or fracture. Sandstone and limestone make up a large amount of the rock hosting hot spring development in the Appalachians.
The other manner in which hot springs form is through the penetration of subsurface waters to vast depths where they are superheated by rocks in contact with underground magma chambers. Yellowstone National Park is the classic example of such a place where supercharged boiling water is emitted from rock in the form of geysers like Old Faithful and in less restive thermal pools as well. Yellowstone is not the only place where hot springs are the result of water being heated by hot rocks in contact with magma. Many parts of California and Nevada, as well as other western states, have hot springs that are the result of this process.
So water in hot springs comes from deep circulation of water through rock layers. During its journey, the hot water picks up all sorts of minerals. It is the reason why hot springs are also sometimes called mineral springs. The springs generally contain high dissolved solids like potassium, sodium and carbonate. But in many cases, they also pick up metals like cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and lead.
There is very little recent scientific literature on the amount of various metals to be found in uncontrolled hot springs. Most water analyses of these hot springs were conducted in the 1970’s when scientists were looking at possible geothermal energy development nearby. So if you are visiting a hot spring outside of a spa environment, there are no water analyses available to determine the metal levels of the water in which you are sitting. Yellowstone National Park is one of the exceptions. The U.S. Geological Survey has in the last decade sampled both hot springs and geysers to determine their mineral content. Thermal hot springs in Yellowstone have very low levels of cadmium, arsenic, mercury and lead – all are in the part per million range. Arsenic in the Yellowstone springs almost always exceeds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) drinking water standards. Of course I know most reasonable people are not drinking the water from thermal pools in Yellowstone or any other hot spring. And most reasonable people are not out sitting in thermal hot springs in Yellowstone either, unless they have a strong desire to be boiled to death. And hey, sitting in water containing metals isn’t a problem because you’re not going to absorb any of those metals through your skin, right? Wrong, there’s actually a formula the EPA uses in risk assessments to determine the amount of metal in water that is absorbed through the skin. EPA uses the scenario of showering or bathing as the contact mechanism with the metals in water. The calculation accounts for number of events per day of these activities. Hopefully most adults are showering at least once a day. If you’re spending a lot of time in uncontrolled hot springs then you would need to add that metal exposure to your daily bathing events.
Okay really, I’m not going to say there’s a lot of health risk to people from absorbing metal while soaking in a hot spring. It’s really the gases welling up in these hot springs which could be more of an environmental health concern. Radon would be one of the chief concerns from a health perspective. EPA’s air standard for radon is 4 pico Curies per liter (pCi/L). Where radon is found in hot springs, it could very well exceed this number. Again there is nothing much in the scientific literature on collection of radon data at hot springs, but at least in several cases monitored by the U.S Geological Survey and the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), radon has exceeded the EPA standard. For example NIOSH found radon levels above EPA standards in one of the National Park Services’ springs in Hot Springs, Arkansas and the Geological Survey has monitored radon in Alhambra Hot Springs in southwest Montana. Radon is not the only gas escaping from hot springs. Those little bubbles you see in the water are carbon dioxide gas. Nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide gases are also common. So the air around hot springs will contain these gases. There was a recorded asphyxiation by carbon dioxide in an uncontrolled hot spring on public land at Soda Springs, California in 2015.
Another health concern with hot springs is the presence of pathogens such as amoebas and bacteria that thrive in warm and hot springs. The three main pathogens you might find in a hot spring are Legionella species, Acanthamoeba, and Naegleriafowleri. Legionella is of course the bacteria which causes Legionnaire’s disease. Outbreaks of Legionnaire’s disease have occurred in hot spring bathing areas in Japan in the past. Acanthamoeba is an amoeba that causes eye infections. And Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba that will eat your brain. Really I’m not kidding. This amoeba causes amebic meningoencephalitis which generally kills you within days. There are recorded cases of people who have died from amebic meningoencephalitis acquired during a visit to an uncontrolled hot spring. The amoeba enters your body through the nose, so the recommendation is not to put your head underwater. But really do you want to be sitting in a hot spring with this amoeba?
Of course the number one cause of death in uncontrolled hot springs is being boiled alive. This is actually more common than you would think. Water at 120 degrees Fahrenheit can scald you. Spend much time in a hot spring with waters exceeding this temperature and you will boil. Readers are probably aware of the tragic death which occurred in early 2017 when a young man accidentally fell into a thermal pool in Yellowstone National Park and was boiled to death. It was very sensational because his body was reported to have been dissolved before it could be retrieved. Not only are the hot springs in Yellowstone extremely hot but many of them are acidic with pH’s of 2. Hydrochloric acid is pH 2. A former park ranger has actually written an account of all the people who’ve died in hot springs in Yellowstone – 22 from his last account. In Idaho and Nevada, there have been reported cases of people being severely burned trying to rescue dogs from the scalding waters of a hot spring and a few of them have unfortunately died from their injuries. Even hot springs where people have bathed before without injury can suddenly and lethally change temperature. This generally occurs in areas where the water in thermal springs is heated by superhot rock in contact with magma. Hot Creek in California’s Long Valley Caldera is a notable example of hot springs which can drastically change temperatures as a result of geologic activity underground which seals off one fissure to the surface and opens another. There are reports of over a dozen people having died while bathing in the hot springs there. Sudden temperature changes could happen at any uncontrolled hot spring which is produced by active volcanism in the subsurface.
Hot Creek California Thermal Pools, from the U.S. Geological Survey website.
So this post was entitled Hot Springs: Risks and Rewards, but all you’ve read so far are the risks. What are the rewards? Well in a nice controlled spa environment, hot springs can be very relaxing and enjoyable. People have “taken the waters” for millennia and there are many health spas in Europe which still use hot springs therapeutically for the treatment of several diseases, including arthritis and psoriasis. Therapeutic treatment in hot springs was common in the United States for such illnesses until the early seventies when medical science actually started producing some pharmaceuticals which treat the symptoms of these diseases. The therapeutic use of spring water is called balneology. There have been a number of compilation studies examining the research conducted on the effectiveness of the therapeutic use of hot mineral water to alleviate symptoms of arthritis and other diseases. Unfortunately the studies all have the same conclusions. The research projects conducted have not been scientifically sufficient to conclude whether there are benefits achieved from balneotherapy. It doesn’t mean there aren’t benefits, it just means there is not a lot of conclusive evidence that such treatment works. But enjoy your soak in a hot spring anyway; just make sure it is in a controlled spa environment.
