What should happen with Bellefonte’s unsightly Big Spring cover? Authority members weigh options
The Big Spring in Talleyrand Park has been covered for nearly 30 years, but Bellefonte Borough Authority has long discussed possibilities for a more attractive look for the landmark in the center of town.
The authority met Tuesday for a work session to discuss options for the removal or replacement of the Big Spring’s cover. While no official action was taken, authority members backed away from the possibility of drilling wells near the spring to draw water out so that a cover is no longer needed.
The spring, located in Talleyrand Park’s expanded area alongside South Water Street, produces an estimated 15 million gallons of natural groundwater per day. It was covered in December 1998 to comply with state environmental standards. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection requires the cover because the spring, which is not filtered, is considered to be surface water because it’s exposed to the atmosphere and pollutants such as algae, duck dropping and other debris.
When the idea to remove the cover from the spring was discussed at October’s Bellefonte Borough Council meeting, the authority considered the use of wells to access the groundwater feeding the spring. While the option could have led to the spring being uncovered, it was not guaranteed to work.
At that meeting, the council approved the authority to conduct hydrogeological studies in the park for possible well locations. But after thinking over the decision — and getting another opinion from Richard Parizek, a geoscience professor at Penn State with extensive groundwater knowledge — the authority agreed during Tuesday’s work session to nix the idea.
“Personally, I was originally for the drilling of wells in the park, but now, I have to say, I’ve done a complete 180,” authority chair Frank Halderman said. “The more that I look into the series of wells we’d have to put in, the more I worry about them, and I wouldn’t want to be one of the people that votes to put in a well, only to see something go wrong and have the whole plan backfire.”
Bellefonte Borough Manager Ralph Stewart said a major reason why drilling wells in Talleyrand Park would be a problem would be the 400-foot setback area required around each well.
Due to the large amount of activity already going on in the setback area — which includes a set of active railroad tracks and traffic on South Water Street — the authority would have to acquire a great deal of variances, or temporary exceptions to a water quality standard that allow for improvements to be made.
Despite the well-drilling plan being discarded, the authority could still do some minor ground testing in Talleyrand to determine which underground route the water takes into the Big Spring.
As recommended to the authority by Parizek, and described by Stewart, the testing would be done by sticking “roughly three-foot-long poles” into the ground where the water underneath may be, and simply using them to measure the temperature of the ground. The differences in temperature are then used determine what underground spaces the water is flowing through.
As for the spring’s cover and its historic pump house, the authority weighed a number of concepts for how to spruce up the look.
The development of the spring’s overflow steam exiting from the pump house’s opposite side was also discussed, but one concept in particular drew further interest from the authority members — the installation of a metal pool cover.
Authority member Jon Eaton said he’d want a cover that would have a greater lifespan than the current one. Stewart said, based on estimates from a couple years ago, a metal cover would cost about $900,000 and last about 50 years.
More updates are expected at future authority meetings. The Bellefonte Borough Authority typically meets at 6 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month.