Do I have a spring?

[josephny]

I'm hoping someone here has some experience with fresh water springs.

I'm in Sullivan County, NY, where we've had lots and lots of rainfall.

I was riding around in the woods and I notice a fast moving stream. Now, I know this stream from years of exploring the wood, and I've always assumed it was a runoff/ground water stream. It dries up in the drier months. But, I always wanted to follow it upstream.

I did just that this past weekend. I followed it upstream which was also uphill for quite a while until it essentially ended at a wet area.

My question is how can I determine is wet area is a spring, or just a place where the runoff collects?

I don't see running water, but the wet area is high up compared to 75% of it's surroundings and we've had a couple days without rain and over 90 degree heat.

Are there any telltale signs short of water shooting out between rocks? Maybe a test I can do?

Thank you,

Joseph

 

[Ed of all trades]

Look for the wettest place and start digging with a shovel. Not deep digging, just exploring. Depending on the place, dig a small ditch to drain off the water and show where it comes from. Just fiddle with it some dry day, dig a little, look a little, dig a little more. What you are looking for is water coming up as you dig. After you find it wall it up clean it out and cover it, leaving an overflow.

 

[Lloyd_E]

Could be that the aquifer is filled and it is just running the extra water away. Next time it is dry dig your hole. If it fills quickly and is cold to very cold water, I would say you have a spring.

 

[EE_Bota]

If the water will flow, I'd say you have a spring.
I downloaded a paper off the internet about how to get water out of most any hill. So I wouldn't be to finicky about whether it is a spring or whatever.

Our home spring, it is the headwaters for a branch of a major river. Back when we were pumping it, a home pump couldn't drain it. But left on it's own, it will refill it's tile, and then run continuously out of it's overflow pipe at a rate of about 1.5 gal / minute. That doesn't sound very impressive, but apparently it has not been dry in several hundred years if we take at face value what the natives in the area said about it (they claimed they have never known it to be dry, and natives shared it far and wide, as well as taking water from it's branch.)

Incidentally, we have not been able to "settle" the estate, mostly because of that spring. It seems there are too many people in the family who think that they will need that spring again someday. Clean water bubbling out of the ground is still a powerful draw.

When I was a kid, all the old folks knew of my family because they knew of that spring.

 

[josephny]

Thanks so much guys!

I knew this was the place to ask (;-)

Should I look for the wettest area, or the wet area closest to what looks like the origin? The origin is uphill and it just a round wet area. As I go downhill, the wet area turns into a small stream which then gets bigger as it flows downhill.

I'll give it a few more days of dry and start digging.

And, I'll see how cold the water is.

This might be relevant -- the land is heavy clay with rocks, with a top, thin layer of dirt. That is, it doesn't drain well.

I'll take some pics during the process and report back.

Thanks again

 

[murphy1244]

go when every thing dries out. Then see if its still wet

 

[Wakey]

We have 2 on our property. If I had a metal detector I'd love to dig around to see what I could find. When water bubbles out of the ground you have to assume there has always been people living near it.

 

[MacLawn]

Yep, springs can be very important. Last summer while in Tohoku, Japan, we happened to coincidentally meet a woman riding a bicycle carrying plastic jugs. We talked to her for a long time (we speak Japanese), and she told us the tsunami wave came up to within about 10 feet of her house up on the hill. Everyone was without power, water, gas, etc. for a long time, but there is a spring behind her house with good water. She and her friends and people close enough could come a get water, she was still delivering water as of last summer. I just love springs! Let us know what you find, I hope it is a spring!

 

[xzcVAbc5]

Engineer775 has lots of great water videos on Youtube. Check out his channel. He did some work with a spring and showed how everything went together.

 

[BethelHntr]

Engineer775 has lots of great water videos on Youtube. Check out his channel. He did some work with a spring and showed how everything went together.

I'll second Engineer775 That guy knows his water and is a great source for info. Be sure to search for (Ram Pump) on youtube.

 

[gocards1177]

I'll second Engineer775 That guy knows his water and is a great source for info. Be sure to search for (Ram Pump) on youtube.

Ill third engineer775. Great videos and helpful info. Funny how shaky his videos are tho.

 

[CliffordK]

How many days after it last rains does the stream still run?

I'd say that if you have water in the stream a week after the last rain, then you have a spring, and not just runoff. Also, you might watch how much the flow varies. Runoff would peak after the rain, then decrease quickly once the rain stops. A spring will give you pretty constant flow (although as you mentioned, it can still dry up in the late summer).

It is possible that the headwaters of your spring flows longer than it flows much further down the gulley.

Here are some notes on my small spring. I decided to only do a surface development, although many recommended trying to dig out the headwaters. I didn't want to try to dig out the stump that it comes out of, and didn't want to do anything that might alter the flow rate (mine seems to flow through the summer, I was worried I could loose late summer if I managed to significantly increase the flow). And, of course, anything I did can easily be just filled back in.

Anyway, I had thought that my spring only ran about 20 feet, from one stump to the next stump. However, as I was digging it out, it seemed to run down to the valley floor below. Perhaps when the ground is saturated, it runs all the way down the hill, but once the ground begins to dry out, the flow stops halfway down the hill.

So, in your case, look at the headwaters this fall. It is possible that you have some flow at the headwaters, that doesn't make it down the hill. In this case, you might be able to just dam up the stream near the headwaters, and run the water down the hill in a pipe. And, since you are going downhill, no need for a pump, although depending on the distance, lots of pipe might get expensive. I managed to find a couple of rolls of 3/4" or 1" electrical grade poly pipe for $20 for 300 feet or so at my local recyclers.

No sign of "human habitation" around my spring, although there is a year around creek 1/4 mile away at the valley floor.

 

[josephny]

So we've still had rain every 2-3 days. And, despite 90 degree weather, the woods have plenty of moisture.

I may have jumped the gun about having a spring. It very well could be surface water/rain runoff.

The ground is heavy clay, and doesn't drain well at all. And that combined with the large amounts of rain means the water is never far from the surface.

I'll have to wait for a real dry time (if there ever will be one again).