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Spring cleaning of Chimborazo Spring

Unless you drive to the base of Chimborazo Park to use the dog park there, you may not know that there is a fresh water spring in a grotto built in 1895. Today 2 Church Hillians decided they would go tidy up the spring, scrub off the algae, do a little weeding and sweeping.

It was a significant time to perform this small community service as it is February 1 and St Bridgit’s Day. Bridget has a very strong association with springs and wells in Ireland and cleaning such spaces on this day is still done in her land.

Here is what is really significant for Church Hill: within 45 minutes more people and several dogs were helping. One man came up and started doing some of the harder work. Then a family – grandfather, father and son with tools in the back of their truck – drove up and joined in. “We saw you all working and thought we would help.”

This wasn’t planned. No one knew each other but the work went quicker, stories were shared and the spring looks a lot better now.

Sent in by Jan Thomas

21 comments

K.M. 02/01/2012 at 5:03 PM

That is lovely–all of it!

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Matt 02/01/2012 at 5:24 PM

Lookin good!

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Comrade Neighbor 02/01/2012 at 6:19 PM

is that water safe to drink?

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Comrade Neighbor 02/01/2012 at 6:20 PM

Excellent demonstration of neighborliness by the way! Thanks! THIS is why i LOVE Church Hill.

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Jacob K 02/01/2012 at 7:39 PM

Nice to hear. Too little good news gets reported. Thank you to the kindly citizens and the author!

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Cadeho 02/01/2012 at 10:06 PM

The water is not safe to drink. I don’t think any spring in the area is anymore. But also isn’t the stone/concrete there broken?

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Trish 02/01/2012 at 10:20 PM

That’s very cool!

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Lucky Canine 02/01/2012 at 10:26 PM

Looks great! Thanks neighbors!

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crd 02/02/2012 at 1:48 AM

Wonderful story, and agreed, it’s why I love Church Hill too! However, the water is not safe to drink – there used to be a sign somewhere around there warning that it was not safe to drink. i’m not sure if it was for that spring or one of the others. There are several others on various hills around here – including behind a house on either East Franklin or East Grace, and I think there may be a spring somewhere in or near Libby Hill Park.

Years ago, back in the late1970s as I recall, people did come and fill up jugs of water from the one in Chimborazo, but no longer.

Cadeho, maybe one of your maps shows the locations of some of the springs? I’d be curious to see the locations!

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Michael 02/02/2012 at 7:57 AM

My understanding is that the water has not been proven to be “unsafe.” Rather, because the city does not perform regular water monitoring at the spring to confirm its safety, it is simply assumed to be unsafe.

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John Vetrovec 02/02/2012 at 9:37 AM

There used to be a sign there that said it was non-potable, I guess that disappeared around the time when the city stopped testing for safety. The only ones I know of in town that are drinkable are FHP and the Wayside Spring off of New Kent just east of the Boulevard. Got water from the latter post either Isabel or Gaston, can’t remember which, but whichever one our substation blew and the water lines backed up into the sewer.

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Lora 02/02/2012 at 9:50 AM

The sign was there on Sunday, when my husband and I took our dogs to the dog park.

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red fish blue fish 02/02/2012 at 10:12 AM

Joe Macenka wrote this article for the Times Dispatch on July 4, 2008

” Despite signs, spring water may be safe”
Friday, July 04, 12:09 AM

“Has Richmond’s spring water suddenly gone bad?

Officials this week posted signs at several popular spring-water pipes in the city claiming “Spring Water Not Safe For Drinking.”

There’s just one problem: The water might be perfectly safe.

The city said yesterday that it is no longer testing the water because of budget constraints, so it figured the prudent course was to post signs saying the water is unsafe.

The signs went up in recent days at several city-managed parks in Richmond. Two of the most popular are Wayside Spring Park in the Westover Hills neighborhood of South Richmond and at Chimborazo Park in the Church Hill neighborhood of the city’s East End.

Both locations have been havens for generations of people looking to tap one of Richmond’s natural treasures.

It’s not unusual for people to drive up to one of the springs and begin unloading dozens of plastic gallon jugs to fill with free spring water, a practice that seems to have grown in popularity in recent years with the rising costs of pre-bottled spring water sold in grocery stores.

Richmond’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities maintains both parks — Wayside Spring, a small, heavily wooded natural area a few hundred yards south of the James River; and Chimborazo Park, which overlooks the river valley from atop Church Hill.

A marble marker at Wayside Spring says the stone staircase that leads to a landing area featuring two pipes gushing spring water was built in the 1930s.

The spring water at Chimborazo Park traces its roots even deeper. A cornerstone in the wall that holds three water pipes is inscribed with “1895.”

The Richmond Health Department used to have the city’s spring water tested regularly but stopped several years ago when the Virginia Department of Consolidated Laboratory Services began charging for all laboratory tests, said George Jones, a health promotion manager for the city.

John R. Pope Jr., the city’s director of parks, recreation and community facilities, said he believes eight of the department’s parks have springs, and signs have been posted at all of them.

The prospects for resuming testing are uncertain, Pope said.

“They haven’t been tested lately,” he said. “To err on the side of caution, we put the signs up saying the water was unsafe to drink because we don’t know.”

The city might want to consider finding a way to resume testing, said Linwood Norman, Mayor L. Douglas Wilder’s press secretary.”The Health Department would regularly check those springs,” Norman said. “So it may be a matter of getting them back regularly into the equation.”

Contact Joe Macenka at (804) 649-6804 or jmacenka@timesdispatch.com.

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Luke 02/02/2012 at 2:32 PM

What is important is seeing the results of prior testing on these springs – have they ever had results suggesting the water is unsafe? If the track record has been good up until now, it is unlikely that it has changed in the interim, since the industrial sources of contamination are no longer active.

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Brad 02/02/2012 at 3:49 PM

Very fun. Like a spring cleaning flash mob.

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Bill Hartsock 02/02/2012 at 5:24 PM

John, Have you ever run a story about the brewery that used to be under the park? I think they used the spring water for the beer production.

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John M 02/02/2012 at 6:15 PM

This is all that I’ve ever seen on that:

The hidden Chimborazo beer vaults
https://chpn.net/news/2009/10/06/the-hidden-chimborazo-beer-vaults_9553/

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Gina 02/02/2012 at 11:50 PM

I heard all of the drug dealers up here use the water to boil their meth. That’s why I love Thug Hill.

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JD 02/03/2012 at 10:06 AM

I had never heard of the Chimbo beer vaults. Thanks for posting the link, John!

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Paul Hammond 02/03/2012 at 11:59 AM

I live next Chimborazoo Park for 4 months when I first came to Richmond. I loved the criss crossing trails on the hillside, the statue of liberty, the spectacular view, the wide open spaces, everything. They knew how to build them back then.

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Clarence 04/26/2017 at 9:52 PM

We use to play on the hills to exhaustion as kids and drink that good cold water from the spring. We also to take our jugs to fill and take home. I have lived in Church Hill for 59 years it is my lifetime home.

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