Cave Water

by Daniel S
Grotto Officer andHydrologistfor the State of Arizona

There is a fairly good chance that some point in time, every caver will round a bend or climb down some rock formation to a low point in a cave and find a pool of water. Closer inspection of the pool often reveals water so clean, one can see light to the bottom. I have been with cavers who fantasize about stripping down and bathing in the pool or at the very least, drinking directly from the crystal pool. Some actually do.

As romantic an adventure as this might appear to be, it may provide some very unwanted effects a few days to a few weeks, months or years later. Since you have found your way to this cave pool, there is a fairly good chance other people or animals have found their way to this location. As most responsible cavers have experienced, there is often evidence of someone or something who came before, leaving fecal material or urine behind. There is no telling what could be in this water.

State water quality standards are generally concerned with nitrogen, phosphorous, dissolved oxygen, pH and e. coli bacteria and a few more elements and items. Cave pools are technically considered to be ground water. Ground water standards in Arizona are very stringent as they are synonymous with drinking water standards, the standards are applied to the water we drink from the faucet in our homes. Drinking water consumed in the home is generally filtered, flocculated, chlorinated and oxygenated for a better taste. If one colony forming unit of bacteria is found in drinking water, it fails the compliance standard and the facility is required to increase treatment operations until it meets standards and is safe to drink.

Cave water may have hundreds or thousands of feet of filtering as it travels through the soils and substrate before making it to the cave pool. However, it is important to remember that concentrated salts, bacteria such as girardia and cryptosporidium, pesticides, fertilizers and the like can migrate to ground water through the earth at a rate that varies from one foot to over ten feet a year. If surface water encounters a geologic fault, the rate can be accelerated to hundreds of feet per hour with little to no filtering.

If the cave lies within the influence of a residential community, it may contain pesticides, fertilizers, cleaning solvents and pharmaceuticals you and your neighbors have watered into substrate or you or your neighbor has flushed down the toilet either in whole pill form, or through your feces. Imagine drinking water that contains the pharmaceutical prescription from someone who has a life threatening disease or from someone who is under treatment for a highly contagious disease. Today's water treatment plants do not screen for these items. Waste water reuse is basic and costly. It is often hoped when the waste water is applied to the ground the sun will kill most of the "bad stuff". When waste water is injected into the ground, there is a dilution of the "bad stuff" but there is also the addition of the chlorination by products which can be just as harmful as the material that was removed during the treatment. Currently, waste treatment plants do not test or treat for pharmaceuticals in water. Treatment levels vary too. California law mandates that ground water contain no more than 20% effluent from local waste water treatment facilities.

Nitrogen levels in the ground water may be high if there is, or was farming in an adjacent area or if there is a waste water treatment facility discharge or reuse point in near proximity. Nitrogen standards for Arizona are established at 10 milligrams per liter of water. Above this limit, there is an increased change of stomach or esophageal cancer developing. As an example, it has been reported that Coca-Cola bottled in Japan contain as much as 80 milligrams per liter of nitrogen. Japan also has the highest incidence of stomach cancer in the world.
Every caver knows the wisdom of taking extra drinking water into a cave. The crystal clear waters of a cave pool can be very inviting to the tired, thirsty caver. The information presented here is not an indictment of all caves and all of the water found within all caves. It is merely a statement of precaution to those cavers who are inexperienced or perhaps just like to express the romantic adventurous side of their character, by drinking the crystal clear waters found deep within the earth.
 

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