A Gift from a Glacier

In Praise of
Malone's Drinking Water,
Part One

Calvin Luther Martin, PhD

August 7, 2024

Drinking water! Humble, plain, old-fashioned drinking water.

This is one of the most important lessons of history. One could go so far as to call it the First Law of Community Survival.

Were you to survey the past 10,000 years of human history, globally, you would be struck by the role that good, reliable, abundant drinking water has played in the success of communities, from peasant villages to massive, sprawling complexes like ancient Babylon or, for that matter, contemporary greater Los Angeles.

When the spigot goes dry, it’s “game over.” The community simply vanishes, leaving behind buildings, roads, monuments, dreams, aspirations, its garbage—the works. But no people (except for their graves). The Middle East is littered with fiascoes like the one shown above: Pueblo Bonito, the largest town in the pre-hispanic Chaco Canyon complex in Northern New Mexico. Communities that for one reason or another ran afoul of the First Law of Community Survival.

The British poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, captures the tragedy and hubris of city-states and empires that failed to grasp this lesson. There may be other reasons for the collapse of the Middle Eastern empire conjured up by Shelley, but the disappearance of water seems to have had a major role in the matter, as suggested by the sand dunes.

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Generally speaking, before the potable (i.e., drinking) water dries up, it becomes heavily salinated (salt), ruining it for consumption although still suitable for irrigation — till even this disappears.

Against this cautionary background, consider the source of drinking water for the following cities and towns in North America. How many will likewise become a “colossal wreck” someday? Either because they ran out of decent drinking water or their source of water became so fouled by chemicals and microbes, including sewage, that it became unusable.

Sucks

Ideal

Sucks

(1) Pleistocene Ice Age

This mind-blowing continental glacier is the beginning of the answer to, "What's so special about Malone's water supply?"

The Pleistocene ("Plice-tow-scene") began around 2.58 million years ago and, frankly, it's still going on. We live in a glacial interlude. The last major thrust of Pleistocene Ice, called the Wisconsin stage, ended around 12,000 B.C.

Between periods of glacial advance, the earth's climate can become extremely warm. For instance, there have been periods in history when both poles (North and South) were tropical. Just so you understand, the earth has always had these dramatic glacial epochs, going back billions of years. The Pleistocene is the 5th in the series.

Back to 12,000 B.C. We're talking about an ice sheet 1 to 2 miles thick. Yes, right over Malone NY. Ice that literally made the continent buckle and sink. Ice that scoured the surface like a gigantic bulldozer with cruel claws made of massive boulders, rocks, stones, down to fine sand.

The earth is an unstable, tempestuous place. The slow pace of the tempest is deceptive; it's slow only on a puny human time-scale. Geological time is a different matter. The planet has always had huge temperature swings—hot to cold—as attested by glaciers coming and going. Within the huge swings are innumerable minor ones, including of course "winter" and summer." As I say, this rodeo ain't over.

(3) Kame and esker formation

Here's another diagram of kame formation. That is, note the crevasse in the melting glacier, the crevasse that has turned into a turbulent, wild river with a bottom of boulders, sand, and gravel.

To the left, in the same diagram, is another important geological feature in the process of formation. I have titled it a "drainage tunnel." This feature is especially interesting and relevant to Malone's water supply, for this drainage tunnel is actually a lake — a vast lake within the glacier rather than being on top of it. Savor that thought for a moment!

Like the surface river that is loaded with boulders, gravel, and sand, this lake deep within the glacier has a bottom likewise strewn with boulders, stones, and sand. You can see this illustrated in the above diagram.

When the glacier finally completely melts, guess what's left of this interior lake? Yep, you guessed it: a looong, high embankment (ridge) of compact boulders, stones, and sand. This embankment is called an "esker." (See diagram to the left.)

By the way, the surface lake shown in the diagram, above, may remain — as Lake Champlain, or the Great Lakes, or an Adirondack Pond. All these lakes are then fed by groundwater and springs.

Malone’s 3 wells—the third will be operational within a matter of weeks—are all dug hundreds of feet down into a thick glacial aquifer composed of an esker estimated to be roughly 10 miles long and 1 mile wide.

The esker appears to be connected to a larger field of enormous kame deposits, all situated within a massive trough on the surface of the Precambrian crystalline bedrock. ^[1]See the “Proposed New Groundwater Source, Village of Malone NY, Submitted to the NYS DOH and NYS DEC,” July 23, 2015, by HydroSource Associates, Ashland NH.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is as good as it gets!

In Part 2 of this series we leave the Pleistocene and touch down in Malone in 1857, when Baptiste Monteau went house to house, delivering water from a barrel on a horse-drawn cart. Baptiste drew the water straight out of the Salmon River, just like Montreal, Ottawa, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Potsdam, Plattsburgh, Tucson, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Atlanta, and thousands of other towns, villages, and cities in North America do today.

In 1857 Malone got smart. It saw the handwriting on the wall: the Salmon, though abundant, was too vulnerable to pollution. The Malone Water-Works Company was launched that year with the purchase of “a spring flowing a hundred thousand gallons a day south of the village.” Wooden, tree-trunk water mains, “which were supposed to be abundantly large, but which proved to be wretchedly insufficient, were laid along the principal streets and it was thought that provision had been made to cover all domestic and fire needs of the village for generations to come.”^[2]Quoted from Frederick J. Seaver, “Historical Sketches of Franklin County and Its Several Towns” (Albany NY), 1918.

The photo to the right shows one such water pipe. Not a water main, to be sure, but a lateral, as would go from the street main to your home. This pipe sits in the office of Mayor Andrea Dumas as one of the community’s cherished possessions. Stop by sometime and take a look. It’s about 4 feet long and probably white pine or cedar.

More on water in the olden days, in Part 2.

Comments are welcome! We encourage comments, no matter how brief or lengthy. Please be polite. Your email address will not be published. Your comment is seen only by you, until moderated by the editor.

6 thoughts on “A Gift from a Glacier”

Wayne Miller Chair, Northern Watersheds Committee Cochair, Water Committee Atlantic Chapter, Sierra Club
August 10, 2024 at 3:53 pm

This aquifer, an invaluable resource, is less vulnerable to pollution than surface water, but not impervious. This week another two million (2,000,000) pounds of sewage sludge will be trucked into Franklin County. Over the past decade, 500,000 tons of these contaminated “bio-solids” have been spread on lands atop our aquifer.

For more information about this dangerous business of pollution for profit, please see:
https://www.sierraclub.org/atlantic/report-sewage-sludge-fertilizer-contaminates-farms-toxic-pfas

It explains why sewage sludge is so contaminated with PFAS “forever chemicals” (as well as numerous other pollutants)–and why it should never be used on farmland, gardens, or on parks or lawns. PFAS can be absorbed through the skin or breathed. Plants take it up. It bio-accumulates up the food chain. It leaches into groundwater and runs off into surface water. It stays in our bodies for decades, and the more we have in our body, the greater the risk of certain cancers, autoimmune disease, etc.

Editor’s response: Wayne, my friend, I believe you are incorrect about bio-solids being spread atop our aquifer. I have examined the geological maps provided by HydroSource Associates (https://teamhydrosource.com) the hydro-geology firm that has been working with the Village since July 2005 in siting, now, 3 Village wells. The maps are included in the reports filed by HydroSource with NYS Dept. of Health and NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation.

The 10-mile-long, 1-mile-wide aquifer being accessed by the 3 Village wells is, so far as I can tell, located deep beneath soil that does not appear to be farmed. I believe it is nearly all wilderness area, most of it within the Adirondack Park.

I will show these documents and maps in Part 2 of this series.

If you can send me empirical evidence that our aquifer is being threatened by contamination or any sort, I’ll publish it. HydroSource Associates, in its 3 reports (April 2005, July 2015, December 2022) found no evidence of any threat, including contamination from private wells.

Reply
HeidiG
August 9, 2024 at 11:45 am

Ah, yes, dear author–water is the greatest of our riches. No water? No quality of life. Period. No trees or gardens to get watered. Nowhere to build a home. Nowhere to enjoy the “lesser riches” we seem to treasure so highly as a collective. It’s all coming to a head.

If you live where you have fresh, clean water, stay there. God bless and prosper the geographic Malones out there, and shelter and give wisdom to your people under its abundance.

Reply
tim
August 8, 2024 at 8:29 pm

This is one of the many benefits in our community that we often take for granted and we should be thankful for.

We have so much more to be thankful for, than to be discouraged about in our Star of the North.

Reply
Michael J Fournier
August 8, 2024 at 8:03 pm

That damn global warming melted those glaziers? Today they blame cow farts. I suppose back then it was wooly mammoth farts that warmed the earth.

Wait a minute, could it be those same glaziers are still melting and the vast majority of the green movement is a finacial hustle.

I can’t wait to see the ancient civilizations that were buried under what is still left. Imagine what we will learn.

Reply
Sherri Lange
August 7, 2024 at 6:54 pm

What an insightful resourceful piece. Thanks, Calvin.

Requires reading a few times. Requires thought and respect for all fresh water sources.

Fascinating history of Malone. Love the water pipe in the Mayor’s office. Let’s not take for granted our water histories!

Editor’s response: Sherri, my dear, since you live in greater
Toronto, I assume you’re getting your drinking water out of, um, Lake Ontario — yes?

Don’t feel bad if you are. I used to live in Los Angeles, Chicago, Santa Fe, Cooperstown NY, Hanover NH (water from the Connecticut River: yikes!), Baltimore (I’m afraid to look up where they get their water), and, ah, New Jersey.

If I’m weird or on the point of death from the sketchy urban water I have consumed in my three-quarters of a century, I’d bet it was chiefly the Jersey water.

By the way, this is one of the principal reasons why Europeans, centuries ago, drank so much booze. It was more trustworthy than the friggin drinking water! I’ll get into this in Part 2.

Reply
Boboso
August 7, 2024 at 6:40 pm

Clean fresh abundant water is something to be so grateful for. I know I am.

Editor’s response: Hi Robert! Do you have such good water where you live in Mexico?

Reply

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