When Pia Trew of Lower Burrell heard her college roommate’s pet goldfish was in peril, she took a road trip back home.
“The goldfish was on its last leg, or fin, so I made a trip home to bring him spring water and that did the trick,” Trew said. “He lived a happy life enjoying fresh spring water.”
That was in 1976, and the water Trew imported to Slippery Rock University was fresh spring water from what locals simply call “The Spring,” a natural spring located along Milligantown Road in Lower Burrell.
In 2021, Alle-Kiski Valley residents are still going with the flow with regard to the spring.
Motorists driving past on any given day are likely to see folks alongside the rural road, filling up empty containers with the water that flows 24/7 onto the hillside.
The spring has been a hydration station for decades, offering clear, cold spring water from a PVC pipe.
“I’ve been coming here to get water since I was 15,” said Lower Burrell resident Tom DeVore, 61.
Tom and his wife, Donna, stopped by the spring Tuesday, Oct. 5 to fill up about 30 empty milk jugs.
The couple said they fill up about every two months.
A spring occurs when groundwater flows out of the earth’s surface.
Typically occurring along hillsides or low-lying areas, a spring forms when the water table intersects with the ground surface.
According to data from PennState Extension, household springs are utilized by almost 21% of residents, mostly rurally, in Pennsylvania.
The vast majority of roadside springs, such as the one located on Milligantown Road, are unregulated.
Sheree Collins, 66, of Allegheny Township uses the spring water for baking.
“I made a sourdough starter, and you can’t use the municipal water because it has chemicals in it that will kill the yeast,” Collins said.
Collins said she recalls having well water that tasted bad when she was a little girl.
She said her family used the spring as a water source, using empty glass vinegar jars as containers.
“Once I took a big gulp from one of those jars thinking it was spring water, but it was vinegar. My family just howled, and I was so angry,” Collins said.
Concerns over contaminated spring water never came up in the Collins family.
“No one ever got sick, and I grew up drinking that water,” Collins said.
Margo Ardelean, 75, of Upper Burrell was 5 years old when she moved to the Alle-Kiski Valley.
She remembers her family using well water for drinking.
“It wasn’t good,” Ardelean said.
Describing the spring as a “pipe in the mountain” back then, Ardelean said her family always would make trips to the spring for fresh water.
“It was always cold and clear. we used it to make our coffee,” Ardelean said.
She said some of the family’s visitors were so impressed by the spring water’s taste they would take jugs of spring water home with them.
“They were from Michigan, and they would take gallons home to use in making their coffee,” Ardelean said.
For Ardelean, seeing the spring still flowing reminds her of a simpler time.
“We would take walks back then and stop for a drink of cool water. It was just a narrow road back then in 1951,” Ardelean said. “When I was little, I thought, ‘Why don’t they just turn it off?’ ”
Dora (Schrecengost) Gibson, 73, grew up in Upper Burrell in a home without running water. She said the family transported water from the spring during the 1950s.
“It was always so cold and fresh,” Gibson said. “Later, during the 1980s, when I had my children, we carried a cup in the car, and we would stop and get a drink of water from the spring,” Gibson said. “The spring water has been a part of my life, a major important part of my life. I don’t know what we would’ve done without it.”
Gibson, who now lives in Vandergrift, said she recalls her father often speaking about the spring.
“I know my dad told me he went there a child, and he was born in 1908,” Gibson said.