-
Paradise Springs
From the Ocala star Banner.
Now, one of the more attractive pieces of property in the gap - to both environmentalists and commercial water bottling companies - is up for sale. The question is whether there is the money, interest and time to purchase the property and add it to the Greenway, the 110-mile stretch of woods and recreational trails from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Johns River, which decades ago was planned as a barge canal.
Not far southeast of the intersection of U.S. 441 and Southeast 80th Street, a bumpy car ride over wooded Greenway property and across railroad tracks gets you to Paradise Springs, 4040 S.E. 84th Lane Road.
Amid the live oak trees on this almost 10-acre property, the ground drops some 20 feet to a wooden staircase leading into pool of crystal clear water. Under the surface water and a limestone shelf, an underwater cavern system fed by the Floridan aquifer stretches down for more than 160 feet. Paradise Springs' popularity as a scuba diving spot was evident last week, when Quebec residents Alain Thinel and Jennifer Dufour wrapped up their vacation hitting diving spots across Florida with a visit here.
-
I had not heard about this being for sale. The couple that own it have been there for years and they are friendly people. I like to go to Paradise at times with some of my advaned open water or cavern buddies as I think it is a better (certainly deeper) dive than other area spots. I hope whoever buys it keeps the diving going. What's their asking price?
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by WEPIV
What's their asking price?
3.2mil to bottling company or 2.2mil to a cave agency.
-
What cave agency do they think could come up with $2.2M? Especially for a site with no going cave?
-
I don't know about a cave agency but if I refinance my home about 22 times I could pull in the money. Oh yeah but again the cave does not go any where.
On a serious side. I went there as an open water diver years ago and found the place to be a great experience. What I don’t understand is that from what I remember there is like no flow at all in there. Why would a bottle company pay 3.3mil for such a low flow cave?
-
This is truly disconcerting.
I don't dive paradise that often, actually it's been several years, but I still would like to know it's there.
I definitely don't have that kind of cash to keep it open, but wish somebody did.
If I could just hit the lottery, how many caves could I buy?
Oh, well back to reality & one more place I loved to go... gone.
Mike
-
Isn't the guy who owns Paradise, the brother of the guy who owns Blue Grotto? Where there was similar "talk" of a water bottling company coming in, and trying to sell the property for some astronomical price?
As was mentioned, what bottling company is going to want to bottle in a system with nearly no flow?
-
I find it amusing that they have a $2.2Mil price for "cave agency".... It is well known that there is not a cave agency that could produce that kind of money for a sinkhole. They are doing that because their ultimate goal is to sell to a water bottling company, just like Blue Grotto.
10 years ago they bought that sinkhole for $185K. I guess the price of buying water has outpaced even oil rich land... It's sad that people have bowed to greed over conservation of the future of drinkable water....
-
There is a cave in the upper cavern area. I think it has about 4000 feet of line in it. :-D
-
Just an observation,
Does a bottling plant need a karst window to access the water supply? Can they not just stick a pipe down until they hit the spring or acquifer? I'm not a geologist, I don't play one on TV, and I don't stay at a Holiday Inn Express, but is seems to me that the cave systems are under most of Florida right?
-
I am a retired hydrogeologist and now dive shop owner who has dived Paradise Springs on several occasions. One of my favorite sayings from Bob Dylan is "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." The same for groundwater - you don't need a sinkhole to get water from the aquifer!! You are correct in your assessment.
-
Bob Dylan aside. Bottlers have the right to label their product "Spring Water" when the water rise naturally to the surface of the earth. Spring water has a premium placed on it as opposed to plain bottled water.
Here's what the FDA says : Spring water. Derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the earth's surface. Spring water must be collected only at the spring or through a borehole tapping the underground formation feeding the spring. If some external force is used to collect the water through a borehole, the water must have the same composition and quality as the water that naturally flows to the surface.
Bottlers can drill a well pipe in the ground and it has to be proven through direct passage or dye trace that it is the same water having a route to the surface. In the case of Madison, Zephyrhills and Ginnie the well casing is in proven passage flowing to the surface.
The mining of the water is a different matter. In the above cases there is a distance of maybe a 100 meters to a 1000 meters from the well pipe to the processing plant. In the case of Paradise and Blue Grotto, the water would have to be trucked out to be processed elsewhere.
It can't be piped out as in the case of Paradise because the south property border is a national historic landmark. It's a cemetery that's been there since the time of slavery and has some interesting markers and really is a piece of history. The other route is the railroad and private family farms. In the case of Blue grotto the neighbors don't want trucks and wouldn't allow an easement for a pipe. /Ken
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by PerroneFord
Isn't the guy who owns Paradise, the brother of the guy who owns Blue Grotto? Where there was similar "talk" of a water bottling company coming in, and trying to sell the property for some astronomical price?
As was mentioned, what bottling company is going to want to bottle in a system with nearly no flow?
Perrone, I seem to recall that the current owner bought the property from the brother of the owner of Blue Grotto.The owner and his wife are super nice people.
A price of 2.2 million seems pretty steep. I am wondering, how solid is the information on the asking price?
-
I dove Paradise earlier this year. Met the wife. Nice. But after 2 dives there, I had pretty much seen all I needed to of the place. I just couldn't envision ANYONE, much less a cave agency, paying $2.2M. In fact, you could move that decimal one place to the left, and that would just about cover it.
-
County won't buy Paradise Springs
-
Mike Edmonston wrote:
Just an observation,
Does a bottling plant need a karst window to access the water supply? Can they not just stick a pipe down until they hit the spring or acquifer? I'm not a geologist, I don't play one on TV, and I don't stay at a Holiday Inn Express, but is seems to me that the cave systems are under most of Florida right?
Mike, I've always thought the same thing. Why not find your own aquifer and not disturb a known flowing stream of water?
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Wizard
Mike Edmonston wrote:
Just an observation,
Does a bottling plant need a karst window to access the water supply? Can they not just stick a pipe down until they hit the spring or acquifer? I'm not a geologist, I don't play one on TV, and I don't stay at a Holiday Inn Express, but is seems to me that the cave systems are under most of Florida right?
Mike, I've always thought the same thing. Why not find your own aquifer and not disturb a known flowing stream of water?
No window needed, "Spring Lake Bottling CO." (4 miles from my Brooksville house) pumps directly out of the ground using a 9" well case that goes 380' deep and a 6" main ; Z-Hills water is the same too (i've been told)
-
Where is the "Ginnie springs" water from Publix pumped from? I see the botteling plant whenever I go to Ginnie, but do they have a well? or are they taking it from the river?
Just curious...
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mike Edmonston
Where is the "Ginnie springs" water from Publix pumped from? I see the botteling plant whenever I go to Ginnie, but do they have a well? or are they taking it from the river?
Just curious...
The only place I know that pumps out of a cave is vortex (for cleanning the pond i think)
-
I was at Paradise last weekend the owner told me the cave goes to 200'+ after a small restriction, he had dove it that deep but indicated he talked first hand to the person that did.
The place is also somewhat of a cash cow. If the property includes the house and horsebarn, it really is not a bad price.
-
I disagree. It is a semi-fun dive to do once or maybe twice... After that, there's nothing else to see.
I can't imagine the place taking in anywhere close to enough money to justify that price.
Rick
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Blackchains
I was at Paradise last weekend the owner told me the cave goes to 200'+ after a small restriction, he had dove it that deep but indicated he talked first hand to the person that did.
I spoke to him about that also. He had some doubts that it really went that deep. Those passages are horriably soft sandstone. I don't think it goes to 200'. I only saw 150'-160' and it didn't look like it was going anywhere from there. There is shallower sidemount passage there that seems much more promising.
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mike Edmonston
Where is the "Ginnie springs" water from Publix pumped from? I see the botteling plant whenever I go to Ginnie, but do they have a well? or are they taking it from the river?
Just curious...
Next time you pull past the big new Ginnie guard shack. As you are turning in you are pointed right at the well house. Right of the shop entrance, between the parking lot and the tube storage. Then on you way out to loop back into the park. The pipeline run out at ~11o'clock when looking south at the gate before the right turn. Filled in better now, back in '99 there was a two-track over the pipe. What I was told there is a nice junction room below the pump house. With the water splitting between Ginnie and Dogwood. IIRC the well casing is 8". Not big enough to sneak down and dive.
Cheers!!
Kevin
-
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gary
I spoke to him about that also. He had some doubts that it really went that deep. Those passages are horriably soft sandstone. I don't think it goes to 200'. I only saw 150'-160' and it didn't look like it was going anywhere from there. There is shallower sidemount passage there that seems much more promising.
Gary,
After many attempts in various areas of the deep section I was only able to hit 163'. In all cases I ran out of vis because of silt usually about ten feet shallower from the deep points. It is almost all breakdown and no way to to see anything beyond that.
The side mount passage you refer to has been pushed and it's ceiling is very soft Hawthorne limestone. That like the cave at Coleman is vey fragile and very unsafe to dive.
Now for the good news. Paradise will stay open to diving and training. The water bottlers and others have not tendered an offer to purchase it.
/Ken
