When Pat McLaughlin heard over the summer about the likely sale and closure of Dutch Springs, a 50-acre water park and scuba diving site in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, he thought of his father, whose ashes were scattered in the water-filled quarry.
“Where’s mom going to go?” he said.
His father, a diving instructor who owned a diving supply shop nearby, loved the place. They visited it nearly every summer weekend since it opened in 1980. The family camped on the grassy shores and plunged into the 100-foot-deep quarry.
“All of our memories are basically around Dutch Springs,” said McLaughlin, a part-time diving instructor and frequent visitor. “It feels like home.”
The sale of Dutch Springs has put the future of the diving site and the community it has created into question.
The Dallas-based Trammell Crow Company plans to erect two warehouses totaling 587,000 square feet on either side of the lake, adding to the many others that sprouted in the area in recent years to serve the massive concentration of online shoppers across the Northeast.
The new warehouses have transformed the area, and the industry has become the second-largest employer in the Lehigh Valley, according to a local trade group.
But along with a takeover of once-rolling farmland, the warehouses have brought trucks that are on the streets at all hours, clogging roads and polluting the air, according to locals.
“It's white-knuckle time on Interstate 78 sometimes or on Route 22 with all these big rigs moving goods out of these warehouses,” said Lamont McClure, the executive of Northampton County, which encompasses Dutch Springs.
Because Dutch Springs is a relatively short drive from New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore, it’s become a magnet for seasoned divers and amateurs seeking scuba certification before a vacation.
And unlike the open sea, the conditions are stable and more predictable.
“There’s a lot of camaraderie,” said Raul Romero, a dive instructor based in New York City.
He recalled how quickly a Polish client of his fell for the place and kept returning. Their families grew so close that their daughters became friends.
The conditions at Dutch Springs can be uniquely challenging.
Algal blooms in the summer often limit visibility to about six feet, but divers can dip below that to see the attractions on the quarry floor: there are several aircraft, a bus and a fire truck among other things.
“It's kind of like dipping your hand in a bucket of ice water, like digging for beers,” said Jerry Joseph, a designer who lives in Brooklyn. “It’s a bit of a shock, but a refreshing kind of shock.”
That’s part of what makes Dutch Springs great, Romero said.
“If you learn how to dive here, you are pretty much going to be able to dive anywhere in the world,” he said.
It’s a lesson Sage Vousé took to heart. Vousé, a software engineer who lives in Manhattan, marveled at the limited visibility, finding it almost meditative.
“It's kind of like you are sitting and breathing in a void,” Vousé said. “That can be scary, but it can also be very good because there's nothing to do in the void but breathe.”
During a later plunge between tectonic plates off Iceland, Vousé, who uses the pronouns they and them, had to completely remove their mask underwater, a tricky procedure they'd worked hard to learn.
“You’ve got to choke a little and then keep breathing through your mouth,” Vousé said. “It felt like all my Dutch Springs training was coming through.”
Representatives for the warehouse developer said they are still in talks with local officials and other groups about lake access.
“It is a top priority for everyone involved to ensure that the lake remains available to divers and as a training facility to first responders and we are optimistic we will achieve this goal,” said Andrew Mele, a managing director for the developer. He didn’t provide further details.
The uncertainty over the site’s future creates a painful limbo for Dutch Springs devotees. Dr. Nevada Winrow recalled how the young members of her group, the Black Girls Dive Foundation, encountered a swirl of conflicting rumors during their annual Labor Day camping trip there.
“They are absolutely heartbroken,” Dr. Winrow said. “There’s no other place like Dutch Springs.”
Text by Aidan Gardiner. Photographs by Michael Turek. Video by David La Spina.
Additional footage by Raul Romero. Produced by Jennifer Mosbrucker.