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NALYCHEVSKIE KLUCHI (THE POOL GROUP)

The springs are located in the Nalychevo valley at the surrounded by birch forest meadow. There is a small shield-shaped natural structure of 150-200 m height formed of light grey travertine sediments. Near the centre of the shield there is a squat cone with 2,5 m height and a pit-like depression (pool).

Earlier the water was boiling in the main pool, and smaller pools and gryphons were located around, shallow brooks were flowing down the shield slopes, and the surface of the shield was as hard as beton. Hot and warm medicinal baths were located at the shield external boundary.

In 50-60s the Pool area was prospected. Several wells were drilled, two of which were located near the shield, but there were no required shutoff valves. Since that time those wells were constantly fountaining; one of them stopped several years ago, another one is still blowing out.

These wells caught the underground streams which supply the springs with hot water, and the water income to the shield has almost stopped. The pools dried out, the gryphons disappeared, and only one cool pool remained. The shield surface ruined into sand without mineralization; the adjacent birch forest was submerged and died. And the natural medical baths also dried out. Kamchatka doesn’t have such baths, except for the Tumrokskiye springs.

In 1987 geologists promised to reverse the effects of well spouting. But nothing changed.

Except for aesthetic and moral sides, there is one more side of this story. Before the drilling, the natural discharge was about 1000 m3 per day. But since 1960 the discharge is 2500 m3 per day, and medically and industrially important boron and arsenic flow away uselessly. Besides, the stable natural balance of the local hydrothermal underground pool water exchange was disrupted, and the heat and microelements reserve ran out.