Now & Then: The Blue Lagoon

From power plant runoff to tourist hotspot

With more than a million visitors a year, The Blue Lagoon remains one of the most popular tourist destinations in all of Iceland, which might sound strange given that unlike all the other popular destinations on the island, it is a man-made accidental byproduct of building energy infrastructure. When Svartsengi, a geothermal power plant that now provides power and hot water to all of the Reykjanes peninsula, minus Reykjavík itself, was built in the 1970s, the runoff water from the plant spilled into the surrounding lava fields. In the 1980s it was discovered that the runoff water alleviated the symptoms of psoriasis, making bathing there somewhat popular, though no infrastructure was in place for visitors. By the late 1980s some basic facilities were set up, The Blue Lagoon as a brand and business then followed in 1992. This writer remembers dipping in the blue waters in the early 1990s, where a simple wooden shed to change in was all there was. Decades later what was once an accidental bathing spot has been turned into a multi-million krónur business, with thousands of visitors showing up each day, with a high-end restaurant and hotel facilities to boot.

Following the series of eruptions that have taken place just east of The Blue Lagoon in the last couple of years — with one eruption swallowing up the whole parking lot for The Blue Lagoon — berms have been built around the power plant and the bathing facilities, not only because The Blue Lagoon is an integral part of Iceland’s biggest industry — tourism, but because if that power plant gets destroyed by lava, tens of thousands of people will be left without heat or power.

So that — we guess — is how you turn an industrial accident into a must-see part of a tourism industry.