Worried over water

Jill Severn, Seattle P.I.

Olympia's artesians are fast becoming an endangered species, and its government regulations that are driving them to the brink of extinction.

The Spar Cafe and Bar, which has been in business in downtown Olympia since 1935, was recently forced to stop using the artesian well located in its basement because, according to the state Department of Health, it does not comply with the "considerable body of regulations" that governs public water systems. The fact that not a single customer of the Spar has ever gotten sick from this water is beside the point. So is the fact that the owner of the Spar has tested it regularly, and has built, to the previous regulator's specifications, a cover for the cistern. According to the Department of Health, the Spar bears the burden of proving that the well always has been and always will be safe. Until the owner can prove this to the satisfaction of regulators, he must use city water.

Since no one knows for sure where Olympia's artesian waters come from, it's hard to say what the prognosis is for their continued purity. The owner of the Spar has tested his well and found it to be just over 100 feet deep. He says it lies beneath a heavy layer of impermeable clay, and that the chances of it being contaminated by surface activities are extremely remote.

Just down the street from the Spar is another artesian well, located in a Diamond parking lot. It is a revered community I resource for people who, for a variety of reasons, think that artestian water is superior to the stuff that comes out of their faucets. For the time being, this well supplies all those who come down out of the surrounding hills, like medieval peasants, to fill their bottles and buckets. But the Department of Health has notified Diamond Parking that they must test the well, that they are liable, and that they may have to upgrade the plumbing to comply with all the regulations governing public water systems.

There are probably about a hundred artesian wells bubbling up in basements and byways in the Olympia area. Very few are in use anymore. Some flow directly into sewers and storm drains; some have been capped. An artesian well used to feed a public drinking fountain on a downtown street corner. The fountain flowed perpetually, creating fabulous ice sculptures during -cold spells. Now it's been capped because no one wants to take responsibility for testing and maintaining it, and no one wants to be liable for it.

All these artesian wells may be gifts from the very heart of the earth, but in a world obsessed with liability laws and government regulation, they are not very graciously received.

Especially where water is concerned, human beings are rarely gracious and even more rarely rational. My neighbor who smokes cigarettes made from organically grown tobacco - gets testy when she sees me drink chlorinated water, which she believes causes cancer.

In our neighborhood grocery store, they've just installed a machine that dispenses water that's been through five or six different scientific-sounding processes that are supposed to make it worth 39 cents a gallon and the trouble of bringing a container and packing it home. There are also shelves full of bottled water, (which could be tap water poured in a bottle for all I know), selling for up to a dollar a quart.

Given all this pickiness, our all-American regulators think they're doing what we want them to do: They're behaving as if they work, for the most spoiled, fussy, self-indulgent people on Earth - people who think they should never die of anything. The trouble is, the regulators haven't kept up on the latest fashions in intolerance: They think the people they represent have zero tolerance for choliform bacteria and chemical contaminants: They don't realize that the avant garde now demands a level of purity that also excludes chlorine and fluoride.

Water purists drive their internal combustion vehicles for miles to fill a gallon jug with wild, un-regulated, water. With equal zeal, the regulators work to make nature, history, and small businesses like the Spar obey their rules.

It would be easy to blame the regulators for being insensitive to the cultural and historical importance of Olympia's artesians. It would also be accurate. But the regulators are over-regulating not just because it's in their nature to do so. They're doing it because in some demented way, it's their job to reflect the public's paranoia - a paranoia fed by fast food hamburgers that kill kids and water machines in grocery stores that imply by their very presence that public water systems aren't safe.

What's missing is simply a sense of proportion. Surely regular testing and common sense precautions can preserve the resource that makes Olympia famous. And surely a city that's the state capital can muster the political clout to call off the state Department of Health regulators when they bite the hands that feed and water them.

• Jill Severn's column appears every other Friday.