"It will be a place where people would be able to talk and meet with friends." — Stan Biles, Olympia mayor

Steve Bloom/The Olympian

Olympia Mayor Stan Biles looks forward to the possibility of moving the well-known artesian well fountain to a more accessible and comfortable location near the Farmers Market.

Mayor earns praise for support of well project

Biles juggles city's development plans

By Michael Burnham, the Olympian

OLYMPIA — At the southern rip of Port of Olympia property lies a barren urban island engulfed by parking lots and streets.

Give it a hard look, and it's still nothing more than a featureless tract of crushed stone no bigger than a mobile home.

But early one February morning. Mayor Stan Biles dragged his foot across the frozen, stony surface with a stare that seemed to say there's something special here.

"It will be a place where people would be able to talk and meet with, friends," Biles said.

If he could use the vivid visions in his head to put the political wheels in motion, there would be more here.

From just a stone's throw away, shoppers from the Olympia Farmers Market and the Batdorf and Bronson coffee-tasting room could lounge on a bench during a summer day.

They could stop for a drink of natural, cold water surging up from 100 feet below. In a matter of weeks, Friends of Artesians, a group formed in 1997 to save Olympia's last outdoor well in a downtown parking lot, will present an ambitious plan to the City Council and the Port of Olympia Commission that calls for tapping an artesian well from this very site.

"They have historically been collection points for people," said Biles, who trailed off into a 10-minute history of where Olympia's more than 100 wellheads were and who still uses them.

"It would become a community asset."

Even as the council has taken on big-money projects such as the development of West Bay Drive and a regional conference center, Biles has not pushed the artesian well issue off his plate.

"Stan has been a leader in this," Mayor Pro Tem Mark Foutch said if Biles' work with Friends of Artesians. "Nobody told him to do this. I think he just has an interest in using natural water."

Councilwoman Laura Ware agreed.

"I think Stan's been the first person to really take it on and bring all the players together," Ware said.

"It's a historical resource, and it's important to preserve. I'm glad he's willing to take this on."

Biles helped keep Olympia's last outdoor well open in 1997 after state Department of Ecology officials moved to cap it because of potential health risks.

"He stepped in and created the Artesian Forum," said Friends of Artesians Coordinator Jim Ingersoll of a forum that brought state and local political leaders together with private interests. "It effectively built bridges."

In addition to organizing the forum, Biles has consulted with Friends of Artesians members as they prepare their new well site proposal.

"He was King Arthur, and he created a round table," Ingersoll said. "This is a jewel in the crown of Stan's political leadership."