Artesian well relocation plan goes to City Council

New park near farmers market could be open to public in 2002

By John Dodge, The Olympian

A bid to relocate downtown Olympia's last outdoor artesian well is heading into the home stretch.

The Olympia City Council will be asked Aug. 28 to bless the city's participation in a project to create and maintain a park and artesian well on Port of Olympia property next to the Olympia Farmers Market.

It would replace the existing well that has been living on borrowed time for years without permits or proper design in the Diamond Parking lot on Fourth Avenue.

If all goes well, the new park could be open to the public in 2002, Olympia Mayor Stan Biles said.

"I really like this site," Biles' said of the small parcel sandwiched between the market and Batdorf & Bronson Roasters, "It's easily accessible to everyone."

At one time, the city was home to some 100 artesian wells, which are wells where the water flows to the surface under natural pressure.

The sole outdoor spigot left in the Diamond Parking lot has hundreds, if not thousands, of devotees who swear by the untreated water's purity and taste.

Here's how the project would work:

• Friends of Artesians, and supporters of the non-profit group, would drill the well, build the park and provide the city with a $50,000 fund to maintain the park and conduct regular water-quality tests.
• The port would provide the roughly one-eighth-acre lot for park use.
• The city would maintain the park.
• All three parties would help design it.

"It would be a gift from the people to the people," said Jim Ingersoll, an Olympia psychologist who has been working on the project for 10 years.

As a public water supply, the well would qualify for a water right from the state Department of Ecology, Biles said.

"Once we apply, we would go to the top of the list," Biles said.

The project still has a few other hurdles to jump.

Friends of Artesians insists the well he free-flowing not turned off and on with a spigot.

To be free-flowing, it must pass a rigorous public beneficial use standard applied by Ecology.

"We still have to convince Ecology," Biles conceded.

Ecology Officials familiar with the project could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Also, the well driller must find an artesian water source on the property at sufficient pressure to meet the needs of a heavily used, public water supply.

And Friends of Artesians must complete its fund-raising drive to supply the city with the park operation and maintenance fund.

There were earlier concerns that a public well drilled on port properly could run afoul of known soil and groundwater contamination in the vicinity.

But hydro-geological studies of the site show that it's possible to drill a new, properly sealed well through the pollution and into the clean groundwater below Puget Sound, Biles said.

Olympia Mayor Stan Biles enjoys a drink earlier this year from the artesian well at the Diamond Parking lot in downtown Olympia. Biles and others favor a new site for an artesian well, near the Olympia Farmers Market.