It's the water

What's 'artesian': Some artesian wells never flow to the surface.

Well stories: From beer ads to home brew, Olympia's wells have served many.

Jim Ingersoll wants this artesian well to be the centerpiece of a city park.

Artesian well inspires park dream

The perfect water has bubbled from a spout in downtown Olympia for a long time, now Olympian Jim Ingersoll wants to build a park around it.

By Devin Smith The Olympian

It doesn't look like much of a precious resource.

A big chunk is broken from the corner of its small, crusty, cement basin. It has been bolted together with a bent metal bracket. And it gets pushed around a lot - nudged and chipped by car bumpers.

But loving hands always come along and patch it back together when the pipe cracks.

That's because it's precious to the folks who come from miles around to fill plastic jugs, glass bottles and jars with the cool artesian water flowing from the well's spout. It is, they say, the last artesian well in the Olympia area that is free and open to the public.

Standing squat and off to one side and taking up space in a Diamond parking lot downtown, the well doesn't look like the stuff of dreams. But for Olympia psychologist Jim Ingersoll it has inspired a vision.

He sees an urban oasis where a sculpture could replace the crumbling cement reservoir. Murals could decorate the favorable walls of Ken's Tires and Olympic Outfitters that face the lot. And there could be more, plants, benches... whatever you want, Ingersoll says.

Last spring, he introduced his vision to the Olympia Parks and Recreation Department. He was told it was an exciting, imaginative idea, and was handed an application for a capital improvement request to submit to the City Council.

Admittedly naive about the political machinery that moves such requests, Ingersoll still has the papers and is drumming up support from local businesses and others interested in creating a park around the well.

"I'm trying to find the strategy to succeed at buying the property," Ingersoll says.

Though the well is not immediately threatened, Ingersoll believes it one day could be capped to make way for development. He also believes that if preserved in a park, vandals and errant drivers would stop tearing it up.

"If you make the environment more beautiful, it will inspire people's attitudes," Ingersoll says.

Squeezed between Ken's Tire and Olympic Outfitters, the well site is one of three connected lots owned by Diamond Parking of Seattle.

All three have an assessed value of $242,000, but the well lot alone is assessed at $94,000, according to Thurston County Assessor records.

One small roadblock Ingersoll might encounter in creating the park is Diamond Parking, which is not interested in selling it at this time, said Ross Allanson, Diamond's city manager.

Diamond went the rounds with the city over capping the well when the company bought the lot. Allanson said besides picking up the cost of capping the well, Diamond would be liable if the well spurted out somewhere else.

That won't happen if Ingersoll can build the urban oasis.

Long on dreams but short on political savvy, Ingersoll sees himself as the catalyst who, with the right mix of individuals, can bring the idea into reality.

"I'm going to keep sharing the dream and offering the vision to people."