Artesian well water draws Olympia-area fans, entrepreneurs

OLYMPIA — No one has to tell Rose West that "It's the water."

The 49-year-old home caregiver drives 25 minutes from her home between Lacey and Yelm to fill her bottles with the artesian water flowing out of a pipe in a Jefferson Street parking lot in downtown Olympia.

"How can I describe it?" she said when asked what makes the water worth the trip. "... It's like the difference between Ghirardelli chocolate and Hershey's."

It's that reputation that All-American Bottled Water will stake its business on if a deal to buy the mothballed Tumwater brewery goes through.

Don Kubley, vice president of All-American, said the artesian wells used for decades to make beer will be a huge part of the company's plan for marketing and selling its bottled water.

Artesian water is groundwater under pressure that rises to the surface without the need to pump it. That water — which inspired the trademark "It's the water" slogan for Olympia beer in 1902 — served the Olympia brewery well.

As lore has it, brewery founder Leopold Schmidt was impressed by the quality of artesian well water when he visited the South Sound in the mid-1890s. A sample of the water was tested at Wahl-Henius Brewer's Institute in Chicago and was found to have ideal characteristics for brewing beer.

All-American thinks these traits are ideal for bottled water, as well.

"This water is naturally filtered and won't need to be purified," Kubley said. "It's a tremendous community resource."

Artesian water is presumed to be of higher quality than some other surface and groundwater sources because it is protected from outside influences by an impermeable layer of clay or other confining material.

"All I can say, generally, is that if you can draw from a well of artesian water, it has a solid ceiling on top of the aquifer that greatly reduces the chance of contamination," said Michael Ruef, who worked as a hydrologist with the state for 20 years. "It's pressurized, and instead of going horizontally, the water goes up in the well hole. It's simply harder to contaminate."

But artesian wells are not immune to contamination. For instance, cracks or leaks in the well casing or piping that carry the water to the surface could allow pollutants to seep into the well.

"Our water will be monitored and tested daily," Kubley said.

He said it will be sold nationwide and internationally and tap into a burgeoning market for bottled water.

Bottled water is the fastest-growing segment of the beverage industry. By the end of 2003, it will be the second-most-popular commercial beverage in the United States, trailing ubiquitous soda pop, according to industry studies.

Water is a liquid gold rush for bottlers, including the corporate giants such as Coca-Cola, which sells Dasani, and Pepsi, which offers Aquafina. Sales of Aquafina hit $838 million in 2002.

In the Olympia area, nearly 100 artesian wells supplied American Indians and early white settlers with potable water. These days, the pipe in the Diamond parking lot between Fourth and Fifth avenues is the only free, public source of the artesian water that bubbles up from 90 feet underground.

Todd Thompson has been collecting 10 gallons of water a week from the well for the past 10 years, first to avoid the iron in his well, and now to avoid the chlorine in the city water at his new Olympia home. Everyone in his family uses it, including the family dog, who got sick drinking tap water. His wife swears the water is better for her skin.

"It's delicious," he said. "It's chlorine free, and it's not too hard and it's not too soft. But most importantly, it's chlorine free."

Still, he wouldn't pay for the water. "If this weren't here," he said of the free well, "I'd probably just put filters on everything in our home."

Her well water tainted by iron, Tumwater-area resident Tamara Johnston said she relies on the artesian well for their potable water.

However, she said converting the old brewery into a bottled-water plant makes a lot of sense.

"It's one of the first things we thought they should do after the brewery closed," she said. "But it wouldn't keep me from using this well."