By Janice Podsada
Herald Writer
LYNNWOOD — Well. Where is it?
The well house is finished. The parking lot is paved. The spigots are in place. But the future home of Lynnwood’s popular artesian well is surrounded by a chain-link fence.
The artesian well at 164th Street SW and 23rd Street SW was scheduled to move 100 feet east at the end of October, but red tape and paperwork have delayed the move, said Arden Blackledge, manager of the Alderwood Water District, which maintains the well.
"People have been driving by and have noticed the parking lot is built and the well house is built, but that it’s not open," Blackledge said. "The majority of the delay has been about transferring ownership of the property. We have all this boring paperwork stuff."
Opus Development, which is building a business park to the west of the new well, must transfer ownership of the well house and parking lot to the water district. In order to receive permission to build the business park, Opus had to agree to pay for moving the artesian well.
Once the property is deeded to the water district, its crews will set a date to physically transfer the water from the old spigot to the new.
The water will be piped 100 feet to the new well-house, a gazebo-like structure.
The operation shouldn’t take more than half a day, but the public will be notified two weeks before the move. On that day, the well will be inaccessible. No date has been set, Blackledge said.
The new well house and parking lot with spaces for six cars was completed on schedule, Blackledge said.
The artesian well was built in 1958 as part of a system of wells in the Lynnwood area. The wells were capped in 1961 when the water district began purchasing its water from Everett, which was less expensive than having a well system.
People from as far away as Tacoma come to the site to fill bottles and jugs with the well water, which does not contain chlorine or fluoride.
The term artesian simply describes a source of underground water that is under pressure. The pressurization makes it flow naturally to the surface without use of a pump.
The Alderwood Water District services the well, which is tested monthly for contaminants.
Blackledge said the well likely won’t move to its new home untilthe end of March.
And if anyone’s expecting a show when district crews move the water from the old location to the new, forget it, Blackledge said.
"It will be about as exciting as watching the plumber work in your bathroom."
You can call Herald Writer Janice Podsada at 425-339-3029 or send e-mail to podsada@heraldnet.com.
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