Bubbling Up From the Earth, a Cool, Clear Gift

[elleng]

CARMEL, Ind. — The most hopping place in this suburban town on a weekday afternoon is Flowing Well Park, where cool water gushes from the deep as a nonstop gift of nature, its splashes upstaging the drone of a busy road.

The aqua pilgrims, people who love the water here and the idea of drawing it directly from the earth, arrive in unending streams, driving from near and far and bringing plastic jugs. They come to collect liquid that, depending on whom you ask, tastes great or has no taste at all — which may mean the same thing— and that, best of all, is free.

In an era when communities in places like Maine and Michigan have fought to protect springs and aquifers from large-scale commercial bottlers, the open-access wells of America represent a vestige of the public commons, said Julie Ardery, an expert on rural culture and the co-editor of The Daily Yonder, an online magazine about rural affairs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/us/07indiana.html