Wherever you are on Nantucket, you know you can quickly reach water.
And that’s one reason we all love Nantucket. We swim in it; we sail through it; we breathe in its salty scent, thick with the promise of life. But we cannot drink the seawater that surrounds us. (That is, unless we covet a slow death by dehydration!) And with 30 miles of that seawater between our tiny stretch of sand and the rest of the world, we don’t have the “next town over” resources upon which other locations can rely. We are on our own to find clean water. The charming landmark water pump in Sconset might lead visitors to believe that the town gets its water from old-world artisan wells. Robert Gardner, General Manager of Nantucket’s Wannacomet Water Company, chuckles and dispels the notion: “That’s a rumor. There’s not an artisan well on this island.” So where does Nantucket’s fresh water come from?
To find out, read the article by Sarah Teach in Yesterday’s Island/Today’s Nantucket: http://www.yesterdaysisland.com/2012/articles/Water-Water-Everywhere.php