When I came upon this well in September of 2008, it had been nearly 18 years since I had last pumped an old-style hand-pump water well.
Unlike most of my generation, I had actually grown up with a bona fide hand-pump well in our farmhouse backyard. We didn't use it for much more than for the infrequent occaision where we needed to fill a bucket and didn't feel like turning on a hose, but it was a fun toy of sorts for me.
For the fun of it, after taking this picture of this abandoned well, I attempted to draw water from it, but, to no avail as it was too dry.
I'm not sure what makes this water unfit. My instinct says that it was merely a property owner who didn't want any potential law-suit on their hands should someone claim to have gotten sick from drinking water from a mysterious well. Since this property is now Grey County conservation land, there's no cattle or other livestock on this property (nor had there been in at least 40 years, looking closely at the surroundings).
I really would hope any water down this well isn't actually unfit, because if even conservation lands are contaminated in some way, we have a deep well to climb up out of in our future.
