It’s the beginning of a new year and for many it is a time to look to the year ahead. As you set new goals for 2024, consider doing something that will contribute to a healthier environment. One way we can improve our environment and community is by protecting our drinking water at the source. Source water protection includes a wide variety of actions aimed at safeguarding, maintaining, or improving the quality and/or quantity of our reservoirs, lakes, rivers, and groundwater resources. By making small changes in your everyday life, you can help prevent contaminating your source of drinking water.
Resolution 1: Take an Interest in Your Drinking Water
Do you know where your drinking water comes from? Taking an interest in your drinking water quality protects you and your community. Below are some easy resolutions to check off this year.
-
Learn something new: If you do not know where your public drinking water comes from, now is a great time to find out. One way is to familiarize yourself with your water utility’s Annual Water Quality Report, which is typically distributed in the springtime. You can find a copy of your municipality's Annual Water Quality Report by visiting your municipality’s website, checking for a copy with your water bill, or contacting your local water utility. If you rent, contact your landlord for a copy. Additionally, EPA’s How’s My Water webpage provides information about the condition of local water quality. By learning about your local public water quality, you can better protect it.
-
Contact your local government or water utility: Speak with your local officials or local water utility about how your community’s public water source is being protected. Ask about specific actions they are taking and if there are any current or future potential threats to your public drinking water. If no protection actions are present in your community, voice your support for source water protection.
-
Invest in your source water: Support your municipality’s investment in the safe future of your public water supply. Actions such as septic system inspections, maintenance, and replacements and limiting the use of lawn and garden fertilizer or pesticide help keep contaminants from getting into the public water supply. Water utilities and local officials can provide you with additional information to help protect your source water.
 |
Resolution 2: Get Involved in Your Community
In 2024, plan to take an active role in protecting your drinking water source from contamination by supporting local clean water initiatives and groups in achieving their mission of a healthy and clean environment. You can begin advocating for source water protection by checking out the list of opportunities below.
-
Find or start a source water protection group: Find a source water collaborative, watershed or wellhead protection organization in your community. Volunteer your time to be a source water advocate at a local education and outreach event. If there are no active groups, consider starting one by reaching out to friends and neighbors.
-
Join a beach, stream, or wetland Cleanup: Watershed associations often need volunteers to help remove the debris that accumulates in the water and along the banks of rivers.
-
Participate in DEC’s WAVE Program: Help collect information on flow rate, temperature, and other water quality indicators by participating DEC’s WAVE Program. This vital information is used to track the overall health of New York’s water bodies.
Resolution 3: Build New Habits
Make little changes in your everyday life. Try to improve or build new environmentally friendly habits this year that also help protect source water quality.
-
Conserve water: The average New Yorker consumes over 100 gallons of water each day (including bathing, watering lawns, flushing toilets, cleaning). Due to climate change caused drought, water supplies run a risk of going low in periods of limited rain or snow. You can do your part by turning off the faucet while shaving, washing up, brushing teeth, and washing dishes. Use the dishwasher instead of washing dishes by hand. On average dishwashers use less water. Fix dripping and leaking faucets and toilets. A faucet leaking 30 drops per minute wastes 54 gallons a month. Conserve your water sources by only using what you need, with the bonus of saving money on your water bill.
-
Remember your doggie bags: Keep poop out of the water by picking up your dog’s waste. Each time it rains, pet waste that owners have failed to pick up washes down storm drains and into waters, leading to degradation of water quality. Keep extra doggie bags in your coat pocket or tied to your dog’s leash so you never forget to pick up after your dog on a walk. This year, make it a resolution to dispose of the waste properly in the trash.
-
Properly dispose of unwanted medications: In the past, consumers were told to flush unwanted drugs. Septic systems and wastewater treatment facilities are not designed to breakdown many medications and low levels of drugs have been found in NY waters. Therefore, flushing unwanted drugs is no longer recommended. Dispose of unwanted medication in a prescription collection bin. Use NYS’s online mapper to find nearby locations or contact your municipality to see if they offer household pharmaceutical collections. Mark your calendars for National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. Events take place twice a year, typically every April and October. Plan to take advantage of these events when you are completing your spring or fall cleaning activities!
Resolution 4: Garden Green
Use your yard and gardens to help protect drinking water resources.
-
Build a rain garden: Rain gardens are easy ways to help prevent chemicals from running off into your local waterways. Rain gardens are designed to temporarily capture stormwater and let it slowly soak into the ground. Installing a rain garden on your property can be a unique way to beautify your yard, create food and shelter for wildlife, and help reduce and treat run-off from your property. Contact your local Cornell Cooperative Extension office for resources to get started. Resources are also available through EPA.
-
Plant native plants and trees: When planning your spring planting this year, choose to plant native vegetation. Native plants are adapted to the local area and have natural defenses to local diseases and insects, minimizing the need for pesticides. Once established, native plants generally require little maintenance such as low to no fertilizer and less water. These attributes lead to protecting water quality. Your local Cornell Cooperative Extension office may have planting recommendations for your area. You can also check out these state programs that provide plants for a native plants to improve water quality at little or no cost to you.
-
Protect the shoreline: A naturally vegetated shoreline has many benefits. It prevents contaminants or excess nutrients from entering the water, it prevents erosion caused by rain, wind, wave and ice action, and it provides food, shade and cover for fish and wildlife. Planting native, deep-rooting species (check with your local soil and water conservation service for suggestions) will help accelerate shoreline stabilization. Your local Cornell Cooperative Extension office may have planting recommendations for your area.
 |
Hosting an event, webinar, or conference in 2024? Reach out to us at source.water@dec.ny.gov to schedule a presentation or tabling event. If you would like to learn more about DWSP2 and how it could help your municipality, fill out our Interest Form and a member of the DWSP2 team will contact you to discuss further.
Follow DEC on Instagram to see what more you can learn about Connecting Climate Change to Drinking Water.
Have you begun this process? Or, do you have a program or are aware of a program relevant to source water? Send in any helpful hints or information at source.water@dec.ny.gov and we may highlight them!
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign-up to receive it directly from DEC by visiting the DWSP2 webpage.
Missed last month's edition? Visit the DWSP2 Newsletter Archive to stay up to date.
|
