Protect Your Groundwater Day

Sept. 6 is Protect Your Groundwater Day. Learn why groundwater protection is so important:

Simple ways everyone can act to protect groundwater

Everyone can and should do something to protect groundwater. Why? We all have a stake in maintaining its quality and quantity.

• For starters, 99 percent of all available freshwater comes from aquifers underground. Being a good steward of groundwater just makes sense.
• Not only that, most surface water bodies are connected to groundwater so how you impact groundwater matters.
• Furthermore, many public water systems draw all or part of their supply from groundwater, so protecting the resource protects the public water supply and impacts treatment costs.
• If you own a well to provide water for your family, farm, or business, groundwater protection is doubly important. As a well owner, you are the manager of your own water system. Protecting groundwater will help reduce risks to your water supply.

Groundwater protection

There are two fundamental categories of groundwater protection:

• Keeping it safe from contamination
• Using it wisely by not wasting it.

Before examining what you can do to protect groundwater, however, you should know that sometimes the quality and safety of groundwater is affected by substances that occur naturally in the environment.

Click here for more information from the National Ground Water Association.