Fewer than 20 percent of the 350 community water systems in the lower Susquehanna River region have assessed existing threats to water supplies and even fewer (about six percent) have developed Source Water Protection (SWP) plans -- plans that delineate recharge areas, inventory potential sources of contamination, and involve community stakeholders in developing strategies for reducing the likelihood of water contamination.
Is that a big deal? After all, every water system must have a plan to deal with emergency situations, such as a water main break or roadside tanker spill. The problem is not all threats to a water supply are isolated incidents that can be dealt with immediately.
Some are complicated, requiring long-term strategies that chip away at inherited threats from the past (think abandoned storage tanks) or challenge traditional land use practices and policies. Polluted runoff from farm and urban lands, loss of water-cleansing forest lands, and leaking pipelines are just a few of the looming dangers to a safe and dependable water supply.
For the past two years, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) has been working with representatives from the lower Susquehanna region's water systems, municipalities, consulting firms, governmental agencies, and regional organizations to accelerate actions to safeguard future water supplies.
Fifty representatives from Pennsylvania and Maryland recently attended the third Lower Susquehanna Source Water Protection Partnership meeting to share success stories and identify ways to take a regional or cooperative approach to issues that many water suppliers face alone.
In this feature, Environmental Writer Pat Devlin takes a look at the work being done to forge partnerships that are finding solutions to threats to the state's drinking water systems in the Lower Susquehanna River region.
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(Reprinted from the September edition of Water Policy News is now available from the PA League of Women Voters Water Resources Education Network. Click Here to sign up for your own copy.)