From Source Water to Drinking Water Workshop Summary (2004) / Chapter Skim
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2 Assessment and Management Practices: Impact on Health
2 Assessment and Management Practices: Impact on Health
Pages 23-34
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From page 23... ...
SOURCE WATER ASSESSMENT AT THE STATE LEVEL The Safe Drinking Water Act (SWDA) amendments of 1996 required the states to identify areas that provide drinking water, delineate their boundaries, register potential sources, assess their vulnerability to potential contamination, inform the public of the results, and implement a source water protection program, noted Greg Rogers of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)
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From page 24... ...
, Texas began to develop a software system that could assist viable decisions with minimal human error, while ensuring ease of usability. The resulting system connects with the state's multimillion-record drinking water source and geographical information system (GIS)
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From page 25... ...
In addition, the software and the statewide data sets allow for planning of safe source water by pre-assessing well and water intakes prior to their creation to determine if there are potential problems. As the state system evolves, there will be more local water system involvement, which will form feedback loops that produce the best and most costeffective results of source water protection, concluded Rogers.
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From page 26... ...
It is governed by a Conservancy Court consisting of one common pleas court judge from each of the counties within the District's official boundaries. The MCD maintains active relationships with local leaders and has created an extensive market collaborative with different local government entities, from townships to villages to counties to cities.
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From page 27... ...
Consequently, some of the most rapidly growing areas within the state have a limited ability to handle the population growth, land-use changes, and resulting source water protection needs, noted Hall. This is a situation in which policy makers are in danger of repeating past mistakes: they fail to undertake comprehensive land-use planning with water resources in mind.
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From page 28... ...
Natural Resources Conservation Service. Although these pollutants come from many sources, agricultural practices are a significant contributor, especially in the Mississippi River basin.
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From page 29... ...
For example, soil erosion from agricultural lands is estimated to cost water users $2 billion to $8 billion annually. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus contribute to algae blooms, low dissolved oxygen, and potential health effects.
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From page 30... ...
for water quality, which derive from the Clean Water Act and deal specifically with water pollution control activities. Christensen cited a particular case study: an area of 2.2 million acres in West Virginia's Upper Potomac River basin that has a high concentration of beef and poultry operations, which result in water quality problems from fecal bacteria.
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From page 31... ...
Second, Both economics and social benefits management of land and water reare drivers of clean water activities. sources should be done on a Thomas Christensen watershed basis.
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From page 32... ...
However, despite our extensive general knowledge and awareness of sources, transformations, and transport of nitrogen and phosphorus, predictability becomes weaker when we utilize this scientific knowledge to predict outcomes in specific situations in the real world -- for example, a natural water body's response to management actions such as wastewater treatment or reduction of fertilizer application rates. This can be illustrated by many river basins including North Carolina's Neuse River, which is the third largest river basin in the state, containing a large urban area with 1.5 million people living within the basin, numerous wastewater treatment plants, and a large number of contained animal feedlot operations (CAFOs)
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From page 33... ...
How much is denitrified and, therefore, effectively removed from contributing to algal growth in the receiving water body? How much is transported through the ground and moves readily into groundwater as nitrate?
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From page 34... ...
water quality decisions. Kenneth Reckhow Reckhow cited two ways in which to make modest reductions in prediction error in the future: advances in scientific knowledge that lead to increasingly elaborate and detailed models, and better observational data and enhancements in statistical techniques for extracting patterns from the data.
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