AWWA JAW59698

The constantly expanding diversity of contaminants from changing land use, coupled with greater pollutant loads and fewer natural barriers, has made treatment more challenging and expensive and increased the chances that contaminants will reach our taps. The 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act required that states conduct a Source Water Assessment for every public water supply in the country, reflecting a renewed national focus on source water protection as a tool to prevent the contamination of drinking water supplies. Although some resources were provided to the states to conduct assessments, no resources have been appropriated for protection strategy implementation, neither have any mandates that they occur been issued. Tools and resources are needed to inform and motivate local and regional protection efforts. This article describes a successful process that demonstrates how locally driven source water protection efforts that leverage local, state, and federal resources can lead to successful implementation of protection strategies. This study highlights how water supply managers can work with elected officials, landuse planners, watershed associations, and others in their source area to conduct geographic information systems analyses, identify threats to supplies from land use, and develop joint efforts to address those threats through a variety of funding sources. Includes 19 references, tables, figures.