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© 2001
Eric Endlich.
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Tips for Municipalities
- Review town policies and bylaws to ensure they promote sustainable water resource practices.
- Reconnect rain and groundwater by collecting runoff from roofs and other impervious surfaces and get it into the ground. This reduces flood flows and enhances groundwater recharge. Install stormwater best management practices that infiltrate stormwater rather than releases it to already swollen rivers.
- Absolutely minimize impervious areas in aquifer recharge areas (Zone IIs). Maximize recharge of clean water to aquifers.
- Protect potential future water supplies now. Stratified drift deposits are a valuable resource, and now is the time to plan.
- Encourage homes and businesses to conserve
water by offering incentive programs.
Implement water rate structures that penalize large water users (varying by residential and business type). Adopt strict water conservation practices on town properties, and use the opportunity to educate the public. - Minimize unaccounted for water (aim for <10%) by installing adequate metering to locate and fix leaks in the transmission system.
- Reduce infiltration and inflow into sewer
systems. This can be more than half the
sewerage received at wastewater treatment plants! Towns pay to treat this clean water, and the cost will at least partially offset the costs of finding and fixing I/I problems. - Consider wastewater a resource. Re-evaluate
wastewater management practices. Package wastewater treatment plants do a much better
job of keeping water local than very large regional facilities. Sewering the whole town,
previously served by septic systems, is not an adequate solution.
Make sure those responsible for water supply, wastewater treatment (sewers or septic systems), land use planning, and stormwater talk to each other. This means providing a forum where public works, water suppliers, planners, and boards of health can exchange information. Consider the complete water cycle rather than compartmentalizing into influent and effluent. - Avoid fouling the nest. A contaminated water supply may be prohibitively expensive to treat, but much less expensive to avoid. Curtail outside watering—grasses naturally go dormant in the summer heat, but they’ll green up again in the fall.