Every water supply has its source in a unique watershed.  The easiest way to get involved in protecting your drinking water is to learn what watershed your water comes from, and pay attention to issues that affect contamination and depletion.  

Your tap water’s source protection area might be a few hundred acres in the immediate area, or it could be, like New York City’s, hundreds of acres many miles away.  

There are many federal and state programs targeting source water protection, including efforts to buy up protection acreage.  At the same time, water privatizers continue to try to persuade municipal governments to sell the water system and enter into a maintenance and service contract.  In the process of privatization, corporations sell off “extra” source protection areas to bring in a quick return on investment.

The water we drink comes from rain water that infiltrates into the ground, and water that flows in our rivers and lakes.  That same water contains “direct discharges” such as from sewage treatment plants, and “indirect discharges” such as from stormwater run-off.  

Two hundred million pounds of pollutants are permitted to be discharged into US waterways annually.  The Clean Water Act has“zero discharge” as a goal, one that is now technologically possible.  Eliminating pollution at the source is one way to clean up your drinking water.