Developing a Drinking Water Source Protection Plan for Municipal Public Water Systems
Every public water system should have a written drinking water source protection plan that explains how the drinking water source will be protected. This plan should present workable strategies for preventing, detecting, and responding to ground water contamination within the drinking water source protection area. The plan should focus on potential contaminant sources identified in the protection area, techniques to educate the public that it serves, and a contingency plan to ensure that their customers always have a clean and abundant source of drinking water.
For some communities, the first step in developing a local source water protection plan is to have the Village or City Council discuss and pass a RESOLUTION.
Once submitted to and endorsed by the Ohio EPA, the public water system will receive a certificate of recognition for the efforts in source water protection. The image to the right shows the Village of Versailles being awarded this certificate.
The information on this page pertains to protection planning for Municipal Public Water Systems. Non-Municipal systems, such as mobile home parks, schools, and restaurants, are asked to complete a Protective Strategies Checklist that is included with their Drinking Water Source Protection Plan. The checklist is tailored to the potential contaminant sources that are found in the system's protection area. A completed checklist serves as the non-municipal public water system's protection plan.
Available Protection Planning Guides
Surface Water Systems
Ground Water Systems
Interactive CD - Developing a Drinking Water Source Protection Plan
Developing a Drinking Water Source Protection Plan is an interactive training tool to help Ohio's small public water systems better understand their drinking water source and organize, develop and implement a protection plan. The program was designed for public water system operators and managers, but can be used by anyone interested or involved in developing and implementing a drinking water source protection plan. Understanding the planning process is made easy through activities, photos, illustrations and video clips. Many training sections have multimedia activities. The program explains Ohio's Source Water Assessment and Protection (SWAP) program, answers some common questions, offers an in-depth review of ground water and surface water concepts, provides information about common potential contaminant sources, and describes how contamination can impact water quality. The program includes a step-by-step description of the strategies and processes used to develop and implement a drinking water source protection plan.
Developing a Drinking Water Source Protection Plan CD is available by request from the drinking water source protection staff.
Source Control Strategies
Source Control Strategies are specific actions or techniques that may be used to reduce the risk of ground water contamination from specific potential contaminant sources within the protection area. A few of the commonly identified strategies include source prohibition or restrictions (certain activities cannot occur within a designated area), design standards (such as berms or secondary containment systems), and specific operating standards (such as periodic inspections, testing, and maintenance; or reporting requirements).
The type of source control strategies to implement is a local decision that should be based on input from the people affected by the strategies and on the expertise of those individuals responsible for implementing the control strategies. Some communities may choose not to use any additional source control strategies beyond existing state and federal regulations.
The following are some suggestions for Source Control Strategies that can be incorporated in a Protection Plan:
- Implementing Best Management Practices
- Ordinances
Source water protection ordinances help safeguard community health and reduce the risk of contamination of water supplies. Zoning channels future development away from the wellfield or watershed to a less sensitive area.
Education and Outreach
A good education and outreach strategy can have a lot to do with the success of a community's drinking water protection goals. A resident or business owner who understands the importance of protecting their drinking water resources will be more inclined to implement sound management practices, vote for funding to protect the community's drinking water resources, or accept the need to implement zoning within the protection area.
Educational programs can be directed at business owners, households, school children, civic organizations, workers or the community at large, depending on which type of potential contaminant source is targeted. Some of the more commonly used educational tools include:
Resources available through Ohio EPA for educating and reaching out to the public include:
Source Water Monitoring
Unlike other components of source water protection, monitoring does not directly help prevent contamination. But it may provide information that leads to selecting, refining or discarding other protective strategies. The primary functions of monitoring are:
- Early warning. Choosing good locations for monitoring wells or surface water sampling points can provide early warning of contamination from specific sources, enabling action to be taken before the public water supply is affected.
- Tracking water quality trends. Where non-point sources pose a threat, monitoring may warn of generally increasing trends in contaminant levels. If water quality changes are detected, corrective actions can be implemented.
- Evaluating the effectiveness of selected protective practices. Monitoring helps track the effectiveness of specific protective strategies. In areas where source water quality is already impacted, the goal of protective strategies will be to reduce that impact. By sampling water quality, it is possible to determine whether improvement is actually occurring, and to what extent.
Not all public water systems need to develop a monitoring plan. The need for additional monitoring is greater when:
- The source water is highly susceptible;
- The source water is impacted;
- Existing source water quality data is insufficient; or
- There are potential contaminant sources in the protection area that pose a significant risk to source water, due to amounts and types of chemicals handled or management practices, history of spills, etc.
Guidance Documents for Source Water Monitoring
Contingency Planning
Contingency planning is one of the most valuable parts of the drinking water source protection process. If not already addressed, public water systems will need to develop plans to help ensure they have enough drinking water if population continues to grow or if Ohio were to experience a prolonged drought or some other event would make their existing source unavailable for short or long periods of time. In addition, the public water system will need to develop procedures for responding to a spill or other contamination event in or near the wellfield which may threatens the quality of their source of drinking water. Ohio EPA has put together materials which may help systems develop, update or expand on their existing contingency plan.