Water quality concerns? Think filters, not bottles!

The Toxic Waters series continues to raise serious questions about water quality in the USA.  Elevating the issue to the forefront of the national news has lent momentum to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson’s stated commitment to improve drinking water quality standards and enforcement.   

I look at it as another call to action to protect our watersheds, lobby for enforcement of our existing clean water regulations, and support upgrades to our water and sewer infrastructure.  It matters what you throw on the ground, in the sewer, and on your lawn.  Whatever you put down could ultimately end up in your drinking water source and add to the cost of your water treatment.  We need to be willing to pay more for our tap water in order to assure that it’s clean.  It’ll still be a bargain at prices 100s of times cheaper than bottled water.  Let’s not give up and rely on bottled water which has already been shown to wasteful – that’s not a sustainable option.   And don’t forget that you don’t know what’s in bottled water either.

The good news is that 87% of the people in the USA have clean drinking water.   Links to find out about your own water quality and water filtration options are provided in the New York Times article, “Is Your Water Safe“.  The small percentage of people whose drinking water doesn’t consistently meet EPA standards should definitely consider home water filtration – it’s the greenest and most economical option.

Bottled water biz banking on tap water demise

“The bottled-water industry isn’t just seizing an opportunity — it is banking on the decline of our water infrastructure as key to their successful business model” according to an editorial by Patti Lynn.   Lynn further quotes Nestlé Waters North America CEO Kim Jeffery as saying “We believe the tap infrastructure in the U.S. will continue to decline. People will turn to filtration and bottled water for pure-water needs.”

Is this the handwriting on the wall?  I’m sure that the CEO of Nestle is a smart business person, and I’m afraid this might be a pretty safe bet in spite of the recent decline in bottled water consumption reported earlier this year.  Clearly, there is a lot more work for Back2Tap and other organizations like ours to do.  We will all need to do more than raise awareness and convert people to tap – we will also have to convince people to actively lobby for watershed protection and improvements to their water infrastructure.

Drinking bottled water is dangerous to the health of your watershed!

Last month I got up early and drove into the heart of the Great Swamp watershed, near George Washington’s historic Jockey Hollow encampment in New Jersey to give a breakfast talk to the Great Swamp Watershed Association. I enjoyed doing this because it reminds me why I am working so hard to spread the Back2Tap message. For me, the Back2Tap movement is not only about reducing the waste associated with bottled water– it is also about reconnecting people with the land around them, their watershed.

What does bottled water have to do with the health of your watershed? Everything! If you drink bottled water, then you don’t have to give thought to the quality of your tap water, and then you won’t necessarily care about where it comes from – your watershed. People who rely on tap water are interested in knowing about its source and about how to protect it for the sake of their health and their pocketbooks.

So drinking tap water connects you to your watershed in a very personal way. Watershed stewardship becomes a cause you need to support. This could entail supporting preservation of open space, limiting the application of fertilizer and pesticides that run off into local water bodies, stabilizing slopes so that erosion doesn’t wash silt into water bodies, and supporting your local watershed association.

Conversely, bottled water disconnects you from your local environment. Extracting large quantities of water from remote watersheds to meet the bottled water demand around the United States is a recipe for local disasters. Spring water, usually from small rural locales, is often extracted at unsustainable rates. This lowers water levels in nearby wells and water bodies. Not to mention the nuisance of having water tanker trucks rumble through these small towns 24-7. Make no mistake, collecting and bottling water in one watershed and transporting it to another is hugely wasteful and inefficient compared to filling up at the tap.

Many people ask me “what exit?” when they find out I am from New Jersey. I am lucky to live in Chatham at the edge of the Great Swamp, just 25 miles west of Manhattan. Supplying drinking water for over 2 million people, this watershed is over 55 square miles and includes parts of ten towns. Way back, swamps like this one were viewed as wasted space so they were often utilized as dump sites for municipal and industrial waste. In 1960 the Port Authority of NY and NJ proposed filling it in and making it into the fourth regional airport in the New York metropolitan area. Luckily, people spoke up to save the swamp and the surrounding towns from this devastation. Over 7500 acres have been preserved, mostly in a Federal Wildlife Refuge where over 1000 species (26 endangered) are protected. The Great Swamp Watershed Association works to preserve more land and to raise awareness about the importance of caring for this valuable natural habitat and drinking water source.

Needless to say, I came away from my breakfast meeting at the Great Swamp Watershed Association reminded of the real value our Back2Tap movement offers – raising awareness about our drinking water choices and how that choice affects the health of our watershed, other people’s watersheds and indeed our entire planet.

Healthy Lawns and Gardens

Spring is here – it’s time to start thinking about lawns and gardens!  This year, I am especially inspired by the White House announcement that there is going to be a new organic kitchen garden on the far end of the South Lawn.   The White House is sending a powerful message to Americans: you can improve your health by eating fresh produce on a daily basis, especially produce grown organically, and you can grow your own produce to save money as well as your impact on the planet.   Conventional produce has a huge carbon footprint due to the enormous amount of petroleum required to fertilize it, spray it with pesticides, and transport it to you.  That’s why growing your own organic produce is so beneficial.  Check out “This Lawn is Your Lawn“, a fun video about why you should convert some of your lawn into a produce garden.   At my house, we’re pretty limited in the sun department because of the big trees, but we’re planning to double our usual 9×9 garden plot.    The peas and lettuce seeds were sown today!

The other big step you can take is to ditch your lawn chemicals and care for your lawn organically.  We converted about five years ago;  it’s not significantly more difficult or more expensive if you lower your expectations a bit and pull a few weeds by hand.  Conventional fertilizers and pesticides require a huge amount of petroleum to manufacture and transport.  Once spread on your lawn, they don’t stay put, and they don’t break down within 48 hours as the little hazard signs lead you to believe.  Some of these toxic chemicals will runoff into your storm drains and harm the drinking water quality and creatures in your watershed.  Some of them will get tracked into your house where they persist for months while you gradually inhale and ingest them over time.  Lawn pesticides which have been associated with cancer, Parkinsons, and other diseases, are especially unhealthy for children and pets.   There are great resources on organic lawn care available on the internet to guide you.  We have learned a lot from the information and videos on the SafeLawns website:  http://www.safelawns.org/ .

Healthy lawns and gardens are better for you and better for the planet.    So, replace part of your lawn with a kitchen garden or grow some produce in a community garden, and make it pesticide-free!  In these difficult economic times, growing your own food and maintaining your own lawn can help you save money and regain a sense of accomplishment and self-sufficiency.