BLOG: A Joint Approach to Source Water Protection

by Tim McLelland, Manager, Hamilton to New Baltimore Groundwater Consortium

The Hamilton to New Baltimore Groundwater Consortium (Consortium), which was originally formed in 1967, currently consists of seven independent public and industrial water suppliers in southwest Ohio, including Greater Cincinnati Water Works; Southwest Regional Water District; City of Fairfield; MillerCoors, LLC; City of Hamilton; Butler County Water and Sewer; and Southwestern Ohio Water Company. The Consortium is a multi-jurisdictional collaboration of water suppliers to protect their source water from pollution and overuse through a single Source Water Protection Program (SWPP). In 1991, the Consortium began working on the development of a joint multi-jurisdictional, multiple wellfield Wellhead Protection Program (WHPP) known today as the SWPP. 

The water producing members of the Consortium operate wellfields throughout southwest Ohio. Together, Consortium members operate a total of 53 production wells supplying a combined average daily output of 62 million gallons of groundwater to over 315,000 people and hundreds of businesses and industries throughout the region. The members of the Consortium draw water from the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer, which extends from the headwaters of the Great Miami River north of Dayton to the confluence with the Ohio River near Cincinnati.   

The Consortium has pooled resources and employs me to oversee the overall SWP-related activities of the Consortium members and SWPP management strategies. Consortium members collectively fund all SWPP activities. 

Benefits of a Joint Approach
Developing and administering a joint SWPP has proven beneficial for all members through:
1. Cost efficiencies for the overall program; 
2. Ability to account for the inter-relationships between eight independent but closely located wellfields;
3. Coordinated regional network of early-warning monitoring wells, including the pooling of financial and technical resources which allows for a more cost-effective monitoring program;
4. Development of a consistent public education message about the importance of protecting the local drinking water supply with guidance and support from the Groundwater Foundation and Groundwater Guardian Program;
5. For six out of seven members, the ability to establish and administer protection ordinances outside of their home jurisdiction; and.
6. Ability to maintain a strong coordinated communication and networking relationships among Consortium members.

Potential Contaminant Sources
In 2007, we collected hydrogeologic information to update the original source water delineation from 1991. The updated delineation included SWP areas and maps depicting the new time-of-travel (TOT, the time it takes water to travel within the aquifer towards discharge points, including pumping wells, throughout the region) zones for each of the Consortium members. These zones are also considered to be the most vulnerable and sensitive areas. We have identified a one-year, five-year and 10-year TOT zones specific to our area. We also created a potential contaminant source (PSC) inventory for facilities in each of the three TOTs. PCSs include known releases, such as leaking underground storage tanks or potential sources of contamination, such as aboveground storage tanks or active rail lines. PCSs are not limited to manmade facilities - for example, naturally-occurring processes such as the dissolution of minerals in the aquifer may also be classified as PCSs. Just because a site is identified as a PCS does not mean it actually is polluting source water, only that there is a risk. By creating an inventory of these sites, we can determine where best to use our resources to minimize risk.

Effective Management and Controls
For a source control strategy to be truly effective, the strategy must reflect the types of potential pollution sources identified in the assessment. Our PCSI identified 704 potential pollution sources in 28 categories in the one, five, and 10-year TOTs. The most predominant sources were aboveground storage tanks, underground storage tanks, bulk chemical storage sites, automotive repair shops and small quantity generators.

Proper management of potential contaminant sources within SWPAs is critical to the success of any SWPP. We decided to implement a wide variety of available source control strategies and have worked carefully to balance the importance of an effective plan that meets the protection objectives of SWP while maintaining public support.

As we all know by now, SWP offers communities a great deal of flexibility in developing appropriate strategies for protecting groundwater resources while promoting the economic viability of the community. In general, we chose a combination of regulatory and non-regulatory management options for the SWPP Source Control Strategy Plan. The regulatory approach relies on local ordinances and enforcement to initiate changes in the SWPAs but also to protect property from contamination. On the other hand, the non-regulatory approaches rely on voluntary actions from the community and partnerships with organizations that have similar priorities. 

The Value of Education
Public education and the promotion of best management practices are the cornerstone of an effective SWPP and play a significant role in the SWPP during the implementation of the regulatory source control strategies. We have been actively working on groundwater public education for over 20 years with the assistance of a Public Education Committee. We are proud to be designated as a Groundwater Guardian for 20 consecutive years. We typically implement around 12 Result-Oriented Activities (ROA) each year. 

The most consistent and successful ROA to date is our children’s water festival, Waterfest. The Soil and Water Conservation District and Storm Water Districts assist with financial support and planning the event. Over the years we have had presenters from the Cincinnati Zoo bring endangered cheetahs, fishing cats, and various other cats. We have also had the Newport Aquarium present, Cool Critters who bring reptiles, and other organizations that bring rescued birds of prey. Many different watershed, wetland, and water quality presentations are given by local, state and federal agencies. Two years ago, a well driller installed a well at Waterfest. Since then, we have used the well as part of demonstrations to show kids how a well is purged, how we collect elevation data and sample groundwater quality. 
  
We are very fortunate to have Miami University Hamilton campus host our Waterfest each year, and has been an awesome partner for our event! We are very fortunate and thankful to our presenters and volunteers, and to have learned from other water festivals around the country to get fantastic ideas to make ours even better.

If you would like to learn more about the Groundwater Consortium, please find us online at www.gwconsortium.org, follow me on Twitter or like us on Facebook!   

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Tim McLelland is the Manager of the Hamilton to New Baltimore Groundwater Consortium and the Team Leader for the Consortium's Groundwater Guardian team. Reach Tim at tim.mclelland@hamilton-oh.gov.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the view of The Groundwater Foundation, its board of directors, or individual members.

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Wellhead Protection: Potential Contaminant Sources}

This is Part 3 in Frannie's exploration of Wellhead Protection.   Read Part 1 and Part 2 and look for more blogs to learn more about what it is, who protects the wellheads, and why it's important.
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Frannie has survived this frigid weather with warm tea, a cozy blanket, and summaries from previous meetings of the Nebraska Wellhead Protection Network and she wanted to go back to the idea of taking an inventory of potential groundwater contamination sources.
In some areas, it might be easy to pick out potential contaminant sources, such as farms that use pesticides and fertilizers as well as landfills.  But some, like these three, may be less obvious.

1) Road Salt Storing and Use.  It snowed a lot this winter and the roads have been slick and icy.  To help melt the ice, hard-working snow plow drivers spread salt.  Maybe you or your family have even put some road salt on your sidewalks or driveways. Being ready for these icy winter conditions takes a lot of preparation and so all of that salt has to be stored somewhere dry to keep it from leaching into the groundwater. We need the road salt to keep the streets safe to travel on, but we need to take care to use it only when we need it and otherwise keep it stored safely away.

2) Septic tanks and drainfields.  If you are not connected to your city’s sewer system, then you might be using a septic system/drainfield layout. Septic systems treat the sewage waste that come from a home and a drain field is a network of perforated pipes laid in gravel beds.  After the solids settle in the septic tank, the liquids are released to the drainfield where they pass through the pipes and are filtered by the gravel and soil.  Human waste is a pretty dangerous contaminant and so this source must be carefully observed.

3) Mines, pits, and quarries.  Yes, holes in the ground are a potential contaminant source. Any kind of extraction or industrial operation will be using some chemicals to operate and maintain their equipment that, in normal conditions, might be considered safe.  However, in a pit or quarry or mine, many of the geological layers that normally filter runoff and groundwater are removed.  These sites are especially vulnerable and need to be monitored.

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Wellhead Protection: What is it?}

This is Part 1 in Frannie's exploration of Wellhead Protection.   Look for her upcoming blogs to learn more about what it is, who protects the wellheads, and why it's important.

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Frannie is learning more and more about how to protect the groundwater in her community.  Recently, she saw a sign just outside of her city that said "Wellhead Protection Area".  She didn't know what that meant, so she went to The Groundwater Foundation's website to find out.
"Wellhead protection" is a fancy term for the idea that we should protect the land around the area where a community gets their water. Many communities use wells to withdraw groundwater and then transport it to a water treatment plant where they treat it and pipe it into the public water system.  Growth and development in a community is important, but it also brings the potential to deplete or contaminate the water everyone drinks.
Each state has a different approach to wellhead protection but will generally involve 5 key points:
1) Delineating the Wellhead Protection Area.  Several maps, containing data on groundwater flow and geology and geographic boundaries, are combined into a single map that determines the land area that could influence the groundwater supply.
2) Conducting a Potential Contaminant Source Inventory. This just means that information is collected about all of the sources in the areas that could potentially contaminate the groundwater.  This may include farms, gardens, factories, or other types of industry.
3) Contaminant Source Management. All of the information that was collected in the Potential Contaminant Source Inventory is put to use to develop best practices where businesses can safely use their materials without threatening the groundwater.
4) Contingency Planning. No wellhead protection plan is complete without a plan for the worst case scenario.  In the event of a well that has to be shut-down due to contamination, natural disaster, physical breakdown, or any other cause, a community must have an idea of short-term and long-term drinking water supply replacements.
5) Education. A community is made up of it's people, so ultimately it is the people in the area who have to protect their water.  A community should make their wellhead protection plan available to the public as well as provide workshops or opportunities on social media for people to learn about the plan.

Risk Communication and Wellhead Protection

By Cindy Kreifels, The Groundwater Foundation

Risks can be faced in just about any endeavor.  The risks may be perceived or real.  They may be big or small.  The important thing is how we deal with those risks. 

Wellhead protection is all about identifying the risks to a certain well or set of wells.  One of the first steps of the wellhead protection process is a contaminant source inventory or looking at what are the potential risks to a particular drinking water well.  Completing this step gives us the information to proactively protect our drinking water by mitigating the risk. 

Often times this requires the action of all citizens and as such we need to be able to communicate the potential risks in such a way that they understand that everyone needs to change their behaviors to protect their drinking water.  However, risk communication is a skill.  One that many of us have not learned.

The Groundwater Foundation will be providing a presentation on risk communication at its upcoming Wellhead Protection Network meeting on July 7^th.  Join us for the meeting to learn how to inspire communities to get on board with wellhead protection and how to get citizens to understand the issues and take part in protection efforts.  Steven Wolf, Community Engagement Director with JEO Consulting Group will share his expertise around this topic.  If you are able to attend, please RSVP to Cindy at ckreifels@groundwater.org.  Attendance is free - lunch costs $10.

Share with us your ideas and thoughts concerning risk communication.