Roadside Guide to Clean Water
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Roadside Guide to Clean Water
Recognizing good practices to protect water in your community.
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Roadside Guide to Clean Water
Recognizing good practices to protect water in your community.
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Updated:
July 26, 2022
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Introduction
Water is an abundant resource in Pennsylvania. There are nearly 86,000 miles of rivers and streams and thousands of lakes, ponds, and wetlands. We have lots of water for drinking, recreation, agriculture, and industry. However, over a third of those lakes and a fifth of those streams are classified as impaired. They are unable to support aquatic life or be used for recreation, fish consumption, or drinking water.
The biggest source of water pollution in Pennsylvania is stormwater runoff. It is difficult for rainwater and melting snow to soak into the ground due to all the developed surfaces we have created. This causes excess stormwater to run downhill and into our streams, lakes, and rivers. Runoff water doesn't travel alone. It picks up pollutants like salt, soil, manure, and chemicals. Those pollutants come from rural, urban, and suburban places alike—parking lots, construction sites, farms, lawns, or any other land the water flows over. Contaminated water harms aquatic habitat, takes away opportunities for fishing and boating, creates hazards to human health, and makes water more difficult and expensive to treat and use.
Your neighbors and your community may already be taking big steps to help reduce water pollution. Farmers, townships and cities, businesses, and homeowners are using practices on their land to help protect our waterways. Many of these practices may look unfamiliar and go unnoticed. Recognizing what to look for is a first step to appreciating the good work being done for water all around you.
In this guide, you will discover some of the most popular practices being used in urban, suburban, and rural areas. By noticing and appreciating the progress being made, we can all be part of protecting our local water.
Using This Guide
This guide includes some of the most popular best management practices for water quality. Pictures of each practice from different perspectives and in different settings will help you narrow it down. But every site is unique and what you find in your community may look different from what you see here.
The Roadside Guide to Clean Water includes information on:
Cover Crops
Grassed Waterways
Manure Storage and Application
Native Meadows
Porous and Permeable Paving Materials
Proper Pet Waste Disposal
Rain Gardens
Riparian Buffers
Sediment Barriers
Stormwater Basins
Streambank and Floodplain Restoration
Urban and Suburban Trees
Vegetated Swales
To help you navigate, tips include where you might find these practices in urban (cities or other highly populated) areas, suburban (suburban or residential) areas, or rural (farms and other rural) areas. Tips are also included on how these practices benefit your community. They include:
Groundwater
: Recharges groundwater
Stormwater
: Reduces stormwater runoff
Pollution
: Reduces pollution
Flooding
: Mitigates flooding
Climate Change
: Promotes climate change resiliency
Habitat
: Provides wildlife habitat
Savings
: Provides cost savings
Landscape
: Beautifies the landscape
The development of the Roadside Guide to Clean Water was supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection - Environmental Education Grants Program
Agenda
Authors
Jennifer R Fetter
Director, Center for Agriculture Conservation Assistance Training
Expertise
Agricultural Water Resources Issues
Youth Water Education & Curriculum Development
Conservation Volunteer Management
Stormwater Management
Safe Drinking Water
Innovative Watershed Restoration Approaches
More By Jennifer R Fetter
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