Water issues

Paving Our Way to Water Shortages: How Sprawl Aggravates the Effects of Drought

Americans from coast to coast have been suffering through one of the worst droughts in decades. Many blame erratic weather conditions for water shortages, while others point to population growth. But that’s not the whole story. Another major contributor to our water problems is the way we develop land. As we pave over more and more wetlands and forests, this new report shows that we are depleting our water supplies. It’s not only the arid West that is facing critical shortages. The rapidly suburbanizing Southeast, blessed with a seemingly inexhaustible water supply, is now in serious trouble, as are many other formerly water-rich regions of the country.

Advocacy

An Action Plan to Protect North Carolina’s Drinking Water Sources

The Enabling Source Water Protection Project for North Carolina was initiated with a workshop in August 2009. Robin Smith, Assistant Secretary, NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources, addressed more than 40 national and state leaders in water protection, land conservation and local planning, pointing out that “North Carolina is expected to grow in population by as much as 30 percent by the year 2030.” She then presented a challenge to the group by stating that both water quantity and quality are “vitally important to the future of the state.”

Advocacy

An Action Plan to Protect Maine’s Drinking Water Sources

For more than a year, a national project team composed of land use, conservation and water quality experts engaged a diverse group of Maine state agencies, public water systems, and others interested in conserving land to protect water resources in a series of workshops that form the foundation of an action plan to provide guidance regarding steps the state can take to align land use and drinking water programs to better protect drinking water sources.

Advocacy

Building Ohio’s Balanced Growth Initiative: Incentives and State Agency Alignment

Our goal in working with staff of the Ohio Lake Erie Commission and the Ohio Water Resources Council was to develop ideas to improve uptake and effectiveness of the Enabling Source Water Protection program, in order to ensure that the program could deliver on its promise of improved water quality – including a cleaner source of drinking water for millions of people in Ohio and parts of several other states and Canadian provinces.

Advocacy