Drinking water is an important commodity to our life. It is critical to our survival, health, and well-being. How well we take care of our drinking water and their sources has important economic implications. The sources where we get our drinking water also have important value for recreation, tourism, quality of life, and economic value to communities.
Health
Water is a fundamental part of our lives. Our survival depends on it. Two-thirds (2/3) of your body weight is water. To work properly, your body must replace 2½ quarts of water. We need lots of safe, clean water to stay healthy. Aside from aiding in digestion and absorption of food, water regulates body temperature and blood circulation, carries nutrients and oxygen to cells, and removes toxins and other wastes.
Unfortunately, the streams, lakes, and even groundwater from which we obtain our drinking water may contain a wide variety of contaminants, both chemical and microbial, that can cause illness and disease. For example, exposure to microbial pathogens in drinking water can lead to gastrointestinal illnesses, fevers, diarrhea and dehydration. Lengthy or repeated exposure to chemical contaminants can cause a variety of adverse health effects, including cancer, neurological effects, reproductive and developmental outcomes, rashes, heart disease, diabetes, and immune problems. Nitrates, for example, can be very toxic, and can result from too many nutrients in the water. Atrazine, an herbicide use to control weeds in corn production, is potentially toxic, but has regularly shown up in a couple of water supplies in Kentucky.
While public water supply systems can treat contaminated water and make it safe to drink, the process is often expensive and sometimes quite difficult. An example of this is related to pathogens in the water: water systems must disinfect to remove threats from pathogens. However, high organic content in the water can force the water system to increase the disinfectant needed to adequately kill the pathogens. This, in turn, can lead to an increase in disinfection by products that also pose health risks. Controlling the source pollutant can help with both of these source contaminants and their potential health threats.
The very best way to ensure that the water you drink is safe and healthful is to prevent it from being contaminated in the first place. This is one of the primary purposes of the Source Water Assessment and Protection Program.
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Environment / Recreation
Keeping our waters clean serves many environmental purposes. First, of course, is that clean water is necessary for healthy aquatic plants and animal life. Clean water is also necessary for providing a water supply to wildlife and for watering livestock.
For many people, the best thing about water is its recreational use: boating, water skiing, swimming, fishing, or just sitting on a stream bank and enjoying the sights and sounds. However, boating or swimming is not a pleasant experience when trash or pollutants turn the lake into an unsightly mess or heath threat. No one wants to risk becoming sick after swimming in water full of bacteria or eating fish caught in polluted waters. For most water-based recreation and for the health of aquatic plants and animals in general, clean water is more than desirable, it’s absolutely essential.
And since good water supply protection is just plain good watershed management, there can be numerous other indirect benefits of water supply protection: reduced risk of flooding, reduced drought vulnerability, tourism, wildlife habitat, less soil erosion and loss of agricultural land, and reduced scouring of public structures.
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Economics
Keeping our state waters clean and free of pollutants has some major economic implications. First, as noted above, it is expensive to treat contaminated water to make it safe for us to use. There are several pollutants that come from various land use activities that can greatly increase the cost to treat water. Danville, for example, has spent about $15,000 per month on activated carbon to treat for organic carbon in the raw water. Similarly, the communities of Lewisburg and Marion, which are much smaller systems, have additional cost because of a common pesticide (atrazine) from their drinking water; this is costing the community approximately $1,200 per month to ensure there are no pesticides in the water. In each of these cases, it may be more cost effective, and certainly safer, to manage the usage and application of the pesticide in the watershed to provide a safer water supply. Likewise, water algae to remove algae in the water supply for Kentucky American can cost around $10,000 per year. Other source-related pollutants of concern, such as nitrate, pathogens, tri-halomethane and other disinfection by-products also carry a increased cost of treatment that is passed on the all water customers.
There are also indirect costs to the community related to the condition of the water supplies. People come from all from all over the country to enjoy the many recreational benefits of the state’s streams and lakes. These activities generate a lot of revenue from such diverse sources as the sales of boats and fishing equipment to the rental of vacation properties nearby. The Land Between the Lakes region, for example, generates approximately $580 million per year (1996 dollars). Since many drinking water supplies are also heavily used for recreation, protecting our drinking water supplies helps protect our economy, as well as our health and biodiversity.
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