Protection Tools Links

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Notice: Links to non-EPA sites do not imply any official EPA endorsement of, or responsibility for, the opinions, ideas, data or products presented at those locations, or guarantee the validity of the information provided. Links to non-EPA servers are provided solely as a pointer to information on topics related to environmental protection that may be useful to EPA staff and the public. 

 

• Center for Watershed Protection - The Center for Watershed Protection is a non-profit organization that provides local governments, activists, and watershed organizations with the technical tools and publications related to surface water protection including watershed planning, restoration, research, education and outreach, and watershed training.
• Citizen's Guide to Ground Water Protection - Guide that encourages citizens to take an active and positive role in protecting their community's ground water supplies. Introduces the natural cycle that supplies the earth with ground water, briefly explains how ground water can become contaminated, examines ways to protect ground water supplies and describes the roles communities can play in protecting ground water supplies. Spanish version available (EPA 440-6-90-004).
  
  • English Version (PDF) (34 pp, 2MB)
  • Spanish Version (PDF) (15 pp, 63K)
• Community Involvement in Drinking Water Source Assessments (PDF) (5 pp, 175K) - Fact sheet that provides an overview of how community members and civic or youth groups can help to identify potential threats to the quality of their drinking water and help local officials develop and implement a plan of action to prevent water quality problems (EPA 816-F-00-025).
• Drinking Water Academy Source Water Training
• Ground Water Foundation: An Introduction to Drinking Water Source Assessment and Protection Workshop Guide
• Local Government Environmental Assistance Network (LGEAN) - This guide provides information on gaining public support to protect drinking water supplies as well as information on how the 1996 amendments to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act affect this protection effort.
• Memorandum: State and Federal Source Water Assessment and Protection Program Measures, Final Reporting Guidance, Strategic Target F and Related Program Activity Measures (FY 2005-2006) (PDF) (8 pp, 403K)
• New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC): Source Water Protection for Municipalities - This manual focuses on five key areas of vulnerability identified in New England State Source Water Assessments -- inadequate local regulations and ordinances, underground storage tanks, onsite sewage disposal systems, hazardous materials storage, and stormwater runoff.
• Protecting Sources of Drinking Water: Case studies in Watershed Management (PDF) (41 pp, 721K) - This document presents case studies for 17 drinking water utilities that are incorporating watershed management and protection as an integral part of their business of providing safe drinking water to their customers (EPA 816-R-98-019).
• Source water stewardship - a guide to protecting and restoring your drinking water - This handbook describes the process for understanding as assessment, reaching out to others who are or should be invloved in protecting and restoring drinking water quality, and designing an action plan for drinking water protection and restoration.
• State and Federal Source Water Assessment and Protection Program Measures, Final Reporting Guidance (PDF) (56 pp, 280 K)
• Trust for Public Lands (TPL): Source Protection Handbook - TPL works to preserve land to ensure clean drinking water and to protect the natural beauty coasts and waterways. The Source Protection Handbook, a resource to help a community make the case for land conservation for the protection of source water resources is available to download from this website.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA): Farm*A*Syst - A national program cooperatively supported by the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and EPA.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA): Home*A*Syst - A national program cooperatively supported by the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and EPA.
• Watershed Academy Webcast Seminars: Integrating Drinking Water in Watershed Protection, Nov. 29, 2006 - EPA overview on source water program basics and experienced and lessons learned from state program (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality) and water utility (Philadelphia Water Department)
• Watershed Central - Provides answers to frequently asked questions about watersheds.