Our goal is for all Great Lakes Basin sources of drinking water to be protected as the first step to ensuring that residents have access to a safe and sustainable supply of drinking water. We’re using the principles of Blue Accounting to identify top strategies and investments for protecting source water, and to track the progress of these efforts against our goal.
The Source Water Work Group has identified key approaches to protecting source water and appropriate metrics for tracking progress on source water protection:
Prevent contamination
Focus on contamination associated with:
Nutrients
Oil or hazardous material releases
Emerging contaminants
Planning and regional collaboration
Existence of plans designed to protect source water, as well as the population covered by these plans
Age of plan and applicable update cycles
Monitoring and research
Monitoring data and trends for Contaminants of Emerging Concern through the U.S. EPA Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR)
Outreach and education
Efforts to raise awareness about where drinking water comes from and what citizens and policymakers can do to protect their source water
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management's Ground Water Section maintains the Indiana Wellhead Protection Program. Indiana's Wellhead Protection page includes information on project implementation and featured communities.