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 Household
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Read
about the many ways you can contribute to drinking water protection
from the comfort of your own home!
- Wise
Gardening Practices
- Septic
System Maintenance
- Proper
Contaminant Disposal
- Private
Well Monitoring
Remember,
everything that ends up on the ground COULD end up in your
drinking water - so be CAREFUL; and whatever products you
use, follow the directions and dispose of leftovers properly.
See disposal information below.
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Your
above-ground gardening practices affect below-ground conditions.
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 HOME
GARDENING TO PROTECT GROUNDWATER
Click
here for a printable version of this chart. (pdf
format)
You will need Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view the pdf file. If you don't
have it, you can download
Acrobat for free from Adobe's web site.
Your
gardening practices have everything to do with
water quality. The impacts of gardening at the
homeowner scale are realized through a cumulative
effect. The chemical and
fertilizer products you use on your landscape could
end up in our drinking water through runoff or leaching.
Leaching is a particular problem in the Spokane Valley,
due to the permeable soils that overlie the Aquifer.
If you over water, the chemicals and fertilizers are
transported down through the soils and into the groundwater
supply, instead of being taken up by plants. The contamination
potential of chemicals depends on their solubility
(staying dissolved in water) and persistence (length
of time it will last in the environment, measured
in 'half-life').
Always
ask yourself as you're applying products to your landscape,
"Would I want to drink this?"
THE GOOD NEWS!
The
following list provides alternatives to customary
gardening practices that will directly aid in protecting
your drinking water:
- Use
organic fertilizers that release nutrients slowly.
- Skip
fertilizing altogether, or apply smaller amounts throughout
the year instead of one large application once a year.
- Plant
less lawn area and introduce more planting beds for
trees, shrubs, groundcovers and/or perennials.
- Increase
the organic matter in your soil. This will help to
hold water longer, reducing the need to water so frequently,
which can lead to over watering and leaching. A rule
of-thumb for watering is: ˝ inch or less per hour
to avoid runoff.
- Do
not use chemicals near open water such as streams,
rivers or lakes.
- Reduce
runoff to storm drains by not watering impermeable
surfaces such as concrete, asphalt or compacted ground.
- Keep
your plants healthy so that chemicals are not as necessary
by planting disease and pest resistant varieties.
- Use
mulch or fabric covers to prevent weeds.
- Match
plants with growing conditions by choosing plants
adapted to this climate (i.e. 18"+ precipitation
per year) and shade tolerant plants for shady areas.
- Use
chemical methods as a last resort, and then choose
the least toxic compounds such as horticultural oils,
soaps and botanical insecticides.
- Install
drip irrigation to save water and save $$$
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Contaminant
Disposal - Easy to Do, and Free of Charge!
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Look
through your home and garage or shed for the inescapable
assortment of cans and bottles and boxes of leftover household
cleaners, paints, stain removal products, and automotive fluids
of all sorts. If used in any other way than for what they
were intended, they are considered hazardous
materials, and could harm our drinking water supply.
There
is NO CHARGE for disposal of Household Hazardous Waste!!!
(keep reading…)
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Household
Hazardous Materials Charts
(For a hard copy, call
the Spokane Recycling Hotline at 625-6800.)
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This
series of charts will help you reduce your use of hazardous
products and properly dispose of the wastes you have.
The
information found under the Alternatives/Tips
category in each chart suggests less harmful substitutes
to hazardous products. You may find that some of these
substitutes require a little more "elbow grease,"
but they can reduce your exposure to chemicals and create
less waste. Best of all, this will help protect our
drinking water!
Click
on each image below to view the chart for that category.
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DISPOSAL
OF HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE:
In
Spokane: Call
509/625-6800 for hours of operation and locations of
the transfer stations that accept the household hazardous
waste at no charge, or visit the Spokane Regional Solid Waste
System website
for more details.
In
North Idaho: Call The Recycling
and Household Hazardous Waste exchange/collection. Call their
hotline at 208/446-1433 or the office at 208/446-1430.
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If
you're interested in SAVING MONEY and protecting a vital resource,
the State Department of Health, Division of Drinking Water,
has numerous publications on water topics of interest to householders:
- indoor
and outdoor water conservation,
- a
lawn watering guide,
- meter
reading and leak repair information,
- irrigation
and landscaping, and more.
Just
click
here to learn what our State Department of Health, Divison
of Drinking Water is doing to protect your drinking water.
The
US Environmental Protection Agency has released new septic
management guidelines to help local governments and managers
of small, privately owned wastewater treatment systems. Information
is available at the EPA
site.
Private
Wells
Useful information for private well owners.
If
you're on a private well, read how you can protect your own
source of drinking water. Click
here for more information on drinking water and your health.
Click here
for information relating to ground water and private water
well systems.
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This
may remind you that we live and work over our sole source
of drinking water… some of the cleanest and most affordable
in the world. Help
take care of it.
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