Blog # 14

One of the communities I have lived in relies on ground water for its water supplies. This community joined hands to advocate and create a strong incentive to protect their ground water before a plan was developed. it is important for the community to identify existing or potential threats to their ground water. This will generally mean conducting an inventory to learn the location of facilities using, manufacturing, or storing materials that have the potential to pollute ground water. The community had a great success in using groups of volunteers to conduct their inventories. The inventory of existing or potential threats to the community’s ground water was quite long, and never had such resources to address all of these threats. One way the community used to was to assess these threats on the basis of their relative risks to the community’s ground water This requires determining which of the specific pollutants are most likely to be released and reach the groundwater in concentrations high enough to pose health risks. The community used some of their powers like; implementing zoning decisions; developing land use plans; overseeing building and fire codes; implementing health requirements; supplying water, sewer, and waste disposal services; and using their police powers to enforce regulations and ordinances.