Planning Matters to Source Water Protection
Land use planning matters to source water protection, and both are fundamental for strong, healthy, sustainable communities. Planners and their partners discussed this topic and a variety of land use planning tools at Planning to Protect Your Water Supply, a session of the American Planning Association Institutes and Nebraska Planning and Zoning Association Annual Conference held in Grand Island, Nebraska on February 20, 2008 (download Agenda).
Successful Planning
Joe MacDonald, Senior Program Development Specialist with the American Planning Association began the day’s discussion by reviewing the guiding principles of successful planners. For one, successful planners understand the nature of politics in any given community, learning to work within “the system” to protect source water. Successful planners also develop alliances with political leaders that serve both the planners’ and leaders’ agendas, and actively manage citizen participation and feedback to strengthen planning efforts. But ultimately it is in the area of implementation where planners can have the most impact. Successful planners nourish a community’s long-term vision by bringing attention to how land use decisions relate to that vision. When it comes to source water protection, planners can point out how land use decisions will impact source water quality and quantity, both within and without a local government’s jurisdiction. This can be done regardless of whether a community has an actual source water protection plan in place; although having such a plan adds weight to the planner’s point.
Successful Planning in Nebraska
An overview of source water protection planning in Nebraska was presented by Deana Barger, Source Water Coordinator for the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ). Most of the water Nebraskans drink is groundwater.1 Since the Wellhead Protection Area Act was approved in 1998, 77 wellhead protection plans have been approved by NDEQ;2 however, efforts to implement highly effective wellhead protection activities based on the plans have not been as successful. Implementing these activities is entirely voluntary; and while it is in the communities’ best interest to do so, being proactive and planning the details of and implementing wellhead protection activities has proven to be a challenge.
In 2005 a community-based watershed management planning approach was adapted for wellhead protection area management and tested as part of a pilot project implemented by the City of Edgar. Local leaders have since gone on to successfully implement a number of wellhead protection area management activities in Edgar, including converting gravity to center pivot irrigation, installing vegetative buffers around irrigation wells, and conducting vadose zone sampling to monitor the impact of best management practices.
The process and lessons learned from the Edgar pilot have been documented and used by The Groundwater Foundation, in partnership with NDEQ, to develop a Wellhead Protection Area Management Planning Manual: A Community-based Approach to the Wellhead Protection Area Management Planning Process in Nebraska. This manual is available for free download. Both the Nebraska Rural Water Association and The Groundwater Foundation are available to assist communities as they work through the wellhead protection area management planning process.
Land Use Planning Tools for Source Water Protection
A number of land use planning tools may be used to implement source water protection; four were presented and discussed as part of this seminar.
Using GIS to Inform Land Use Development – Fifty percent of Nebraskans, primarily those from Lincoln and Omaha, get their water from sources located near the Lower Platte River. Since 1996 the Lower Platte River Corridor Alliance (LPRCA) has worked to protect the area’s vital drinking water resources, along with resources used for agriculture, mining, housing development, recreation, tourism, wildlife habitat, and fishing. While the Lower Platte Corridor is mostly rural today, more intensive development is expected to occur throughout the area. In 2004 the LPRCA initiated an effort to develop a planning framework for responsible, consistent and sustainable corridor development. At the seminar LPRCA Coordinator Rodney Verhoeff and Matt Pillard, Senior Environmental Planner with HDR Engineering, Inc. gave a demonstration of how a recently-developed GIS database may be used by local leaders to identify environmental features, constraints, and opportunities throughout the corridor.
Conservation Subdivisions and Stormwater Management – Preserving open space is good for water quality; preserving open space in a way that allows for more dense development, rather than sprawling acreages, is even better. Such was the message presented by Amy Haase, Planner and Project Manager for RDG Planning & Design, and Kent Holm, Director of Environmental Services for Douglas County, Nebraska. Haase described the environmental and economic benefits of conservation subdivisions, along with their social and recreation advantages. Kent Holm described how current development practices have completely altered natural hydrology, primarily by creating vast amounts of impervious surfaces; consequently, stormwater has become a waste that needs to be disposed of, rather than a resource to recharge groundwater and support other ecological systems. Conservation design mimics natural hydrology by keeping stormwater on-site. Returning to more natural hydrology is especially important in Douglas County, where a recent study showed that most of the county’s streams are impaired. The county’s subdivision regulations have been revised to allow for conservation designs, but a slowdown in the housing market means the regulations have yet to have an impact.
Conservation Easements – In Nebraska 97% of land is held privately; conservation easements are a voluntary, flexible, and incentive based tool that may be used to protect the natural resources on these private lands. Dave Sands, Executive Director of The Nebraska Land Trust, described how conservation easements work and how the Trust can facilitate the establishment of easements, especially in areas with multiple conservation values, where development pressure is growing, and easements make sense. The Schramm Bluffs of Sarpy County (also the Lower Platte River corridor) are such an area. Sarpy County has designated an 11,000 acre Schramm Conservation District where land protection should be encouraged, especially through conservation easements. The Nebraska Land Trust is now working with area landowners to secure easements on up to 2,600 acres in the district.
Groundwater Guardian Green Site program – Building on the theme that “the health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land,” Program Manager Jennifer Wemhoff presented information about The Groundwater Foundation’s newest program. The Groundwater Guardian Green Site program was designed to calculate, document, and recognize the environmental and water quality benefit of groundwater-friendly practices on highly managed green spaces, such as golf courses, city parks, ball fields, and educational, residential and office campuses. Designation is earned by completing an application and earning at least 70% of total applicable points based on current practices related to pesticide and fertilizer use, water use, managing sources of pollution, protecting water quality, and environmental stewardship.
Visions of the Future
At the end of the day session attendees were asked to look twenty years into the future and describe how source water protection is being achieved in Nebraska. Attendees saw protection continuing to be a viable option in lieu of treatment, with nitrate levels staying the same or declining. Water quantity would continue to put stress on Nebraska’s water supplies, and all watersheds would be designated as fully appropriated. Last but not least, more Nebraskans would see the value of and be involved in source water protection, with Natural Resources Districts, larger utilities, and smaller utilities under an administrative order to comply with the nitrate standard for safe drinking water taking the lead.
Session attendees also identified immediate “next steps” to promote source water protection in Nebraska; these included educating and building advocacy through existing organizations, recognizing good work, and promoting protection at all levels – i.e., local, state, regional and federal. In the end attendees agreed to stay positive and persistent in recognizing and promoting the value of source water protection throughout the state.
Whether this session marks a change in the way source water protection planning is done in Nebraska remains to be seen. What is certain is that water quality, especially drinking water quality and the quality of drinking water sources, will continue to be a concern.
Planning to Protect Your Water Supply was presented by The Groundwater Foundation in partnership with the Nebraska Planning and Zoning Association. Program support was provided by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality Source Water Protection Program.
For more information about the topics presented in this article, copies of the speakers’ presentations are available on The Groundwater Foundation’s website - www.groundwater.org.
Endnotes
1 Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. “Nebraska’s Public Water System Program 2006 Annual Report January 1 to December 31, 2006.” September 15, 2007 <www.hhs.state.ne.us/enh/pws/2006rpt.pdf>
2 Miesbach, David. Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality. List of public water supply systems with state-approved plans distributed at the Nebraska Wellhead Protection Network Meeting, November 13, 2007.
