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Ways to Implement Your Wellhead Protection Plan

Community

  • Public Education/Notification using:
    • Local media (TV, radio, newspaper - either paid or Public Service Announcements)
    • Letters to residents
    • Bill stuffers/customer mailings
  • Participate in IDEM's CLEAN Community Challenge
    • Comprehensive Local Environmental Action Network is a voluntary recognition program for local Indiana government. CLEAN helps communities take steps to plan, develop, and implement a quality of life plan. This plan includes gathering input and support from the community and local businesses.
  • Have Hazardous Household Waste Collection Days throughout the year.
    • Contact your county Solid Waste District. They can provide you with lots of resources, or even put on presentations to educated people on the following household hazardous waste recycling and environmental conservation.
    • Sponsor special collection programs for Mercury wastes, electronic equipment, or used oil, etc.
  • Distribute fact sheets or a newsletter on drinking water protection, Best Management Practices (BMPs), or other items including:
    • Household hazardous waste
    • Septic systems use, maintenance, and abandonment
    • Pollution prevention/waste reduction in the home (use of alternatives)
    • Lawn and garden maintenance
    • Home heating oil tank maintenance and abandonment
    • Proper well construction, maintenance, and abandonment
    • Drywells/sumps use, maintenance and abandonment
  • Participate in local Earth Day Celebration, National Groundwater Awareness Week, or World Monitoring Day Activities
  • Installing signs ("Entering WHPA") may create awareness. Signs can be acquired through the Indiana Department of Transportation.
  • Start a storm drain stenciling program - This increases public awareness of what they are putting in our storm drains and where that water ends up. The IDNR provides resources and information at the Indiana Storm Drain Marking Program Website.
  • Cost-share or provide technical assistance for periodic inspection and maintenance of septic systems
  • Property purchase / donation program
    • Conservation easement purchase
    • Encourage voluntary deed restrictions
    • Land acquisition through donation/lease program
    • Land set-asides in developments (more green space)
  • Encourage proper household water well maintenance / abandonment
    • Cost-share or provide grants for proper well abandonment
    • Provide technical assistance for private well management practices, maintenance, and abandonment procedures
    • Host workshops for private well owners
    • Other possible resources for information, presentation/workshop help, and pamphlets:

Commercial/Industrial Businesses

  • Partner with public agencies to become active in state programs (local implementation):
    • Gas Stations (Underground Storage Tank (UST) Facilities)
      • Find out if there are USTs in your city by searching the UST Inventory
    • Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Facilities
      • Find out if there are LUSTs in your city by searching the LUST Inventory
    • Encourage small businesses to utilize IDEM's Confidential Technical Assistance Program
      • Business can identify opportunities that may increase profit and reduce environmental impacts by conducting a pollution prevention opportunity assessment
    • The city can utilize the Brownfields program to redevelop unused, contaminated properties
  • Provide recognition for "Environmentally Friendly Businesses"
    • Green awards
    • Plaques, flags, signs, door stickers, buttons for employees
  • Provide information at Planning / Permits Department on whether the activity they are proposing will impact groundwater upon permit application
  • Set up local materials exchange program (or publicize existing programs)
  • Disclosure of release data (make pollutant release data more available to public, i.e. TRI data)
  • Promote hazardous waste collection
    • Coordinate/facilitate hazardous waste collection (for small businesses)
    • Host an amnesty (free disposal) program for chemicals stored in WHPA
  • Spill response plans for businesses should be encouraged to include the following:
    • Notify responsible parties (i.e. County, INDOT, railroads, businesses) of location within WHPA
    • Encourage businesses to educate their employees about spills by posting signs including spill response contacts
    • Encourage and assist with spill response planning for specific groups of businesses

Municipal Land Users

Examples: parks, maintenance facilities, sumps, nurseries, etc.

  • Facilitate training workshops
    • Chemical applicators license for pesticides
    • Pollution prevention/waste reduction (use of alternatives)
    • Petroleum/hazardous waste/maintenance chemicals use, storage, disposal
  • Spill Response Plans
    • Notify local Emergency Response Planners of WHPA location
    • Ensure public water system notification in spill event
    • Establish / review spill response procedures and plans
    • Notify responsible parties of location within WHPA
    • Construct spill containment/diversion structures at wellheads
    • Set up regional spill number if necessary
    • Provide fire department and spill responders with good maps of storm and sanitary sewer systems
  • Urban Runoff/Stormwater Program
    • Injection wells/sumps/drywells - verify permit status, encourage registration, elimination/proper maintenance
    • Stormwater Control/Pretreatment
    • Encourage use of pre-treatment and BMPs (detention ponds, retention ponds, vegetated swales and filter strips, urban forestry, sand filters), street cleaning, parking lot pretreatment requirements.
  • Golf courses - educational materials / BMPs
  • Landfills / transfer stations - review status, permit and monitoring network
  • Abandoned Landfills - Identify locate "historical" landfills that may have been forgotten…but not gone.
  • Install groundwater monitoring wells between sources and the municipal well field as sentry wells to provide early detection of contamination.

Agricultural Land Users

  • Public education / notification using:
    • Letters to land owners / growers
    • Educational meetings/workshops/fairs for growers
    • Survey owners to assess current practices
  • Set up a publicly coordinated resource center or forum
  • Facilitate training / workshops staffed by IDEM, IDOA, etc.
    • Chemical applicators license for pesticides
    • Fertilizer storage and handling BMPs
    • Livestock waste storage and treatment
    • Pollution prevention/waste reduction (use of alternatives)
    • Petroleum/hazardous waste/maintenance chemicals use, storage, disposal
  • Provide recognition for "Environmentally Friendly Practices"
    • Green awards; signs for fences adjacent to crops (for public recognition)
  • Set up local materials exchange program (or publicize existing programs)

Miscellaneous - Transportation Corridors

  • Notify local Emergency Response Planners of WHPA location
  • Notify responsible parties (i.e. County, INDOT, railroads, businesses) of location within WHPA
  • Establish / review spill response procedures
  • Ensure public water system notification in spill event
  • Provide fire department and spill responders with good maps of storm and sanitary sewer systems
  • Request conservative practices for right-of-way maintenance
  • Regulate hazardous materials transport

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