Keeping Water Local Demonstration Project

The Keeping Water Local Demonstration Project funds innovative approaches to managing water, wastewater and stormwater to keep water local within a watershed. The project must benefit aquatic habitats through reduced water withdrawal, increased groundwater recharge, or other activity that keeps water local.

To see final product of the 2006 Environmental Protection Overlay District demonstration project for the City of Lancaster, click below:

Report Cover
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Appendix A

More about Keeping Water Local
Historic water resource engineering practices including centralized sewers, stormwater management practices, and water supply source management, have created hydrologic imbalances that cause multiple environmental problems. Rivers dry up, stormwater runoff causes flooding, river bank erosion and property damage, habitat is degraded or lost, and nutrients and pathogens are concentrated in rivers and wetlands. These environmental impacts reduce the value of our natural resources to sustain fish and wildlife, water based recreational activities, future water supplies, and pollutant assimilation capability. Newer, cost-effective approaches and technologies are available that can solve some of these problems and foster more sustainable water resource management. The goal of the demonstration project is to encourage more widespread adoption of these techniques and to approach water resource management in a comprehensive manner. Projects must be highly visible and accessible to the public as an ongoing demonstration site.