Over the next few months, the Trinity Glen Rose Groundwater Conservation District is going to be featuring some of the beautiful parks that are located within the District’s boundaries. The bottom line is that parks, water and pollution prevention go hand-in-hand. So, the more you know about how those three work together, the more likely you’ll be to help prevent pollution from getting into our local rivers and aquifers.

 

So that’s why we’re calling this series “Learn and Live.” Each month, we will inform you about one of the must-see parks in Northern Bexar County. And with that learning, we hope you will not only want to visit that park, but you’ll also want live your life by developing the best pollution prevention habits that researchers have developed so far.

 

Learning About Pollution Prevention

 

Historically, cities have paved roadways, sidewalks, trails, parking lots, sports courts, alleys, driveways, and other surfaces to reduce the annoyance and cost of slippery mud and blowing dust. Unfortunately, having so many hard, water-repelling surfaces (along with a vast number of urban rooftops) can be environmentally harmful. After it rains, vast amounts of water, now called “stormwater,” will collect in these areas, pick up the grease, grime and other pollutants that are deposited on them each day, and then head for a water source like a creek, river or aquifer. Here are some of the ways dirty stormwater can pollute a water supply:

 

• most stormwater runoff escapes natural cleansing by plants, rocks and soil;

• without nature slowing down the stream of water after a rain, higher amounts of water are funneled to local streams;

• urban streams become prone to flash flooding from rapid runoff, resulting in severe scouring, erosion, and reduction of plant life;

• once stream beds are scoured, flooding becomes more common.

 

The solution is to hold back the water where it hits, slow it down so that the destructiveness of erosion and contaminants is controlled, and that it is naturally cleaned it before it reaches a waterway or aquifer recharge feature.

 

So, now that you’ve learned how unabated stormwater can create flooding and pollution issues for our aquifers and streams, you can also understand why maintaining and increasing large natural areas like parks is so important to our community.

 

The important point to never forget is that the less runoff, and the slower the runoff we have, the less damage there is to rivers and aquifers and the overall environment.

 

Living Pollution Prevention

 

Here are the Top 6 Pollution Prevention Habits You Should Develop

1. Practice water conservation in your home each day. The less water you use, the more water is left in the Trinity Aquifer for future use.

2. Practice energy conservation in your home each day. Large amounts of water are needed to cool power plants that provide electricity to our city. Less energy production requires less water to be used.

3. Use non-toxic cleaning chemicals in your home. Never dump oil or others types of solvents on the ground or in the street where they can run off into a stream or an aquifer.

4. Use only environmentally-safe weed-killers and fertilizers on your landscapes.

5. Always pick up your pet's waste and dispose of properly. Pet waste that runs off into a creek or stream only increases the bacteria levels in that body of water.

6. Enjoy the parks and advocate for more green spaces in your communities.