From Guest Blogger Hannah Whittenly: Three Ways You Can Help Make Your Community’s Drinking Water Clean

There is no clean water to drink. You cannot safely have a glass of water. It does not matter how thirsty you get, you cannot have a drink of water. If you got thirsty reading those sentences, imagine how much water you would crave if it was not available. No state is unaffected or free from polluted drinking water. If you find this unacceptable, here are a few ways to get involved to change this problem.

Organize or Join Community Cleanup Efforts

Entire cities get sick after drinking the tap water. Ecological restoration is one way to mitigate water pollution. Plants and trees not only clean the air, they help filter and clean the water nearby. Join community gardens to grow organic produce for distribution and use in your own neighborhood. Lobby your local schools to have each kid plant a tree on Arbor Day. Not only is it an experience they will never forget, inevitably each child will watch their tree grow and feel proprietary toward it.

Enlist your neighbors to band together for monthly cleanup efforts in local lakes and streams. Clogged with plastic trash bags, soda cans, fast food wrappers and anything else that flies out of the garbage or a vehicle, waterways have no method to self-clean these foreign objects. As long as water continues to flow, eventually it becomes cleaner. Standing or stagnant water is a breeding area for harmful bacteria and mosquitos bearing disease. When many people pitch in to help the cleanup effort, they draw together to become neighbors who have common goals.

Hold Corporations Responsible

Often, corporate pollution takes place in direct violation of local, state or federal laws. Unless caught and held personally accountable there is no consequence for illegally disposing of toxic waste products. Many corporations willingly pay large fines for illegal dumping, justifying their actions under the guise of having financial duties owed to their shareholders. It remains far cheaper to pay large fines than to find ways to dispose of toxic products in a suitable manner.

Ordinary citizens hold shares in large companies. Once shareholders demand responsible action, these companies must listen or face their shareholders wrath. If you can purchase stock in a polluting corporation, do so and attend shareholder meetings. Band together with other shareholders who feel the same outrage and demand corporate action to address toxic waste disposal methods.

Keep Local Municipalities Open and Honest

Occasionally, water pollution occurs unintentionally. Human beings do not always know the effects of certain chemicals or substances that leach into the soil to mix with groundwater. Make a point to attend public meetings and hearings with your neighbors. Prepare talking points and ask probing questions about storm water management, sewage treatment inflow and capacity to properly treat it, and keep asking questions until you and your neighbors get credible answers.

Avoid pointing fingers and focus on community-based solutions instead. The officials providing your answers are seldom the same people who made poor decisions. Focusing on solutions allows your local officials to become part of your neighborhood and community effort to get and maintain clean drinking water. Once local officials feel they are part of a grassroots effort to accomplish something for the common good, you have powerful allies in your war against water pollution.

While you and your community clean up your local water system, keep your family safe with a home water filtration system installation. Encourage your neighbors to protect their health using the same method.