We must conserve our precious water

Long Island's most precious natural resource is water. Everyone who lives here knows that. So it follows that protecting that resource is one of the most important things we can do as a community. 

Unfortunately, we are failing at one critical element of any protection plan: conserving the resource. Simply put, we use too much water.

The raw numbers — 400 million gallons pumped daily for household use, another 60 million daily for farming and industry — tell a story that sounds alarming. Comparisons confirm that: Long Islanders use 70% more water than the national average, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which teamed up with the state Department of Environmental Conservation for an eight-year study of Long Island's aquifer. It will come as no surprise that the researchers found that usage ratchets up as much as threefold in the summer, and that the major culprit is lawn irrigation.

To be clear, the study did not find that our region is in imminent danger of running out of water. Our aquifers — there are three under Long Island — hold immense amounts of water. But the trendlines point in the wrong direction. Saltwater continues to intrude farther inland, especially in southwestern Nassau County communities like Long Beach and Inwood, with seawater drawn in as groundwater is pumped out. Some public wells are so degraded they have been abandoned; a similar report on Suffolk is due next year.

This is not a recent phenomenon but part of a process that began in the 1940s, and it has grown worse as Long Island's population exploded from about 600,000 in 1940 to around 3 million today. More development and more people equals more stress on the aquifer, and more building and more pavement means less rainfall replenishing the aquifer as more is lost to runoff into our waterways.

Fortunately, there are a variety of ways to deal with this problem. It begins with our lawns. Smart sprinklers — devices that prevent irrigation when the soil is already wet — should be mandatory. Automatic sprinklers that come on during or just after a rainstorm are beyond aggravating and completely wasteful. And some homeowners simply water too much.

As many golf courses as possible should emulate the example of Indian Island, a public facility in Riverhead that has saved 63 million gallons a year by irrigating with water reclaimed from a nearby sewage treatment plant. Environmentalists have identified 49 courses in Nassau and Suffolk that lie within two miles of a facility that treats wastewater. If such a course is in your community, ask whether they have a plan. 

Municipalities should start requiring permeable pavement, which allows rainwater to seep through the pavement and into the ground, on construction projects. Start with parking lots, then expand to roadways. And water districts could consider raising prices even higher for heavy users.

Our water is precious. Let's act like we know it.