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The rural water grassroots source water protection initiative (funded by Congress through the U.S. Environmental <br />Protection Agency (EPA) is truly unique in the federal effort to protect the environment because it accomplishes <br />progressive environmental protection with the support of the local community. This is what rural communities believe is <br />the best use of EPA funds to protect source water quality and assist with compliance with EPA regulations. Small <br />communities want to ensure quality drinking water and wastewater treatment - rural water provides them the shared <br />technical resources to do it, This unique approach has resulted in more documented environmental accomplishments than <br />any other federal approach. Last year, state rural water associations initiated over 500 new source water protection plans to <br />increase the total to over 7,000 nationwide. Rural water environmental initiatives start at the grassroots as an alternative to <br />command and control polices and regulatory programs and result in local support for environmental protection. The best <br />way to ensure long -term and cost effective environmental protection is to have the people who benefit from a cleaner <br />environment actually take responsibility for protecting it. <br />The initiative encourages local water and waste water systems and elected officials to participate more <br />aggressively in the development and implementation of local and regional source water protection plans. Land use <br />decisions and zoning enforcement are, and should continue to be, done at the local government level. Each states needs to <br />initiate the type of program that will encourage and document local government support for source water protection. There <br />is a need to solve the problem at the local and watershed level in order to avoid a "top- down" regulatory agenda on source <br />water protection. _ <br />The concept involves the use of rural water source technicians who are well versed in the steps necessary to design <br />and implement a watershed protection program but who also have the confidence and support of local government officials. <br />They work in priority watersheds in every state. This type of initiative ensures an effective management effort that is <br />bottom -up, driven by local citizens' concerns and guided by sound data and information. When local communities take <br />responsibility for protecting their environment/natural resources - they do it more effectively and economically than a top - <br />down regulatory approach. The National Research Council concluded in its report entitled, New Strategies for America's <br />Watersheds: "Watershed management has been a top -down process, but this approach has led to numerous barriers to <br />effective citizen involvement and to use of locally developed knowledge. A truly effective watershed management effort is <br />most likely to be a bottom -up process, driven largely by citizen concerns about local or regional problems and guided by <br />sound data and information. The era of a large, dominant federal government must give way to an era of flexible <br />federalism where the federal government maintains a role but allows state and local governments to assume substantial <br />rights and responsibilities for watershed management." <br />Each participating state is provided a source water protection technician to assist local governments in <br />implementing source water plans within priority watersheds. Technicians bring multijurisdictional watershed entities <br />together for a common goal in prevention of contamination of drinking water supplies. Each watershed plan includes the <br />organization of county and watershed -wide interests to initiate (and document) specific land use activities among local <br />governments, business, industry, agriculture, the general public, etc. This assistance is delivered through state rural water <br />associations with input from water system personnel and state regulatory agencies. <br />23 <br />