New York State has included in its recently approved budget $200,000 in funding for the Long Island Commission for Aquifer Protection, or LICAP, to bolster its water quality mapping and database system known as WaterTraq and fund expanded outreach efforts to the public promoting both WaterTraq and water conservation.
LICAP explains that it developed WaterTraq to provide members of the public with a means of checking water quality in their community from their own home computers. Users can look up specific contaminant levels of both raw groundwater and treated groundwater. The program, the first of its kind in New York, also helps public water suppliers track and share with regulators potential threats to groundwater.
“We’re off to a great start with this technology and this funding will allow us to add new water quality information in the WaterTraq database and increase public awareness of this vital tool as well as the need to conserve our underground water supply,” LICAP Chairman Stan Carey said in a statement.
According to LICAP, WaterTraq has been used widely in classrooms by educators to teach and students to conduct research, and LICAP members believe that the more the public learns about WaterTraq and tracking groundwater threats, the more they will be inclined to take steps to protect Long Island’s sole source aquifer—the region’s source of drinking water—in their daily lives.
“When people learn about WaterTraq, they tend to use it to educate themselves about groundwater threats and how water suppliers address these threats and supply safe drinking water,” said LICAP Vice Chairman Jeffrey W. Szabo. “And when people educate themselves on these important issues, it bodes well for the long-term protection of our water supply.”
Access WaterTrac at liaquifercommission.com/watertraq.html.
on Apr 6, 2018