Con­serv­ing and pro­tect­ing our water sup­ply is a job for every­one and is cost-effective and sim­ple to do. There are hun­dreds of ways to con­serve water – every­thing from turn­ing off the faucet while you brush to using low flow appli­ances. Con­serv­ing hot water and using it only when really needed, also con­serves energy (and money!) by reduc­ing the amount of energy required to heat more water.

Water Sav­ing Tips

When wash­ing dishes by hand, don’t let the water run while rins­ing. Fill a small amount of water in the sink for wash­ing. Rinse over the wash water mak­ing sure to turn the faucet on low only when rins­ing sev­eral dishes at once. This will add more water to the soapy wash water by the time you get to wash­ing large dishes like pots and pans. Or, if you have a sec­ond sink, fill it par­tially with rinse water.  Addi­tion­ally, grease and fats should be wiped from dishes/pans/pots with a paper towel before wash­ing.  It is gen­er­ally more effi­cient to wash dishes in a fully loaded dish­washer than by hand.

Run your clothes washer and dish­washer only when they are full. You can save up to 1,000 gal­lons a month.

Check faucets and pipes for leaks. A small drip from a worn faucet washer can waste 20 gal­lons of water per day. Larger leaks can waste hun­dreds of gallons.

Water­ing your lawn: If you need to water your lawn (if it is newly planted), adjust sprin­klers so only your lawn is watered and not the house, side­walk, or street. Remem­ber, dur­ing the peak of sum­mer, grass becomes dor­mant and browns slightly, it does not die – this is a nat­ural occur­rence and con­tin­ual water­ing is not necessary.

Adjust your lawn mower to a higher set­ting. A taller lawn shades roots and holds soil mois­ture bet­ter than if it is closely clipped.

Spread­ing a layer of organic mulch around plants retains mois­ture and saves water, time and money.

Avoid using kitchen sink garbage dis­posal units. In-sink dis­pos­als require a lot of water to oper­ate prop­erly, and also add con­sid­er­ably to the amount of water treat­ment required at the treat­ment plant. Com­post instead!

Con­nect your rain bar­rel to a soaker hose to allow for slow irri­ga­tion of plants or a newly planted lawn.

Keep your pool water level low to min­i­mize splash­ing. Use a cover to slow evap­o­ra­tion (keeps water cleaner, too).

Pol­lu­tion

Howard County is man­dated by Fed­eral law to estab­lish an illicit dis­charge pro­gram. An illicit dis­charge is a dis­charge into a munic­i­pal sep­a­rate storm sewer, which is not com­posed entirely of storm water. The Depart­ment of Pub­lic Work’s Storm Water Man­age­ment Divi­sion is respon­si­ble for estab­lish­ing the program.

While the waste­water that leaves your home is piped to a treat­ment facil­ity that cleans it before it is released into water­ways, waste that goes into storm drains is untreated and goes into local rivers or streams that flow into the Chesa­peake Bay. Waste should not be allowed to enter storm drains and should be dis­posed of at a land­fill.  Liq­uid waste, includ­ing swim­ming pool water, runoff from wash­ing your car, paint, and pave­ment seal­ers should also be diverted from the storm drain and be treated at the waste­water treat­ment plant to avoid harm to fish and plants in the nearby stream.  Fats, oils and grease (FOG) should never be poured down any drain — storm or sink.

Help pro­tect your local water­ways and the Chesa­peake Bay – do not dump any­thing down the storm drain. If you see any­thing other than stormwa­ter going onto street sur­faces or into the storm drains in the County, please report it imme­di­ately by call­ing the Howard County Storm Water Man­age­ment Divi­sion, Angela Morales at (410) 313‑6586 amorales@howardcountymd.gov.
To report in-stream water pol­lu­tion prob­lems, con­tact the Mary­land Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment.