Marshfield Utilities Celebrates Drinking Water Week

How to Help Protect Your Drinking Water

(OnFocus) Drinking water is there at the simple turn of a tap, so it’s easy to take it for granted.

Drinking Water Week May 3-9 is an opportunity to recognize the importance of having water available.

“Water is necessary to sustain life, and with a resource that important we all should be interested in how we can protect it,” said John Richmond, Water Manager at Marshfield Utilities. “Good quality drinking water plays a large part in living a healthy lifestyle. As important as water is to humanity, it comes at an extremely low cost. For something that you couldn’t live for more than a week without, Marshfield residents are paying half cent per gallon.”

Marshfield Utilities takes the quality of drinking water seriously and for wellhead protection, purchases the land around the wells to ensure the water starts best quality.

“We also have a large treatment facility to remove certain elements from the water such as iron and manganese,” Richmond said. “We also have thorough processes we go through in order to maintain safe drinking water in the distribution system, including the proper disinfection level and flushing of dead ends.”

Marshfield’s drinking water is tested daily at multiple locations for quality and to meet standards by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

To maintain the quality of their drinking water, residents can do their part.

“Medications should not be flushed, put down the drain, or thrown in the trash. The best option is to package them up and take them to the police department drop off location where they will be disposed of properly,” Richmond said. “Liquid chemicals should not be dumped on the ground. Instead, take them to a waste management facility for proper disposal.”

Other measures to protect water include monitoring the amount of salt used on driveways and sidewalks in the winter. Use just enough to ensure safety.

“In drinking water, salt is considered a pollutant and needs to be removed, which is an expensive undertaking,” Richmond said.

By implementing these simple practices, residents can continue to maintain the quality of their drinking water for decades to come.