GOAL:
Conserve, protect and manage the State's water supplies in order to ensure adequate quantities of high quality drinking water.

OBJECTIVE:
Meet future drinking water supply needs and ensure efficient use of existing developed supplies through approval of all water supply plans by 1995 and subsequent effective implementation.

STATUS & TRENDS:
The natural distribution of potable water supplies often does not match demand areas, and the ability to deliver water during drought or other water emergencies is not well established. Development of additional surface supplies for drinking water confl ict with other competing uses, while the decision to minimize new surface water reservoirs is requiring an increased dependence on ground water sources. In some parts of the State, contamination of ground water supplies exists, posing health risks, econo mic hardships, and may force the development of alternative sources for drinking water supply. There are 522 small water companies, many of which have inadequate finances, poor management, limited supply capacities and antiquated water supply treatment, storage, and distribution systems. In addition, some water supply distribution systems are not adequately interconnected or consistently managed. The Connecticut water supply planning process as established by state statute requires each large utility t o prepare water supply plans which address many of these issues. However, the regional component of the water supply planning process has ground to a halt due to lack of state funds. As of October 1991, 15 of 86 individual water supply plans have been a pproved, the remaining 71 draft plans contain considerable information and analyses previously unavailable to the water companies or state agencies. Initial approval of all individual water supply plans needs to be obtained as soon as possible.

STRATEGIES:

1. Continue existing State policy prohibiting waste discharges into sources of drinking water supply and their tributaries.
2. Maintain State primacy for implementation of the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act Program.
3. Expedite approval and timely implementation of individual water supply plans under Section 25-32d of the Connecticut General Statutes.
4. Continue existing programs to consolidate small, economically and/or physically failing water systems.
5. Revive the area wide water supply planning process to better coordinate individual utility plans and enhance abilities to protect future sources of drinking water supply, ensure best use of existing water resources and distribution systems, and addres s the problems of small water companies.
6. Implement the aquifer protection area program for high yield stratified drift aquifers.
7. Expand the aquifer protection area program to include protection of public wells in bedrock, when aquifer mapping techniques become more reliable than at present.
8. Use the State's Geographic Information System (GIS) to improve regional and State analyses of water supply issues, provide for a shared data base for water resource, water quality, water company and land use data for the purpose of improved management and protection of drinking water supplies.
9. Encourage efficient use of existing developed supplies through use of interconnections, water conservation, and other means.
10. Analyze the water diversion registrations and permits to provide a suitable information base for the appropriate allocation of future water supplies.
11. Establish a statewide water conservation ethic and establish a rate policy which encourages and provides incentives for approved water conservation programs.
12. Continue to implement the residential water conservation retrofit program.
13. Implement and enforce the plumbing efficiency standards that require the use of water conserving fixtures.
14. Develop and implement appropriate water conservation strategies for commercial and industrial facilities.
15. Implement the existing Memorandum of Understanding among state agencies for water conservation and contingency planning.
16. Conserve and maintain active or reserve status reservoirs and potential reservoir and aquifer sites determined important for future regional use, as well as the watershed lands which protect them and which are presently owned by public and private wat er supply utilities.
17. Continue to establish drinking standards, criteria and monitoring requirements for pollutants which pose a risk to public health.
18. Expand technical assistance to municipalities regarding land use decisions and the need to protect drinking water sources.
19. Develop State, regional or municipal incentives to encourage necessary growth into areas having existing infrastructure and supply capabilities (sewer and water) and away from public water supply watersheds and aquifer protection areas.
20. Inventory Class B rivers to identify those most suitable to upgrade to Class A to provide additional potential public water supplies through extension of waste water treatment plant outfalls to larger water bodies.
21. Ensure the proper functioning of septic systems in water supply watersheds and over aquifers through the upgrade of the State standards for onsite sewage disposal, construction and maintenance.
22. Implement Best Management Practices for non-point sources of pollution in water supply watersheds.