Source water protection is a voluntary effort a community can implement to help prevent contamination of the source water that supplies its public water system. The effort may involve creating a source water (or drinking water) protection plan and implementing regulatory and/or nonregulatory management practices. Preventing contaminants from entering a public water system supply greatly benefits the community by minimizing the problems that can occur from contaminants in the water supply, such as increased health risks to the public, expanded drinking water monitoring requirements, additional water treatment requirements, and expensive environmental cleanup activities.

This Source Water Protection Planning Tool will assist public water systems in developing a source water protection plan and emergency response plan for their water system. The tool gathers information from existing databases, as well as input from user entry to create a planning document. To start a plan for your water system, log in or register to create a new account.

A list of public water systems with certified source water protection plans can be found here.