This morning, Sustainable Princeton will host another in its excellent series of Great Ideas Breakfasts at the Princeton Public Library. This month's program is about water that comes through Princeton in all its forms: precipitation, runoff, drinking water, wastewater. And those are just the liquid forms of that most magical of substances we take for granted. I'll be leading one of the discussions at the event, which prompted going back through the hundreds of posts on this blog and finding the ones particularly relevant to the issue at hand. Together, they show how connected are all these sources of water in our community.
INFO ON PRINCETON'S DRINKING WATER
Where Our Drinking Water Comes From--Canoeing the Mighty Millstone: A kayaking adventure downstream to where Princeton's drinking water is drawn from the confluence of the Millstone and Raritan Rivers, treated and pumped some 20 miles to our faucets.
Princeton's Drinking Water: A writeup on what watersheds supply Princeton's drinking water, and what chemical is used to treat it (usually not chlorine).
Where Princeton's Drinking Water Comes From: Some of Princeton's water used to, and occasionally still does, come from wells in a nature refuge.
INFO ON PRINCETON'S WASTEWATER
Where Princeton's Wastewater Goes: Princeton's annual electrical bill for wastewater treatment approaches $1.5 million dollars.
Save On Sewer Rates: How to reduce your sewer bill and, while you're at it, your water bill.
Reduce Your Water and Sewer Bills:
Practical Dreaming: Atlantic City Lives Part of the Future Today: Windmills, solar panels, a green roof, and treatment good enough to restore nearby shellfish beds.
Willow School: Where the World Starts Making Sense: Cisterns to catch and reuse rainwater, and off-the-grid wastewater treatment by wetlands, are just a few of the sustainable features of this private school to the north of Princeton.
UTILIZING RUNOFF
Sump Pump-ageddon: Sump pumps can be a tool for good or mayhem, depending on where they pump your basement water.
Philadelphia's Waterworks: How Philadelphia used to pump its water to the top of the hill where the art museum now stands, and let it gravity feed to neighborhoods.
Clean Water and Recycling: The Connection: The fate of plastics that fall into the street.
RUNOFF AND HABITAT
A Great Blue Heron Pays a Visit: Backyard miniponds + goldfish = surprise backyard guest
Native Floodplain Wildflowers and the Pollinators They Attract: Many posts can be found on the beauty and rich habitat that runoff can sustain in a backyard. This link was created by typing the word "boneset" into the search box at the companion blog, PrincetonNatureNotes.org. Try typing in names of other plants or insects to find additional posts.
Retention Basin Beauty: Converting the retention basin "turfpit" at Farmview Fields in Princeton to warm-season native grasses.
Habitat for Education: Another retention basin converted into a rich wetland with frogs, crayfish, wild rice, and thirty other native plant species, at Princeton High School.
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