(Kansas City, Mo.) – That fast food container that falls out of the car. A ball that rolls down the street. Fertilizer that washes down the gutter. By themselves those actions may not seem significant, but together they can affect water quality.
August is Water Quality Month and KC Water reminds everyone of their role in keeping our local waterways clean.
“We want people to know that storm drains lead to creeks, streams, and rivers. Indian Creek flows into the Blue River. The Blue River flows into the Missouri River. And the Missouri River eventually becomes the drinking water for us and millions of other people upstream and downstream from us,” said Lara Isch, KC Water Water Quality Educator.
The water from the Missouri River goes through an extensive treatment system. To ensure product quality and protect public health, KC Water regularly checks for more than 290 constituents, far more than required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Each year KC Water release an annual water quality report. It is the result of more than 164,000 tests conducted each year on more than 19,000 water samples. To learn more about Kansas City’s high-quality and great-tasting tap water, please visit www.kcwaterservices.org/water-quality.
KC Water gets kids thinking about water quality early through a program called “KC to the Sea”. During the 2016-2017 school year, this program reached more than 4,000 students in nine school districts, five charter schools, and nine private/parochial schools.
“My message to grade school students about water quality is that we are all connected. The water that they drink every day comes from the rain that falls. When that rain falls on the land and moves down to the lowest point in the watershed, it carries pollutants with it. It is very important for students to connect their actions with the quality of the water that we have in our creeks and streams,” said Kate Delehunt, KC Water Curriculum Coordinator.
KC Water will continue to always put safety and quality first in the production of drinking water for Kansas City. But all of us can make a difference by keeping our storm drains and ultimately our streams free of trash, chemicals, and lawn waste.
“The more contaminants that are in our source water, the harder that water is going to be to clean up and the more expensive it’s going to become to clean up over time. So, even though we have great drinking water it is intrinsically connected to the water quality in our creeks and streams and we need to take care of them,” said Isch.
For more information, please contact Brooke Givens, Media Relations Coordinator, at brooke.givens@kcmo.org or 816.513.0284.
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KC Water maintains and operates water treatment and distribution systems, stormwater management systems, and wastewater collection and treatment systems for residential and business customers in Kansas City and for wholesale customers in the Kansas City area. KC Water is primarily funded by fees charged to customers based on their use or impacts on the three utility systems.
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