Sprawl throughout New Jersey can have far-reaching effects on quality of drinking water

You’ve probably heard the claim that sprawl will ultimately spell doom for clean drinking water, a resolve we generally take for granted in this state. You may be one of the many New Jer-seyans who is alarmed by steady downtrends in our state’s drinking-water quality.

If you’re not yet concerned, take a look at the latest paper released by The Funders’ Net-work for Smart Growth and Livable Communities.

The paper, “Water and Smart Growth: The Impacts of Sprawl on Aquatic Ecosystems,” does an excellent job of quickly summarizing the threat that sprawl poses to water supplies (for drinking, swimming and everything else) and offers some broad solutions.

Sprawl impacts water in many ways. One of the most damaging ways is through nonpoint-source pollution or “runoff,” that includes: any pollution that can’t be traced back to a specific point of origin, such as a pipe spewing a hazardous chemical into a river; the toxic soup of chemicals that rainwater picks up as it flows over roofs, driveways and chemically treated lawns, on its way to the groundwater that feeds streams, lakes and reservoirs, and well water.

We have known for some time that runoff is the cause of over half the water pollution nationwide. Nationally, agriculture (fertilizers, etc.) is the leading contributor to runoff, with sprawl as a close second.

But in the urban and suburban regions of New Jersey, sprawl is the biggest culprit.

Sprawl reduces the amount of water available by redirecting much of it away from ground water and diverting it into gutters and storm drains that empty directly into streams and rivers. And that leaves less water to absorb the pollution coming from other sources.

Sprawl also hurts water quality in other ways. Since sprawl development patterns are dependent on cars, much of the air pollution from exhaust also settles into the water supplies.

The paper offers two solutions to combat these harmful impacts.

The first is regional planning — identifying watersheds and keeping them undevel-oped, while focusing growth in areas that are already developed. This is why the High-lands preservation law recently signed by Gov. James Mc-Greevey is so critical.

The second is to “retrofit” development at the neighborhood scale by designing communities that offer a broad array of transportation and housing choices, and integrate work and shopping into the neighborhood, a concept called “mixed use.”

As we’ve learned from New Jersey’s smart-growth State Plan, mixed-use communities can save land, reduce reliance on cars, make housing more affordable and lower property taxes.

It’s not too late to save New Jersey’s water resources. But just as the pollution that comes from runoff can be said to be the ultimate result of billions of mundane, individual decisions about how we live, so too the solution to the problem of sprawl and its impact on water will ultimately rely on countless decisions we all make in the coming years.

You can check out the paper at www.fundersnetwork.org. And I hope you’ll contact me at 1-888-LAND-SAVE or at info@njconservation.org, or visit www.njconservation.org, for more information about conserving New Jersey’s precious land and natural resources.

Michele S. Byers is the executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

Michele S. B yers

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