Water Quality & Stormwater Education

Clean Above means Clean Below!

Protect our waterways and drinking water sources for generations to come!

Clean Above means Clean Below!

Why should we care? Because everything that flows over the surface in Rockland County will soak into the ground or flow to surface waters where our drinking water comes from, and where we recreate. A significant amount of Rockland County’s drinking water comes from underground aquifers. Our other sources of drinking water come from streams, lakes, or rivers above ground (such as Lake DeForest) that is treated at a Water Treatment Plant.

Treatment processes cannot remove all pollutants, therefore what enters our local waters is ultimately what we drink! Keeping our waterways clean has tremendous benefits for your health, your property, your recreation, your drinking water supply, and will ensure its benefit for future generations.

The information provided herein has been accrued through Cornell Cooperative Extension, Rockland County to provide the public with a knowledge of the need to preserve water quality and improve stormwater, why there are regulations that exist regarding stormwater, how your activities impact your water quality, and what you can do to improve water quality and stormwater runoff.

Also see our Interactive Maps page!

The views and opinions expressed and contained within are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the NYSDEC, the EPA or any other site referenced. Mapping analysis should not be utilized in real-world analytic products as they are based only on very limited and dated open source information. Assumptions made within are not reflective of the position of any referenced site. Information from these pages has been pulled from USEPA, EPA Water, EPA- Long Island Sound Study, NYCDEP, NYSDEC, NYS GIS Clearinghouse, NYC Water, NYS Conservationist April 2015, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Thompson Reuters WestLaw (NYCRR), USGS, USDA.

Click here for additional cited works & resources.