Don’t buy bottled water. Yes, we need it after natural disasters when power goes out; we don’t need it all the time and every drop that’s pumped from the aquifer is one less drop from our springs and rivers. Buy a sturdy water bottle and refill it from the tap. You’ll save money! If there are problems with your tap water, contact your local elected representatives and Health Department to find out how those problems can be solved.

Calculate your Aquifer Footprint.

Create a springs-friendly yard at your home and/or business.

Don’t put or pour anything on the ground that you wouldn’t want in your drinking water or in the springs along the Ichetucknee.

Find out how to safely dispose of hazardous materials (paint, motor oil, old tires, etc.) at this website; Alachua County cooperates with surrounding counties to properly dispose of hazardous waste. Information at Alachua County Hazardous Waste Collection.

Don’t flush unused medications. Contact your closes pharmacy or search for a safe disposal site instead: Medicine Disposal Locator or Safe Pharmacy Drug Disposal.

Educate yourselves about the importance of native landscapes and how they can help to cut back or eliminate the need to irrigate, fertilize and use poisons:
 Why Native Landscapes.

Reduce the amount of water you are using at your home or office. Pay particular attention to how much water you are using outdoors, because much of the water used at homes is for lawn irrigation. Cut back on irrigation or find ways to stop irrigating altogether. Bahia grass is a good alternative to other kinds of turf grass that need irrigation.

Realize that reducing outdoor irrigation is the most important way you can save water. Reducing irrigation has more water-saving benefits than using rain barrels; however, rain barrels or cisterns can help to provide water for both indoor and outdoor plants.

Reduce the amount of fertilizer you are using, or find ways to stop fertilizing. Urban fertilizers contribute to nitrate pollution in our groundwater and in the springs.

Be aware of and find ways to reduce the poisons you are using that could find their way into our groundwater. These poisons include herbicides, pesticides, and the chemicals in your indoor cleaning products. Don’t flush antiviral or antibacterial cleaning wipes.

Make your landscape a sponge! Reduce stormwater runoff from your property by creating rain gardens, swales, dry wells or other water features.
Download the Springs-Friendly Landscaping Checklist.

When you need to replace appliances, choose low-flow, energy-efficient showerheads, toilets, dishwashers, and washing machines. Look for the WaterSense or Energy Star logo.

Reduce your meat consumption. Livestock operations use a lot of water and create nitrate pollution.

Calculate your Aquifer Footprint.

Watch three short videos to learn more about where your drinking water comes from, its connection to the Ichetucknee and other North Florida springs, who makes which decisions about our water, and what you can do to help.

Get involved with and/or help to support a local water advocacy group such as the Ichetucknee Alliance, Our Santa Fe River, the Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute, or the Florida Springs Council.

Suggestions for Builders and Developers

Follow Florida Water Star™ guidelines.

Check out these programs designed to promote water conservation in built environments:

• UF/IFAS Program for Resource Efficient Communities
• H2OSAV
• Sustainable Floridians
• Outside Sustainable Landscape Collaborative (shifting the Florida landscape paradigm)

Know your soils, especially when you bring in new fill dirt. Know whether the property you are developing is in a low-lying area that might flood or be inundated during heavy rains.

For model homes, choose appliances with the WaterSense or Energy Star logo.

Consider including cisterns, gray water systems or other water re-use systems in your homes or demonstration homes. If you are building in an area where homes have septic tanks, investigate what it would take to hook homes up to a sewer system or to install septic systems with advanced nitrate removal capabilities.

For landscaping, use centipede or Bahia grass that does not need irrigation. Choose native and springs-friendly plantings.

Avoid deforestation and clear-cutting, especially of old-growth canopies. Encourage buffering and habitat corridors.

Cooperate with governmental agencies and water advocacy groups to provide new homeowners with information about our sensitive hydrology and the need to protect our groundwater.

Familiarize yourselves with the Florida-Friendly Landscaping statute (FS 373.185) that was passed in 2009, particularly sections 3(b) and 3(c).

Encourage the creation of springs-friendly yards.

Work with willing homeowners to replace traditional irrigated lawns with Florida native landscapes that are more water-friendly; publicize these as demonstration sites.

Create pre-approved landscape designs that people can adopt. Example of a native landscaping plan.

Create and publicize lists of water-friendly plants and ground covers along with the growing conditions they require (shade, sun, drainage, etc.). See some good references here.

Work with local governments and state agencies to create and support local “turf swap” financial incentives for homeowners to replace irrigated lawns with native and water-friendly landscaping.

Create tours of yards where irrigated lawns have been replaced with native and water-friendly plants and tours of other landscapes that are designed for aquifer recharge.

Add native vegetation to the edges of stormwater retention ponds to help clean and filter water.

Consider where you live and what crops you grow.

• Are you in a sensitive area such as the Ichetucknee Springshed, Ichetucknee Trace, or the Ichetucknee Priority Focus Area designated by the State of Florida?
• If so, are you growing crops that need a lot of water and fertilizer?
• If so, are there new water conservation measures and/or precision fertilization techniques you could adopt?

Could a conservation easement on your property benefit both you and the Ichetucknee?

Do you have new ideas about how to conserve water and/or stop pollution at the source? If so, please communicate those ideas to your extension agents and researchers, or share them with us at ichetuckneealliance@gmail.com.

Would new and different cost-share programs, subsidies, or financial incentives help you switch to more water-friendly crops that use less fertilizer? If so, please communicate your ideas to your agricultural extension agents, water management district staff members, and state legislators.

You and other agriculturalists have great power to determine the health and future of the Ichetucknee. Let’s work together on solutions.

Create daily, weekly or monthly opportunities to educate people about the Ichetucknee’s significance and hydrology (connections between aquifer-springs-people) and to publicize innovations and individual or group efforts that can have positive effects on the Ichetucknee.

Consider creating online or in-person classes, workshops or tours about “aquifer literacy” that give all citizens the opportunity to learn about and understand our hydrologic system as it affects the Ichetucknee.

Find ways to encourage innovations in water conservation and pollution prevention via the creative talents in your scientific, engineering and water resources classes and programs. Emphasize the idea that we need to find new ways to save water and stop pollution at the source.

Create and organize a water-related speaker series and/or panel discussions. With community partners, create an awards program to recognize innovations and best practices in water conservation and pollution prevention.

Include discussions about the idea of a Florida water ethic in classes, where appropriate.

Create a “Florida water” section and displays.

Include discussions on Florida springs and water issues in newsletters and websites.

Focus periodic book discussions and community reads on Florida water issues.

Invite Florida authors to visit and share their perspective on Florida’s natural resources and water.

On government-owned property, create springs-friendly landscapes and yards to inspire other people.

Promote and fund advanced stormwater and wastewater management systems that focus on innovations in green infrastructure, pollution prevention and clean water aquifer recharge.

Require Florida Water Star™ Certification for all new development.

Use springs-friendly landscaping (native plants, swale and clean drainage systems) at government-owned sites.

Create a “turf swap” program that offers homeowners financial incentives to switch from irrigated lawns to springs-friendly landscaping that does not require irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides or herbicides.

Enact a rainy season fertilizer ban and create a public educational effort to promote it. Ask advocacy organizations and community groups for help with publicity.

Avoid deforestation and clear-cutting, especially of old-growth canopies. Encourage buffering and habitat corridors.

Take special care to protect high aquifer-recharge areas/unconfined aquifer areas. Encode protections for these areas in zoning and development plans.

On government-owned property, create springs-friendly landscapes and yards to inspire other people.

Fully fund vital land conservation programs such as Florida Forever and the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program.

Remove all government incentives, including cost-share programs, for water-intensive agricultural production on high and moderate aquifer vulnerability areas in the Ichetucknee Basin. Shift incentive funding to water-friendly “right crop, right place” projects.

Emphasize the need to stop pollution at the source. Aggressively develop and adopt the most promising agricultural Advanced Best Management Practices (ABMPs).

Prohibit biosolids spreading within all the high and moderate aquifer recharge areas in the Ichetucknee Basin. Enact safeguards to ensure that sewage sludge (biosolids) spreading is used only at acceptable agronomic rates and only as a substitute for manufactured nitrogen fertilizers.

Establish an Aquifer Protection Fee to be added to the price of manufactured nitrogen fertilizer, the proceeds of which will only be used to fund pollution abatement projects.

Require water meters on all wells so people will know how much water they are using.

Enact tiered water pricing for all groundwater withdrawals and place a cap on groundwater pumping to ensure restoration of the flow in the Ichetucknee springs to 95% of historic flow rates. Structure the pricing to protect water access at a basic level for everyone and to protect water access for family/legacy farmers who are growing water-friendly crops.

Mandate statewide water conservation practices and fund innovative efforts to stop water pollution at the source.

Move toward managing water conservatively, as a public trust.

Change Florida laws to require that the Precautionary Principle be used as guideline for water-related decisions.

Acquire land and protective conservation easements in vulnerable areas within the Ichetucknee Basin, especially areas in and along the Ichetucknee Trace.

Replace all wastewater sprayfields with treatment wetlands or begin long-term planning to move sprayfields out of the high aquifer recharge area of the Ichetucknee Basin and into an area of the county where the Floridan aquifer is more protected.

In the high and moderate aquifer vulnerability areas of the Ichetucknee Basin, connect all septic systems on properties of fewer than three acres to central wastewater systems with advanced nitrogen removal.

Create cost-share and/or financial incentives for replacement of old septic systems with newer systems that provide advanced nitrogen removal.

Identify how city and county consumption of water can be reduced, re-used and recycled. Implement innovative, large-scale water conservation projects.

Identify effective ways to educate all citizens about how to protect the groundwater that is the source of our drinking water, the Ichetucknee River and its associated springs.

Encourage and model the adoption of a Florida water ethic on all governmental properties and through public-private partnerships.