We use it every day. It exists beneath our feet, out of sight. It’s one of the most precious resources we have. Of course, it’s groundwater, a resource onsite installers are sworn and committed to protecting.

NOWRA is again helping the National Ground Water Association (NGWA) to promote National Ground Water Awareness Week, March 7-13. 

Kevin McCray, NGWA executive director, observes that some 47 percent of the United States population depends on groundwater for drinking, whether from public or private wells. In rural areas, that number is about 96 percent.

“That fact alone justifies the need for National Ground Water Awareness Week,” McCray says. “But groundwater is important to us in many other ways, as well.” The NGWA presents these facts:

Groundwater provides much of the flow of many streams. It adds 492 billion gallons per day to U.S. surface water bodies. In large part, the flow in a stream represents water that has flowed from the ground into the stream channel.

Scientists estimate U.S. groundwater reserves to be at least 33,000 trillion gallons, equal to the amount discharged into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River in the past 200 years.

The United States uses 83.3 billion gallons per day of fresh groundwater for public supply, private supply, irrigation, livestock, manufacturing, mining, thermoelectric power, and other purposes.

Some 15.9 million groundwater wells serve households, cities, business, and agriculture every day.

“National Ground Water Awareness Week is not a celebration such as the Fourth of July has become,” McCray says. “Instead, we should use the week to reflect more deeply on groundwater's value and its contributions to our lives.”

For more information, visit www.ngwa.org/public/awarenessweek/index.aspx or follow the link from the NOWRA home page.