A gallon of municipal tap water costs ½ cent while a gallon of bottled water costs $9.50/gallon -- 2000 times more expensive!

According to National Geographic, PET plastic water bottles take 450 years to degrade. While they can be recycled, in the US only 30% are. The other 70% goes into landfill, litters landscapes or bodies of water, including Lake Michigan. According to Food & Water Watch, four billion pounds of plastic are used each year in the US to produce water bottles -- enough plastic to fill the Empire State Building, taking more than 82 million barrels of oil to produce. This doesn’t include all the fossil fuel used to transport bottles from bottling plants to retailers and retailers to homes. Pipes are so much more efficient.

Evanston’s water is a gift from the Ice Age in the form of the Great Lakes. It must meet all Environmental Protection agency (USEPA) safety standards. Bottled water isn’t required to. On average Evanston’s Water Quality Laboratory does over 100 quality tests a day on its tap water, which is also protected from bacteria growth on its way to its destinations by a small amount of chlorine. According to the NRDC, tap water in most big cities must be disinfected, filtered to remove pathogens, and tested for cryptosporidium and giardia viruses. Bottle water doesn’t have to be.

PET plastic water bottles contain phthalates, which are known disruptors of testosterone and other hormones, and over time leach into the water they contain. There are legal limits for phthalates in tap water, but not in bottled water, because the bottled-water industry successfully campaigned against them.

1. If you need to take water with you, fill bottles designed for repeated use.
2. If you don’t like the taste of chlorine, acquire a simple filter pitcher to remove it. They cost around $30 not including cartridge replacements.
3. If you do buy bottled water, read the labels. They will at least give you some information where the water comes from and what treatments it received. Around 45% of bottled water is sourced from tap water, often without further treatment.
4. Avoid the use of plastic straws. They are even more likely than water bottles to not make it into recycling and end up in bodies of water
5. If you are concerned about lead, have your water tested. Or for drinking water use a simple filter pitcher or faucet filter that removes lead. Or run your water until it turns cold, or even better, when you wake up in the morning or return from a day away, flush your toilet before you open the tap — this will flush your whole water system and it will take less time and waste less water. In Evanston lead in tap water can only come from the feeder pipes between the street and your house or apartment building. Some feeder pipes are made out of copper, galvanized steel, or ductile iron — not lead. You can locate your house on the map below and see what your service line is made of.

Some additional information about lead in water pipes

Since 1980, lead water pipes have not been used in the U.S. But because replacing underground pipes is complicated and expensive, all US cities have to deal with lead. Legally operated municipal water treatment facilities (including Evanston’s) use an orthophosphate chemical that prevents lead from flaking off pipes into drinking water. In Flint, Washington DC and Newark, lead from old pipes leached into the drinking water because the local water treatment plant stopped using this chemical. In every case, the change was made to save money and went against the US EPA's guidelines. The cost ended up being very high because of the health crises, the need to provide bottled water, and the loss of faith in municipal services. In Evanston, the water treatment plant has consistently used the proper chemical to prevent lead from getting into tap water.

Processing water — first producing it, then pumping it to buildings, then heating it for use, then pumping it away and finally treating it — is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.

Electric energy powers the pumps that distribute water throughout the city’s water supply piping system. Wastewater is collected and sent to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) treatment plants. There, electric energy also powers pumps, filtering, and treatment processes that allow “used” water to be returned back to our natural waterways.

Depending on your method of water heating, energy from natural gas or electricity is used to provide hot water for sinks, bathtubs, showers, dishwashers, and clothes washers. Using less water often means using less hot water and, therefore, less heating energy.

These processes all have costs, whether it’s the water itself, or the energy for our end uses. Any water savings will yield cost savings, in addition to helping our planet.

Although we are fortunate to have an abundance of water here, we can also be model stewards in light of global freshwater scarcity.

Some contaminants are untreatable. If they go down your drains, are poured into toilets, or down stormwater drains they go into our rivers, down the Mississippi and out to the Gulf of Mexico. These untreated contaminants can reduce human health, wildlife health, aquatic ecosystems, and our aquatic food supply.

Older communities, such as ours, have a combined sewer system in which stormwater from rainfall combines with sanitary wastewater into a common piping system for treatment.

Wastewater/stormwater treatment processes include filtering out larger debris, biological breakdown, separation of fine materials, and antimicrobial measures. However, the various treatment processes are unable to completely remove or neutralize most pharmaceuticals, non-biological compounds, and ultrafine particulates.

Household chemicals like paint can be toxic to the environment if disposed of incorrectly. Trace pharmaceuticals may adversely impact the environment and public health. The presence of these compounds in the aquatic environment, even trace quantities, could result in impacts such as antibiotic resistance, abnormal hormonal effects, and interference with the reproduction and growth of aquatic life.

Plastic microbeads from cosmetics and personal hygiene products enter the water system primarily through sinks, tubs and showers. Fortunately, recent legislation was passed to discontinue the sale and manufacture of products containing these small plastics.

Microfibers released from synthetic clothing enter the water system primarily through clothes washing. Studies indicate synthetic fleece materials may be especially prone to this shedding. These contaminants get consumed by fish and other wildlife, posing a danger to the food chain. The small plastic fibers may “bioaccumulate” as the animals that consume them are then consumed by larger animals. The toxins related to these plastics become concentrated in the bodies of animals higher on the food chain, all the way up to us.

These items can help you eliminate your contributions of contaminants to the common wastewater stream.

1. Make sure household chemicals are disposed of properly. Take advantage of hazardous waste collection sites around Chicagoland, provided by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA).
2. Make sure medications are disposed of properly. Don’t flush expired or unwanted prescription and over-the-counter drugs down the toilet or drain. For medication and prescription drug drop-offs, Evanston residents can dispose of unwanted or unused medications in the pill collection unit located in the front lobby of the Evanston Police Department, 24 hours a day.
3. Reduce microfiber contaminant by putting polar fleece clothes in a fine mesh laundry bag.
4. Add a pantyhose stocking to the inside of your washing machine lint trap. This will help capture fibers from the water, similar to your dryer’s lint trap.

As water travels over land or through the ground, it dissolves substances resulting from human activities. Precipitation on our cities and towns runs across hard surfaces - like rooftops, sidewalks and roads - and carries pollutants, including pesticides, and nitrogen and phosphorus which are found in fertilizers. Nutrient pollution is caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the water. Too much causes algae to grow faster than ecosystems can handle. This increase harms water quality, food resources and habitats, and decreases the oxygen needed by fish and other aquatic life for survival. Large algal blooms reduce or eliminate oxygen in water, leading to fish illnesses in fish and death in large numbers. Algal blooms can be harmful to humans if elevated toxins and bacterial growth occur that can make people sick if they contact polluted water, consume tainted fish or shellfish, or drink contaminated water.

These items can help you eliminate your contributions of contaminants to the common stormwater stream.

1. Reduce or eliminate use of pesticides (both herbicides and insecticides) in yards.
2. Eliminate the use of plant and yard chemical fertilizers designed to feed the plants directly. Replace them with biological natural soil amendments that gradually improve the health of soils and thereby the health of plants. This not only avoids runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus during wet weather that cause algae blooms and dead zones in lakes and ocean, but also allows soil to hold onto more water when it rains, making your garden more drought tolerant and downpours less overwhelming to drainage systems.
3. Do not add to the amount of outdoor impermeable hard surfaces on your property. If those that exist need replacement, or you want to add hard surfaces areas, choose among many hard surface options that are permeable. Also consider converting areas with hard surfaces back to soil and plantings.
4. Plant a rain garden of native plants, shrubs and trees that reduce the amount of lawn fertilizer needed, slow down the flow and capture rainwater, allowing more to sink in and less to run off.

As our town borders Lake Michigan and we get considerable annual precipitation, water is a locally abundant resource. One might think we therefore need not pay much attention to capturing heavy rainfall. But there are several reasons to do so.

Capturing rain on our properties can help us keep our gardens and lawns green during droughts and miminize the need to water, reducing our water bills.

It can also helps avoid overflows of our sewer systems that cause basements to flood and system overflows to pollute the lake and the North Shore Channel. Getting good at this at a community level will also delay or avoid altogether the need to further upgrade sewer systems: a cost that property owners would be required to bear.

Here are some ways to manage water before it goes down a drain or runs downhill off of our properties.

• Plant trees—and take care of them. Trees intercept stormwater and help absorb and hold it in the soil. The bigger and healthier the tree, the more it helps with stormwater management.
• Plant deep-rooted prairie and savanna plants. Like trees, they also slow and absorb stormwater—and they provide numerous other benefits, like attracting providing food for butterflies and birds.
• Direct downspouts to areas that can hold and absorb heavy downpours. Consider creating swales or rain gardens. Note: Make sure that water will flow away from the foundation of the house and soak into the ground. It’s ok to let water stand for up to two days, as long as it’s not against your house. It will eventually soak in.
• Make your garden more sponge-like by removing turf, expanding planting beds, and leaving fallen leaves to decay in beds and under trees and shrubs. Avoid chemical fertilizers that can damage healthy soil and instead use biological soil amendments that build soil. The healthier it gets the more water it can retain and the less prone it is to be lost in runoff or wind.

• Avoid paving wherever you can. If you need to replace a driveway or walk, consider permeable options that allow infiltration of water. If your alley needs replacement, consider involving neighbors and asking for a green alley, which has a central strip of bricks with spaces among them that allow drainage down into the ground.
• Avoid doing water intensive tasks like taking a bath or doing the laundry during downpours so as not to add to the extreme burden the sewer system must bear.
• Sign up for Overflow Action Days with Friends of the Chicago River. They will alert you when heavy rainfall is expected and suggest that you avoid heavy water use activities.

Green infrastructure solutions

Stormwater problem prevention

Constituent advocacy helps politicians do what they’d like to do if they agree with advocates, and helps increase their attention to matters that are not top of mind. Even if your representative has announced support for bills you favor, it helps to let them know you care and approve of their stance.

• Senate Bill SB2916 Lead Service Line Replacement (Steans/Robinson) -- Requires every municipality to have a plan in place for replacement of lead service lines, as well as a robust inventory with prioritization of vulnerable communities, and rate relief through a Low Income Water Assistance Program.
• Senate Bill SB3154 Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)(Ellman) -- IEC and Sierra Club plan to introduce legislation that would phase out PFAS in firefighting foam and food packaging.
• Senate Bill SB3311 Lead testing at parks (Peters) -- Protects children from lead exposure and requires testing for lead at parks.
• Senate Bill SB3462 Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy fund (Villivalam) -- In order to address the state’s difficulties with implementing the Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, this legislation would create a fund in statute for the first time dedicated to nutrient loss reduction and provide additional fiscal resources to agencies implementing the strategy.

Senate Joint Resolution SJR 60 Protecting communities in floodplains (Koehler) -- Encourages sound floodplain management by IDNR, including preserving oversight of levees. Senate Bill SB3547 / House Bill HB4329 Ban on leaded garden hoses (Curran/Costa Howard) -- Requires the sale of only lead free garden hoses. Senate Bill SB2975 / House Bill HB4605 Quarries (Ellman/Connor) -- IEC and ELPC are reintroducing legislation to require groundwater monitoring at clean construction of demolition debris (CCDD) sites.