Water is ubiquitous in the Catskills, flowing along side us everywhere we go: rivers, streams, and creeks provide nature’s musical summer backdrop as we drive the roads and hike the mountains. Country homeowners – outside village municipal water supplies – are delivered this precious resource via wells and springs. Residents and business owners of the Catskills are tasked with protecting the water and sending it down to New York City as cleanly as possible.

Things you may not know about the Catskills when you move here: constant work is needed to protect our groundwater. The Catskills Watershed Corporation hosts conferences, events, and organizations like the Water Discovery Center in which you can educate yourself and help to protect the water.

Coming on June 7th is Groundwater in the Catskills: Challenges and Solutions, a one-day conference presented by the Catskill Water Discovery Center with the Margaretville Rotary Club, and Rotary District 7170 from 10 am to 3 pm in the auditorium of the Catskill Watershed Corporation, 669 Hwy 38, Arkville, NY 12406. Tickets are $10 including lunch, and are available at: Eventbrite directly or access Eventbrite through the Water Discovery Center’s website.

According to the CWDC: “Globally, groundwater is an essential drinking water source that is at risk in many places. Locally, residents in the Catskills, including those in the NYC watershed, encounter variable drinking water conditions via private wells or municipal systems, seemingly illogical given that the NYC’s surface water reservoir system provides exceptional drinking water to nine million people.”

The conference will explore the problems Catskills municipalities, and residents, farms and other users of groundwater, encounter – problems such as arsenic, sulfur, iron, lead, copper, chlorides, coliform/E Coli, nitrates and gasses including methane, and carbon dioxide. Speakers will examine where contaminants come from and how they can be addressed.

Featured speakers include representatives from the State’s Drinking Water Source Protection Program (DWSP2), led by NYSDEC and NYS DOH in collaboration with other state agencies.

Residents living within the NYC watershed, may benefit from measures put in place for protection of the surface water. A representative from NYC DEP will speak to those protections.

The afternoon panel session will include the morning’s speakers plus municipal leaders from Andes and Middletown and representatives from the Catskill Watershed Corporation, Watershed Agricultural Council, and the Delaware County Soil and Water Conservation District.