How Climate Change Affects Rockport’s Drinking Water

Living in Rockport, we are surrounded by water. We are totally dependent upon water to survive. But none of the water we use for drinking, washing, cooking, flushing, or watering our gardens, comes from the ocean around us. Every drop of water we use comes from the water in our quarries (Cape Pond, Carlson’s Quarry, and Flat Ledge) and from a four-hundred-foot-deep bedrock well in the Mill Brook Well Field. The water in the quarries and the aquifer comes only from rain or snow.

Climate change, resulting from global warming, has serious and lasting effects on our water supply. It can cause long periods of drought, eroding our supply and increasing the risk of fires. It may cause unusually strong storms, flooding, soil erosion, and potential contamination of our water supply. Already, the sea level around us has been rising, causing erosion and the undermining of oceanfront properties, damaging homes, buildings, infrastructure, and increasing the threat of seawater infiltration of our public and private wells.

Rockport has a total of 195 million gallons in our reservoirs and we use 210 to 270 million gallons per year. Massachusetts’ residential water use is 65 gallons per capita per day (gpcd). By comparison, in Rockport, we use about 53 gpcd. We are doing well but as global warming increases, as it is already doing, we will need to do much better.

What can we all do to save our water supply?

We can reduce our use of water:

• Take shorter, less frequent, showers
• Wash clothing and dishes with only as much water as you need
• Reduce amount of water used in watering lawns and gardens
• Turn off the tap when you don’t need running water.
• Install water-saving faucets and toilets.
• Plant trees to hold water in the soil
• Collect rainwater for non-potable water needs
• Don’t pave your property, to reduce runoff and flooding
• Reduce meat consumption; It takes 600-1800 gallons of water to make one pound of beef, chicken, or pork
• Check your septic system and don’t pour oil or toxic materials into your toilet or sink or into our sewers
• Protect our dunes and repair sea walls
• Help to develop a coordinated plan to move property and people away from the rising sea

Sources:

Town of Rockport Drinking Water Consumer Confidence Report, 2019. Rockportma.gov

National Geographic. How Climate Change Impacts Water Access. Nationalgeographic.org

Protecting Rockport’s Mill Brook Watershed. Rockportma.gov

Ten Ways to Save Water at Home. Americanrivers.org

Annual Average Residential Water Use (Municipal) https://datacommon.mapc.org