Clear Choices Clean Water (CCCW) was recently awarded the 2013 Technical Merit Award by the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS) for its campaign designed to increase awareness and knowledge about residential behavior choices and their impact on water quality in local watersheds. The project helps to change people’s behavior as well as evaluate outreach success and measure potential water quality improvements at the same time. CCCW is a collaborative effort of the Upper White River Watershed Alliance, the Tippecanoe Watershed Foundation, and many other partners, including Town of Cicero.
CCCW is the state’s largest social marketing campaign for environmental awareness encouraging four practices: use of phosphorus-free lawn fertilizer, landscaping with native plants, managing pet waste, and properly maintaining septic systems. Participants engage in the program through the interactive website which includes a pledge map, suppliers clearing house, planting plans, and maintenance tips/resources to help make these behavior changes. Homeowners who pledge to make water quality friendly choices are immediately ‘put on the map’ and provided positive feedback about the pollution they prevented to make a difference.
In the three years since the launch of the campaign, more than 17,000 people have made over 24,630 total visits to the website. More than 2,160 pledges to make Clear Choices were made. Cumulatively, these pledges amount to the following potential reductions in pollution and improvements to water quality:
• 737,200 pounds of phosphorous runoff per year eliminated
• 363,000,000 pounds of algae each year prevented from growing
• 3.75 trillion fecal coliform bacteria (from 605 dogs) saved from local waters
• 715,200 pounds of sediment impeded
For more information or to take a pledge and do your part for clean water, please visit www.clearchoicescleanwater.org today!