Last month the Kitsap County Commissioners adopted a bold new policy that declares water is a resource.

Let me explain. Surface water in our county is good and bad.

The good water recharges our groundwater. Did you know that because we have no mountain ranges or snow pack, most of our water comes from aquifers? The water in the aquifers got there over long periods of time and we draw on it every day for our residential, business and commercial purposes. We need to refill those aquifers or we will literally run out of water.

When rain falls in natural forests, about a third of the water evaporates back into the air, about a third seeps down into the aquifers and about a third moves slowly downhill under the ground to replenish streams and wetlands. The water going to the aquifer is available for our use.

The ground water feeds streams that support salmon runs and wildlife, not to mention providing recreation for us. The natural ground flow limits flooding because it meters the water getting to the streams and gullies. Only about 3 percent of rain becomes surface runoff that causes flooding.

When we build roads and homes and businesses, we take out trees and natural vegetation, we cover up the ground with water barriers like roofs, roads, driveways, and parking lots. Because there isn’t the natural vegetation to absorb it and slow it down, less water gets to the aquifer, less water is absorbed into the ground and more water runs rapidly off the surface into neighbor’s yards, streams, gullies and wetlands. This causes flooding, property damage and pollution into streams and Puget Sound and Hood Canal.

What has been our traditional answer? We call rainfall storm water, stick it in a pipe and send it directly into ditches, streams or the saltwater. In recent years, we’ve put in the fenced detention ponds you see all around and we provide some “treatment” to take out the big particles and pollutants.

What is the result of our traditional techniques? We are drawing down our aquifers. On Bainbridge Island, some wells already have salt water intrusion as the freshwater is depleted. There was a recent request for the federal government to designate the entire City as a critical aquifer recharge area.

We hear from long time residents that in the old days it would take a couple of days for streams to rise after a big rainfall. Now those same streams flood in hours. We are seeing more property damage and increasing pollution into our streams, wetlands and saltwater.

On another front, we send used water to the sewer plant where we treat it for biological hazards and pump it out into the Puget Sound.The county’s central sewer plant puts three million gallons of treated effluent into Puget Sound every day. While it may not carry diseases, the effluent carries nitrogen, pharmaceutical byproducts and other compounds. So what? There’s lots of water in the Sound to dilute these compounds, right?

There’s ample evidence that Puget Sound and Hood Canal are in trouble. A recent Department of Ecology study in south Puget Sound found that about 80 percent of the nitrogen that was contributing to low oxygen in the Sound was coming from sewer treatment plants.

Kitsap County has more miles of saltwater shoreline than any other county in the state and saltwater is a critical and integral part of our identity and lifestyle.

We need a healthy Sound and canal. In addition, we need those three million gallons of water to replenish our aquifers and feed our streams and wetlands.

In other words, we need to treat our water as a resource as opposed to a nuisance which we just stick in a pipe and throw away.

So what can we do as we rethink past practices? Here are some ideas:

1. Preserve our natural forests and natural environment. This preserves the natural water cycle, provides wildlife habitat, protects our streams and saltwater, provides outdoor recthe rural feel that we all love.

2. Septic tanks have gotten a bad rap but they actually treat the effluent and replenish the aquifer.

3. Local governments and the Homebuilders Association in Kitsap County are pioneering what are called low-impact techniques for treating building runoff.

This involves pavement and sidewalks that allow the water to flow through them to the ground below and “rain gardens” that absorb the runoff and let it infiltrate into the soil.

We want to mimic the natural water cycle by allowing the water to stay on the property and infiltrate into the soil in a normal fashion.

4. We need to treat sewer effluent to a cleaner standard. The days of dumping the waste and avoiding the cost of proper treatment are past. Then if we dispose of the effluent in saltwater, at least it is cleaner water.

5. A better approach being considered by the Silverdale Water District, West Sound Utility and the county involves higher treatment and then recycling the cleaner effluent to be used for non drinking purposes like irrigation. This would require parallel piping systems and be similar to areas that have drinking water systems and separate irrigation districts.

6. Concentrate our density in cities and urban areas that are already hard-scaped in order to preserve the rural environment.

7. We also have a huge installed system of roads, homes and businesses that lack these techniques. We will need to seek creative and affordable ways to retrofit these sites.

As our population increases, managing our water resource will make sense economically and will contribute to preserving our natural, rural atmosphere.

So if this is so important, why haven’t we done it before? First, we have better technology and understanding of the water cycle than we’ve had in the past.

Second, it was cheaper in the short run just dispose of water than the treat it properly.

We know now that there are long term consequences from that short-sightedness.

Over the coming months and years, the Puget Sound area and Kitsap County will be discussing many of these issues and the price tag that goes with them.

It will be important for you to be involved and be heard as those debates unfold.