AUBURN — Small towns and water districts should consider adopting rules to protect their drinking water, state officials said Thursday.

“It’s important for the future because if we don’t, we have no control over future development and how it affects water supply,” said Andrew Tolman, assistant director of the Maine Center for Disease Control Drinking Water Program. “That’s a sensitive issue because we all need water.”

During a seminar at the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments Planning Day, Tolman and hydro-geologist Susan Breau-Kelley outlined the basic tools towns and water districts can use to help protect water supplies. The day of seminars brought staff and selectmen from Western Maine towns together at the Hilton Garden Inn.

Breau-Kelley said towns can use a combination of planning, zoning, ordinances and construction codes to protect water quality. Ordinances can be used to determine what kind of development is right for a watershed area.

“Studies have proven again and again that it’s cheaper to protect water quality than it is to contaminate it and then go in and try and make it better,” she said.

Educating residents is also important, she said. Towns can help ensure water quality for public supplies by teaching residents how not to pollute.

“People don’t always realize where their water comes from,” she said. “Just informing them of that can change the way they act.”

Tolman said education also helps people who don’t use public water but have their own wells. For example, teaching them not to over-fertilize their property can go a long way toward not fouling their well water.

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