More than 90 percent of the fresh water in the United States and around the world is ground water. In Ohio, over 40 percent of the population (more than 4.5 million people) depends on ground water. This includes large municipalities, such as Dayton, Canton, and Columbus, which rely on ground water to provide all or part of their water supply, and over 700,000 domestic water wells supplying individual homes throughout the state.
Industries in Ohio pump over 240 million gallons of ground water per day; irrigation withdrawals total almost 2 million gallons per day. Total ground water pumped for all uses in Ohio is 730 million gallons per day. That's over 266 billion gallons per year, enough water to flood the entire City of Columbus to a depth of almost 7 feet.
Ground Water Awareness Week is sponsored by the National Ground Water Association and it's supporters. The goal of this week is to highlight the importance of maintaining private water well systems and the ground water resource that supply them.
Visit the national awareness week campaign page here.