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The North American Lake Management Society is pleased to award Clear Choices Clean Water with a technical merit award for their campaign to increase awareness and action about decisions homeowners make and the impact these decisions have on our lakes and streams.

NALMS provides technical merit awards for individuals, groups or programs that have creatively and effectively contributed to the development and dissemination of watershed management or related educational programs, materials or assistance. The summer 2013 issue of LakeLine featured CCCW, the winner of several awards, including the Indiana Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence and the Indiana Water Resources Association’s 2011 private sector award.

CCCW is the combined effort of the Tippecanoe Watershed Foundation, the Upper White River Watershed Alliance, and the IUPUI Center for Earth and Environmental Science. The campaign employs an online pledge system, interactive website, and a robust advertising initiative.

A unique aspect of the campaign is that its focus is rooted in baseline data on social indicators. CCCW used these data to target practices that people were not doing but were willing to try. The campaign messaging encourages four practices: using phosphorus-free lawn fertilizer, landscaping with native plants, managing pet wastes, and properly maintaining septic systems. By educating individuals on these important actions and giving them the tools they need to make these essential changes on their own properties, the campaign empowers people to do their part for water quality.

One of the program’s greatest strengths is the degree to which it engages participants. The online pledge, supported by other tools, helps the participant feel a part of something bigger and capable of making a difference. The pledge map helps visitors identify their watershed and shows how many people in their region have pledged. After pledging, participants learn how much pollution their action will eliminate from lakes and streams.

The most meaningful measures of excellence are the program’s impacts. In the 3 years since the launch of the campaign, more than 17,000 people made over 24,630 total visits to the website. Visitors made more than 2,160 pledges to make Clear Choices. Cumulatively, these pledges amount to the following reductions in pollution and improvements to water quality

Other impacts include:

• 737,200 pounds of phosphorous runoff per year has been 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

Founded in 1980, NALMS is a nonprofit membership society. NALMS’ mission is to forge partnerships among citizens, scientists, and professionals to foster the management and protection of lakes and reservoirs for today and tomorrow. NALMS focuses on lake and reservoir management but also gets involved in issues affecting land, streams, wetlands and even estuaries as lakes are a logical endpoint of the water issues affecting these systems.

The Tippecanoe Watershed Foundation works to protect and improve water quality in the Upper Tippecanoe River Watershed. This area drains 114 square miles in portions of Kosciusko, Whitley, and Noble Counties and contains 35 lakes including Tippecanoe, Webster, Barbee, Ridinger, Crooked, Loon, Big, Old, New, and Goose.