Westchester Insider: Westchester County Legislator Ruth Walter 15th District: Board Approves Project to Add Water Bottle Refill Stations to County Parks.

 

Dear Friends and Neighbors,  You've probably seen water bottle filling stations at gyms, schools, airports, national parks and elsewhere. Now, you're about to see them at Westchester County Parks, thanks to a new measure passed recently by the Board of Legislators. On September 20, the Board unanimously passed a $750,000 bond, which I advocated for in our 2021 Capital Budget,  for the Parks Department to begin replacing old water fountains at County parks with modern refill stations. As chair of the Board's Environment & Health Committee, I'm so excited that we are finally getting this project underway, and I want to thank my colleagues for their support. Single-use plastic bottles are one of the most common things that pollute waterways and pile up in landfills. Anything we can do to reduce that is a huge plus. That means recycling of course, but also using refillable water bottles. Plus, if you're out at a park for a ball game, or a bike ride, or hike, you want to be able to take water with you, even if you're not always right next to a water fountain. Being able to easily and quickly fill up your reusable water will be a really nice benefit for park-goers. These fast fill water fountains will not only improve the park going experience it will also reduce reliance on single-use plastics that will have long term benefits for our local natural spaces and the environment as a whole. Parks Department leadership told Legislators on Monday that the department has taken inventory of all the drinking fountains in County parks and will use the newly allocated $750,000 to replace as many as possible with the new fast-fill stations. The department also will look to include in future capital projects the addition of water lines where feasible to add fast fill stations where water fountains may not exist at all today. Sincerely,