Where does water come from?

Water is one of the most abundant natural resources on the planet. We get water from the sky, surface and underground. In fact, somewhere on the earth at this very minute, water is falling as snow, rain or sleet.

Nature provides earth with so much water that if all the mountains and hills were leveled, water would completely cover the earth to a depth of 2 miles (3.2 km). But since we have all these mountains and hills, water does not always fall evenly over the earth. So some areas get very little rainfall and don’t have much water on the surface or underground. These areas become deserts or savannahs where water is very scarce.

Arlington gets most of its water from surface water (lakes). The surface water in this part of Texas is mostly supplied from rainwater.

How does water clean itself?

Any time something falls or gets put into water, the material often sinks to the bottom or mixes with so much water that it doesn’t cause any real problems. But, if too much stuff is dumped in the water or a really dangerous material winds up in the water, the water has no way to get rid of that waste material and it could become a problem for the people, plants and animals that live in or near the water.

Before water is piped to your house, the Arlington Water Utilities purifies it to make sure the water is clean and tastes good. These processes include filtration and ozonation.

If water is everywhere – how can we run out?

We can run out by taking water for granted. Water is very important to all living things. Water makes up more than 70 percent of our bodies. It is found in almost everything we see and touch. Since water doesn’t always fall where we need it, water can be very hard to locate and process into drinkable water. Where water is rare, we need to conserve the amount of water used so there is enough for everyone.