Clean local drinking water must become top priority

There's been a lot of media attention on whether bottled water is really safer than tap water.

I grew up in Auburn. Over the years I lived in other parts of the country, including California. Because of the reports that were coming out in the '90s about the hazards of tap drinking water in that state, I decided to return to this area.

We are truly fortunate to live in the Finger Lakes Region because our lakes are among the largest spring-fed lakes in the world. Despite the phosphate dumping by the Town of Groton into our own Owasco Lake, we're still in the top 5 percent of the “cleanest lakes in the nation.”