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Watershed

Have you ever considered how water, which is the foundation of life, can pour from a storm drain filthy with pollution and become purified enough to drink from the tap?  The simple answer is that the used water must be filtered and purified by the earth itself to be reused indefinitely. 

The earth is designed to allow water to soak deep into the soil and bedrock to replenish underground aquifers.  As the water percolates through dirt, gravel, sand, minerals, plant roots, and living organisms it is "scrubbed" of its pollutants.  Those pollutants can be lawn fertilizer, pet waste, antifreeze, gasoline, oil, soap from car washes, farm animal manure, the list goes on...

The natural process of the earth purifying dirty water is brilliant...but only if we allow that process to happen at all.

Every time the earth is covered by pavement, buildings, or any solid structure, the rain that falls on that spot can no longer get into the soil.  Instead, we have designed underground pipes to catch the rain and divert it away from the structure.  No one wants wet basements or flooded parking lots.  The diverted water is usually directed to the nearest ditch or creek.  At first glance this does not seem to be a bad thing, until you think about what the diverted water is carrying to the creek without being filtered through the earth.

The average parking lot is inundated with oil and antifreeze leaking from cars.  Look closely at the parking lot on your next trip to the grocery store and you will see the stains and puddles of petroleum products just waiting for a hard rain to wash them into the creek.  Salt, which saves us from falling on the ice in winter, is always washed into our creeks as the temperatures rise.  People spit on the ground and throw cigarette butts everywhere, which always end up being carried by rain into the creeks.  A sickening array of trash always makes its way into our creeks, further adding to the soupy mix of pollution flowing to the ocean.

Visit a harbor of any city in the country.  Stand at the railing and look down at the water.  You will see floating plastic, cigarette butts, yellow scum, and a slimy mix of leaves, grass clippings, and other unrecognizable items.  This is what gets washed into creeks from parking lots, home driveways, and highways.  Some of that trash might have come from hundreds of miles away or from just up the street.

As more water is diverted directly to creeks due to increased development, the quality of the water steadily worsens and the potential for flooding dramatically increases.  Water that should be filtering through the earth is now flowing directly to creeks on its way to the ocean.  It carries all the nasty things we have done to it directly to the ocean where our favorite seafood lives, which we eventually order off the menu of our favorite restaurant. 

What Can We Do?

• Parking lots can be designed to direct water to a wetland that is constructed to hold and filter water before it goes to a creek. 

• People can stop mowing the grass right to the waters edge to allow a buffer of vegetation to filter any water running off the lawn. 

• Trees can be planted adjacent to creeks so the roots will hold the banks in place and the leafy canopy will filter falling rain of airborne pollutants. 

• People can stop throwing trash onto the ground. 

• Houses and streets can be built to divert rain water into larger green spaces and wooded areas that the developer kindly allows to remain undisturbed. 

• Attitudes about working in harmony with nature instead of against it can be fostered. 

Protecting our creeks and allowing the earth to recycle our water is a large effort that includes not only planting trees, but preserving trees along water corridors, creating wetland areas for storm drains to empty into, cleaning up trash from the creeks, and educating our economic development officials about planning for future development with respect to the rhythms of nature.