-------
Acknowledgements
An interagency team developed this report with input
from multiple stakeholders. The following agencies
wished to be recognized for their contributions:
Unites States Department of Commerce
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Ocean Service
National Marine Fisheries Service
United States Department of Defense
Army Corps of Engineers
United States Department of Energy
United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Department of the Interior
Bureau of Land Management
Office of Surface Mining
United States Bureau of Reclamation
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
United States Geological Survey
United States Department of Justice
Tennessee Valley Authority
United States Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
Many stakeholders contributed information and analyses
to the report: citizens participating in watershed manage-
ment at the local level; state, tribal, and federal govern-
ment personnel; academic evaluators; and non-profit insti-
tutions. This report has not been formally approved by all
of the above agencies and stakeholders, and hence the
contents of this report do not necessarily represent the
views and policies of all contributors.
-------
Contents
Introduction 5 What Can be Done to Improve Progress?
38
Why Watersheds? 9
What is a Watershed? 9
What is the Watershed Approach and
Why are We Using It? 10
Watershed Protection and Restoration 10
Addressing Watershed Problems 11
Education and Awareness 38
Partnerships and Coordination 39
Monitoring and Research 40
Planning and Prioritization 41
Funding and Technical Assistance 42
Implementation 43
Evaluation 43
How Are Watersheds Impaired? 12
The National View 13
Habitat Loss and Modification 14
Water Quantity and Flow Modification 15
Chemical Pollutants 15
Nutrients 16
Sediments 17
Pathogens 17
Invasive Species 18
Thermal Modification 19
What Can be Done to Address These Problems? ... 19
How is the Watershed Approach Working? 20
Seven Themes of Watershed Management 21
Education and Awareness 21
Partnerships and Coordination 23
Monitoring and Research 26
Planning and Prioritization 28
Funding and Technical Assistance 31
Implementation 34
Evaluation 36
Conclusion 45
The Watershed Approach 45
Local Leadership and Engagement 46
Governmental Collaboration and Support 46
Websites and Resources 47
Glossary 49
References
,53
Credits 55
Front Cover Art:
Quick as my Thought Rachel Rees Age 8
Submitted Independently Susanville, California
Back Cover Art:
Unfitted Holly Heuer Grade 5
Santa Ynez Valley Family School Los Olivos, California
Contents
-------
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
ntroduction
Watershed: the land area that
drains to a body of water such as
a stream, lake, wetland, or estuary
Unfit led
Holly Heuer
Grade 5
Santa Ynez Valley Family School
Los Olivos, California
We call the earth the water planet because
water covers 70 percent of its surface. In the
United States, rivers, lakes, estuaries, and
wetlands are among the Nation's most precious resources.
Americans depend on clean water to drink, to irrigate
their crops, and to run their industries. Water resources
provide opportunities for recreation such as fishing and
swimming, and wetlands even provide protection from
floods. Rivers, lakes, estuaries, and wetlands also provide
critical habitat for both aquatic and land-based wildlife.
For example, estuaries serve as birthplace and nursery for
most saltwater fish and shellfish.
The nation's water resources have immeasurable value.
However, in monetary terms, clean water plays a stagger-
ing role in the nation's economy. Each year, nearly $200
billion of food and fiber, $60 billion of manufactured
products, and over $40 billion of tourism depend on clean
water and healthy watersheds.
The nation has improved the quality of its water resources
in recent decades, but it has not sufficiently protected and
restored all waters. Today, approximately 40 percent of
the nation's major watersheds have water quality and
habitat-related problems. The sources of these problems
are widespread and complex.
Introduction
-------
Our nation cannot solve the majority of these problems by
further regulating discharges from factories and sewage
treatment plants. Existing programs and regulations have
greatly improved the nation's water-industries and
municipalities have cleaned their pollutant discharges at
great expense with technological solutions. These long-
standing programs will continue to be a critical element of
watershed management. Newer requirements that
address other pollutant sources (e.g., stormwater runoff)
will further improve conditions. However, the govern-
ment does not regulate or control many ongoing activities
that impact watersheds.
To address the water
quality problems that
remain, our nation has
needed a more com-
prehensive approach-
one that considers all
threats to a watershed.
The "watershed
approach" addresses
natural resource issues
that cross jurisdictions
and political bound-
aries. It integrates
concerns about water
quality and water
quantity and coordi-
nates insights from the natural and social sciences. A suc-
cessful watershed approach includes the support, partici-
pation, and leadership of local stakeholders and land
users. Their decisions and lifestyles profoundly impact
the nation's waters. In recent years, governments, non-
profit organizations, businesses, and citizens have used a
watershed approach to refocus their efforts to protect and
restore the nation's waters. These refocused efforts have
brought widespread positive results.
This report considers challenges to watershed health,
recent successes of the watershed approach, and obstacles
that remain. It was developed by a federal interagency
Clean water is a critical component of
food production.
team that worked with local, state, and tribal partners.
The report's descriptions and recommendations represent
the opinions of local watershed practitioners, combined
with suggestions from studies and reports by academic
evaluators and governments. These stakeholders present-
ed their views in roundtable discussions held throughout
the country in 1999 and 2000. These Regional Watershed
Roundtables, building blocks to a National Watershed
Forum in the summer of 2001, provided opportunities for
dialogue about issues, an exchange of information, and
collaboration on watershed protection and restoration
projects. As of December 31, 2000, more than 1,000 people
had participated in regional roundtable discussions at
more than 20 locations.
The report will explore the advantages of a watershed
approach in greater detail in the next section, "Why
Watersheds?" The third section of the report, "How are
Watersheds Impaired?" identifies major threats to the
nation's watersheds. For example, it discusses how toxic
chemicals, invasive species, runoff with excessive levels of
nutrients and sediments, and habitat loss and modifica-
tion harm watersheds. Most importantly, this third sec-
tion describes how human activities generate these
threats. Automobile use contributes to polluted runoff
from roads and the deposition of airborne pollutants in
watersheds. Environmentally insensitive housing devel-
opments and farming techniques can compromise wet-
lands and forests and increase sediment delivery to rivers.
Demands for energy and minerals have blocked rivers
with dams, polluted waters with mine tailings, and fouled
air and water with pollutants released from coal-burning
power plants. These examples suggest that watershed
health will only improve significantly with changes to
individual land use and lifestyles and the implementation
of cleaner technologies.
The fourth section of this report, "How is the Watershed
Approach Working?" discusses local, state, tribal, and fed-
eral efforts to address the threats identified in the previ-
ous section. This section highlights the successes and
shortcomings of these efforts. The watershed approach
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
7T II
Power generation and many other industries depend on large volumes
of useable water.
has addressed many threats to watersheds, but the nation
has not fully committed to its use. The fifth section,
"What Can be Done to Improve Progress?" recommends
refinements to the implementation of the watershed
approach. Table 1 summarizes these recommendations,
the most important feature of this report. Both the fourth
and fifth sections reflect input from local watershed prac-
titioners, academic researchers, and local, state, tribal,
and federal partners. Their input can guide efforts to
improve the watershed management process.
The discussion in the fourth and fifth sections of this doc-
ument is organized by seven key themes of the watershed
approach. These themes-education and awareness; part-
nerships and coordination; monitoring and research; plan-
ning and prioritization; funding and technical assistance;
implementation; and evaluation-provide a useful frame-
work for considering watershed management. A glossary
and links to relevant websites at the end of the document
should help readers understand and use the report.
Watershed protection and restoration efforts will take
time. Population growth, organizational inertia, limited
financial resources, gaps in knowledge, and natural
events impede effective and lasting solutions. However,
this document can move watershed efforts in promising
directions-it identifies successes that watershed efforts
should emulate and obstacles that they must overcome.
As watershed practitioners develop detailed plans of
action to address weaknesses in the nation's watershed
management, the recommendations in this report can
influence their work. Local citizens can explore how they
can provide better leadership and support for watershed
management efforts. Governments can explore how they
can better coordinate and enhance their technical and
financial support of local watershed efforts.
The federal government will need to continue to advance
watershed management. For example, federal agencies'
expertise and resources will improve watershed monitor-
ing practices across the country. Federal agencies will also
facilitate and fund many state and local watershed-related
activities. Effective federal actions will be a critical ingre-
dient for successful watershed protection and restoration.
Working together, citizens, businesses, watershed organi-
zations, and government agencies can address their
shared responsibility for protecting and restoring our
nation's waters.
Future generations will enjoy the benefits of healthy watersheds.
Introduction
-------
TABLE 1: RECOMMENDATIONS FROM WATERSHED PRACTITIONERS
Education and Awareness
Ensure that key groups receive environmental education, especially local decision-makers
Use modern technology, multi-media campaigns, and person-to-person approaches to enhance education and
awareness programs
Partnerships and Coordination
Continue to develop broad partnerships for watershed protection and restoration
Foster greater coordination across government agencies by implementing the Unified Federal Policy on
Watershed Management
Continue supporting regional and local watershed partnerships with Federal Coordination Teams (also known as
Regional Watershed Coordination Teams)
Improve the delivery of information and support to local watershed efforts
Monitoring and Research
Increase coordination of existing and new watershed monitoring programs
Ensure data consistency amongst all monitoring groups
Incorporate new indicators, such as indices of biological integrity, into watershed monitoring programs
Provide meaningful and timely watershed information to decision-makers and the public
Expand research in watershed management, especially efforts that evaluate environmental outcomes and improve
predictive models
Planning and Prioritization
Encourage consideration of watershed health in local planning and decision-making
Refine and coordinate national watershed assessments by integrating new and enhanced monitoring and
assessment data and by prioritizing actions and assistance programs
Funding and Technical Assistance
Increase financial and technical assistance from all sources to watershed protection and restoration efforts
Enhance program flexibility by expanding funding eligibilities, relaxing grant-making requirements, and addressing
priority needs
Develop education campaigns that inform watershed groups about financial and technical assistance tools
Implementation
Pursue both watershed protection and restoration activities
Ensure that watershed plans lead to action
Follow up projects with appropriate monitoring, maintenance, and evaluation activities
Provide adequate enforcement of watershed laws and regulations
Evaluation
Establish science-based indicators for watershed programs and projects
Incorporate outcome-oriented measures into assistance programs
Develop common federal indicators for assessing watershed health and common measures for tracking
and reporting performance
Track results at local, regional, and national watershed scales
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
Why
Watersheds?
Watershed
Charity Scott
Age 16
Good Shepherd School
Baltimore, Maryland
What Is A Watershed?
No matter where you live, you live in a watershed.
A watershed is the land area that drains to a sin-
gle body of water such as a stream, lake, wetland,
or estuary. Hills or ridgelines often bound watersheds; inte-
rior valleys collect precipitation in streams, rivers, and wet-
lands. These physical boundaries define the movement of
water and delineate the watershed. Watersheds, also known
as catchments or basins, describe geography at many differ-
ent scales: a few acres may drain to a small stream or wet-
land; a few large rivers may drain into an estuary where
fresh and salt water mix; about 40 percent of the U.S. land
area in the lower 48 states drains to the Mississippi River.
Watersheds are thus "nested"-larger watersheds such as the
Mississippi River basin encompass many smaller water-
sheds. Figure 1 depicts a typical watershed.
Why Watersheds?
-------
FIGURE 1. The area hydrologically defined by a watershed is affected by many
processes and issues. A "watershed approach" coordinates their management.
What isthe Watershed Approach
and Why are We Using It?
A "watershed approach" uses hydrologically defined
areas (watersheds) to coordinate the management of
water resources. The approach is advantageous because
it considers all activities within a landscape that affect
watershed health. Ideally, a watershed approach will
integrate biology, chemistry, economics, and social consid-
Watershed Protection and Restoration
In 1890,John Wesley Powell,second directorof the U.S.
Geological Survey suggested thatthe federal govern-
ment organize the western United States into watershed
units These watershed units would be governing bodies
and would facilitate an integrated approach to natural
resource management Although the government did
not implement his plan Powell's perspective underscores
the importance of our relationship with the land and the
need to consider it as we protect and restore aquatic
resources
erations into decision-making.
It considers local stakeholder
input and national and state
goals and regulations. A water-
shed approach recognizes needs
for water supply, water quality,
flood control, navigation,
hydropower generation, fish-
eries, biodiversity, habitat
preservation, and recreation;
and it recognizes that these
needs often compete. It estab-
lishes local priorities in the con-
text of national goals and coor-
dinates public and private
actions. A watershed approach
offers a blueprint for water
resource management.
A comprehensive watershed
approach improves on the frag-
mented approach the nation has used in the past. The
United States has developed separate laws for clean
water, clean air, fertile soils, productive fisheries, healthy
forests and robust communities. It created separate agen-
cies to administer those laws at federal, state, and local
levels and on public and private lands. These agencies
have different missions, authorities, and modes of opera-
tion. The property boundaries of landowners and the
political boundaries of states, tribes, counties, and munic-
ipalities are often unrelated to watershed boundaries. As
a result, when citizens or governments have tried to coor-
dinate water resource protection or restoration efforts,
they have often found it difficult to do so. Evidence sug-
gests that the watershed approach improves collaboration
and information sharing among diverse partners and
leveraging of resources.
Watershed Protection and Restoration
This document frequently uses the terms protection and
restoration. Watershed protection measures reduce
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
'When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."
impacts to waterbodies and prevent degradation.
Protection measures include both voluntary and legally
mandated actions. Paying farmers to set aside conserva-
tion easements, for example, ensures that some lands
have limited human impacts, while water quality permits
limit pollutant releases into waterbodies. Watershed pro-
tection measures that prevent degradation before it occurs
typically cost less and succeed more often than watershed
restoration measures implemented after watersheds are
impaired. Protected watersheds are more likely to be
healthier watersheds.
Watershed restoration is more difficult to define. The
Wetlands Subcommittee of the Federal Geographic Data
Committee defined wetland restoration to provide a stan-
dard for federal agency reports of their restoration activi-
ties. This group defined restoration as "the manipulation
of... physical, chemical, or biological characteristics... with
the goal of returning natural/historic functions."
Similarly, in the 1992 report "Restoration of Aquatic
Ecosystems," the National Research Council defined
restoration as the "return of an ecosystem to a close
approximation of its condition prior to disturbance."
That report also states, "The term restoration means the
re-establishment of pre-disturbance aquatic functions and
related physical, chemical, and biological characteristics."
In summary, restoration activities seek to restore healthy
aquatic communities and provide clean waters for recre-
ation, irrigation, and public consumption. For a more
detailed discussion of watershed restoration principles,
visit the Environmental Protection Agency's "River
Corridor and Wetland Restoration" webpage
(www.epa.gov/owow/restore).
Watershed restoration can be challenging. Most restoration
efforts do not show immediate results. Some restoration
activities can even unintentionally harm the environment.
All restoration efforts require a long-term commitment.
Addressing Watershed Problems
A watershed approach highlights relationships among
land management decisions, everyday actions, and water-
shed health. The next section of this report discusses
threats to watershed health such as pathogens, chemical
pollutants, and invasive species. Most are caused by com-
monplace activities: clearing forested lands for new hous-
ing developments; paving new roads and driveways for
transportation; over-applying fertilizers and pesticides to
lawns; overworking farmlands and timberlands; or post-
poning maintenance to home septic tanks. Only by under-
standing these problems and reducing our impacts can we
assure healthy watersheds for our use and enjoyment.
Streambank stablization projects restore vegetation to stream corridors,
reducing stream temperatures and erosion and benefiting aquatic and
terrestrial species in the watershed.
Why Watersheds?
-------
How are
Watersheds Impaired?
Seeing the Pond from the Pipe
Emily Forbes
Kindergarten
Kennesaw, Georgia
Lewis Elementary School
oth natural events and human activities affect
watersheds. Natural events such as storms, fires,
!
and droughts can suddenly alter watershed condi-
tions at large scales. While some natural events have nega-
tive impacts, these events are often critical for long-term
ecological health. For example, a fire may damage a forest,
but it also rejuvenates the forest by spreading seeds of key
species and adding necessary nutrients to the forest floor.
Individual human activities typically have smaller and
more predictable impacts, but their cumulative impact can
be far greater. Increases in population, land development,
and economic activity increase demands for water, waste
disposal, and raw materials. These activities increase pol-
lutant releases to water and air and degrade or fragment
natural habitats. Without appropriate management, these
changes can seriously compromise watershed health.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
Assessments of watershed conditions often measure physi-
cal, biological, and chemical watershed variables, such as
soil stability, plant and animal diversity, and water quality.
Assessments can also measure watershed functions such
as nutrient cycling, temperature control, and water avail-
ability. This section briefly describes the condition of the
nation's watersheds in the context of threats to watershed
health. The remainder of the report describes the success-
es and obstacles of watershed approaches that address
these threats.
The National View
As required by the Clean Water Act, states, tribes, territo-
ries, and interstate commissions develop biennial assess-
ments of streams, lakes, wetlands, and estuaries for a
National Water Quality Inventory Report to Congress. In
1998, these parties reported that about 40 percent of their
assessed streams, lakes, and estuaries were not clean
enough to support uses such as fishing and swimming
(see Figure 2).
Although these parties assessed only 23 percent of the
nation's streams and rivers in 1998, they reported that
more than 291,000 miles of rivers and streams do not fully
support aquatic life, fish consumption, swimming, and
drinking water uses. Most of the United States' popula-
tion, more than 218 million people, live within ten miles
of an impaired waterbody.
Figure 3 outlines the major activities that impact water-
sheds and the threats that result. The remainder of this
section describes the threats in greater detail. Most water-
sheds are impacted by more than one activity, and many
watersheds are impacted by all activities outlined in
Figure 3. Successful watershed approaches address many
threats to watershed health with a coordinated and com-
prehensive strategy.
FIGURE 2. 1998 Impaired Waters-National Summary
Alaska
' TV, Hawaii
Puerto Rico
Virgin Islands
No Waters Listed
5-10%
10-25%
>25%
The colors in this figure show the percentage of waters threatened within watersheds, divided by the total number of water miles in those watersheds.
How are Watersheds Impaired?
-------
FIGURE 3. Threats to Watershed Health
Habitat Loss and Modification
Activities that Impact Watersheds
*" .
c
i- ro
OJ i^
* ^
O x
o
§ s
Ixi Q;
-^ ^
o>
.-*
o,
,0
^
Resulting Threats
Habitat Loss and Degradation
Water Quantity and Flow Modification
Chemical Pollutants
Nutrients
Sediments
Pathogens
Invasive Species
Thermal Modification
Historically, this nation has not fully appreciated its
dependence on healthy ecosystems. From coastal estuar-
ies to mountain forests, human activities such as residen-
tial and commercial development, recreation, and
resource extraction have changed, fragmented, and
destroyed natural habitats.
Habitat loss has severe impacts and can be permanent.
For example, coastal wetlands converted to commercial or
residential uses provide neither nursery habitat for estuar-
ine fish nor protection from hurricane storm surges.
Wetland losses have also contributed to significant
declines in waterfowl populations. Forest losses impact
many plant and animal species in both aquatic and terres-
trial habitats. Forest and wetland losses increase overland
flow and reduce filtration of sediments and pollutants,
increasing the likelihood that pollutants will reach
streams, rivers, and estuaries.
Habitat modification is less obvious, but it is detrimental
nonetheless. For example, when communities build roads
over streams, they modify the stream habitat. Road cul-
verts prevent fish passage and seriously impact fish popu-
lations. Anadromous fish, species that migrate from
freshwater to saltwater and back to freshwater, cannot
breed successfully if culverts block their migration routes.
Anadromous species may have value for recreational and
commercial fishermen or they may provide a critical food
supply for commercially valuable fish.
Urban streams often provide good examples of habitat
modification. When communities straighten and channel-
ize urban streams and line them with concrete, they modi-
fy the vegetative and physical structure of the riverine
habitat, increase river velocities during rainstorms, and
decrease river volumes during dry periods. Straightened
and channelized streams also carry more sediments and
chemical pollutants to their receiving waters.
The examples of road construction and stream urbaniza-
tion demonstrate how habitat modification can affect flow
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
rates, stream ecology, and the characteristics of the water-
body itself. Appropriate engineering techniques and other
mitigating measures that consider the natural structure
and function of watersheds can reduce these impacts.
Water Quantity & Flow Modification
People, plants, and animals depend on sufficient water
flows in rivers and streams. If stream flows are low, fluc-
tuating, or blocked by physical barriers, these changes can
affect many plant and animal species. These changes can
also affect recreational opportunities. American rivers
suffer from these problems because our citizens have
devised many methods to capture, control, store, and
divert water. These alterations support drinking water
supplies, hydropower, irrigation, flood control, manufac-
turing uses, and recreation.
For example, in the last century the United States has led
the world in dam construction to block and harness
rivers. Few human actions have more significant impacts
on a river system than dam construction. Dams change
upstream and downstream habitats, water temperatures,
water quality, and sediment movement. They also block
or slow the movement of materials and organisms
throughout a watershed.
Chemical Pollutants
When chemical compounds are introduced into a water-
shed, they can compromise drinking water systems, con-
taminate fish, and degrade water quality. Chemicals reach
waterbodies from many sources, including factories, waste-
water treatment plants, cars, boats, lawns, and crop fields.
For example, insecticide concentrations in urban and sub-
urban waters commonly exceed guidelines for aquatic life
protection. Homeowners, commercial properties, and golf
courses most commonly apply these insecticides.
Acid mine drainage from abandoned mine lands threatens
natural resources, public health, and community vitality.
In the nation's coal fields
and hard rock mining
areas, sulfur-bearing min-
erals in abandoned mines
and refuse piles contami-
nate adjacent and down-
stream waters with acidic
and metal-laden waters.
The contamination often
eliminates all aquatic life
and compromises drink-
ing waters.
Mercury contamination
prevents human con-
sumption of fish in many
WETLAND Loss RATES
If coastal rivers and streams are
dammed or otherwise altered by
human activities, anadromous
fish cannot swim upstream to
reproduce.
The lower 48 states have lost more than 50 percent of
their wetlands (over 100 million acres) since 1780. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently estimated that
the United States still loses over 50,000 acres of wet-
lands each year. States and tribes most often identify
road construction, residential development, and the
conversion of lands for agricultural use as the leading
reasons for loss. Although the nation is far from its
goal of gaining 100,000 acres of wetlands annually, the
annual rate of loss has been decreasing in the last five
decades as indicated by the adjacent chart.
FIGURE 4. Wetland Acres Lost Annually
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
19505-19705
19705-19805
19905
How are Watersheds Impaired?
-------
Waters downstream
of abandoned mines
and refuse piles can
be contaminated with
acids and metals. In
this photograph, the
orange color of the
water dramatically
identifies this
contamination.
lakes, streams, rivers, and coastal areas. Fish consump-
tion advisories for mercury have more than doubled in
number from 1993 to 1998, affecting nearly 2000 water-
bodies nationwide. In January 2001, the Food and Drug
Administration issued a nationwide advisory recom-
mending pregnant women and women of childbearing
age not eat certain kinds of marine fish, including shark,
swordfish, and some mackerel due to high levels of methyl
mercury found in these species. Coal-burning power
plants and urban runoff are significant sources of mercury.
Our nation has effectively managed discrete point sources
of chemical pollution, but widespread nonpoint sources of
chemical inputs to waterbodies from property owners,
resource users, and everyday activities continue to threat-
en watershed health.
Nutrients
Healthy marine and freshwater environments require the
nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus. However, human
activities can contribute excessive amounts of these nutri-
ents to a waterbody, causing overwhelming aquatic plant
growth. The plant growth consumes large amounts of
oxygen and prevents sunlight penetration of the water
column. This process, eutrophication, threatens all water
organisms. It reduces oxygen, impairs water clarity, and
displaces key species. Excessive nutrients can also spur
harmful algae blooms that can kill fish and potentially
harm people. For example, Pfiesteria outbreaks and some
red tides can introduce toxins that poison fish and shell-
fish and threaten the health of humans that come in con-
tact with affected waters.
The U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Quality
Assessment indicates that streams and groundwater in
agricultural or urban areas almost always contain levels of
nitrogen and phosphorus that can cause excessive plant
growth. The 1998 National Water Quality Inventory lists
nutrients as a leading cause of water pollution. States
reported that excessive nutrients have degraded more
than 3.4 million acres of lakes and reservoirs and 84,000
miles of rivers and streams. The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's National Estuarine
Eutrophication Survey found moderate to high eutrophic
FIGURE 5. Impervious cover and Surface Runoff
40% evapotranspiraUon
38% evapoitanspiration
25% shallow
infiltration
25% deep
infiltration
Natural Ground Cover
35% evapatranspiration
21% shallow /
infiitration
21% deep
-^,- infiltration
10%-20% Impervious Surface
30% evapotranspiration
20% shallow
infiltration
16% deep
%^ infiltration
10% shallow
infiltration
5% deep
i^Hv infill-rat1 nr
35%-50% Impervious Surface
75%-100% Impervious Surface
Impervious surfaces increase surface runoff and accompanying
volumes of sediments, nutrients, and chemicals.
Protecting andRestoring America's Watersheds
-------
,
conditions in 65 percent of the estuaries in the survey.
In agricultural areas, runoff containing fertilizers and
manure elevates nutrient levels, while in urban areas
nutrients typically come from failing septic systems and
the excessive fertilization of suburban lawns, golf courses,
and commercial developments. In some estuaries, air
deposition of nitrogen contributes a significant portion of
the nitrogen found in the water. Nitrogen is released into
the air by the combustion of fossil fuels in cars, power
plants, and factories, and returns to the watershed in rain-
water and air currents.
Excessive nutrients in our coastal waters are a leading
cause of hypoxic zones-areas with little or no oxygen. A
hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico has eliminated most
aquatic life in an area averaging 5,000 square miles during
the summers from 1996-2000. In Long Island Sound,
another hypoxic area may have killed millions of shellfish
in the summer of 2000.
Nutrient contamination can also impact drinking water
resources. Excessive nutrient concentrations can cause
unpleasant tastes and odors, increase drinking water
treatment costs, and violate drinking water standards.
Sediments
Sediments are eroded soils transported by wind and
water. Excessive volumes of sediments entering water-
bodies can diminish water clarity, alter habitats, impair
fish spawning success, and increase drinking water treat-
ment costs. Timber harvesting, mining, agriculture, and
construction can introduce excessive sediments if improp-
erly managed. These activities remove vegetation and
manipulate soils, allowing wind or water to carry loos-
ened sediments to nearby waterbodies.
Increases in impervious surfaces exacerbate this problem
(see Figure 5). Impervious surfaces include buildings,
concrete sidewalks, and asphalt driveways and roads.
Increases in impervious surfaces decrease infiltration of
FOREST LAND ROAD TRENDS
Improperly managed forest land roads can erode and
increase sedimentation in watersheds. In 1998, the
Forest Service constructed only 215 miles of new roads,
one-tenth of the construction in 1988. In addition, the
Forest Service has decommissioned 25,000 miles of
roads in the past decade.
The Forest Service receives only about 20 percent of
the funds necessary to fully maintain Forest Service
roads and meet intended safety, service, and environ-
mental standards. As of December 2000, the Forest
Service estimates it has a road maintenance and repair
backlog of approximately eight billion dollars.
rainwater into soils and increase surface runoff. Increases
in surface runoff increase soil erosion and sediment trans-
port to streams, rivers, lakes, and estuaries.
Pathogens
Pathogens are microorganisms that cause disease.
Pathogens in freshwater and estuarine environments
include both bacteria and viruses. Citizens can be
exposed to aquatic pathogens when they drink water, eat
fish or shellfish, or come into contact with surface waters
during work or recreation. Gastroenteritis, hepatitis, and
cholera are examples of diseases associated with water-
borne pathogens. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention estimate that waterborne microbial infections
cause up to 940,000 illnesses and 900 deaths each year in
the United States.
Potentially harmful bacteria can enter waters from sewage
treatment plant discharges, stormwater outflows, boat dis-
charges, malfunctioning septic systems, and runoff from
poorly managed animal feeding operations. Once released
in the water, pathogens disperse, contaminating the water
column, bottom sediments, and aquatic life. Although
How are Watersheds Impaired?
-------
Concentrated animal feeding operations are large agricultural
enterprises that keep and raise animals in confined situations.
Poorly managed concentrated animal feeding operations can
threaten watersheds with pathogens, excessive nutrients, and
chemical pollutants.
some communities regularly monitor shellfish harvesting
areas and bathing beaches, communities cannot detect all
pathogen outbreaks before the public is at risk. Enhanced
prevention provides the only practical solution.
Invasive Species
Species are considered invasive if their presence in an
ecosystem will cause environmental harm, economic
harm, or harm to human health. Invasive species can dis-
place native species, alter predator-prey relationships,
destroy crops, and decrease ecosystem resiliency. Invasive
species are usually non-native species, and they are often
exotic species from another part of the world. Native
species can also be characterized as invasive if they domi-
nate their ecosystem due to human induced changes to
that ecosystem.
When species are moved outside their normal range into a
new region, they can create havoc. Species are uninten-
tionally transported in cargo bays, in ballast waters, and
INVASIVE SPECIES: How BIG is THE PROBLEM?
Scientists have linked invasive species to 70 percent
of this century's extinctions of native aquatic species.
By one recent estimate, invasive species cost private
landowners more than $100 billion per year in treat-
ment costs and lost productivity. This estimate does
not consider public costs of wildlife loss, displacement
of threatened and endangered species, and reduced
opportunities for fishing, hunting, camping, and other
recreation.
Invasive species control has been considered one of
the top priorities of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
since 1999.
Five hundred scientists recently asked political leaders
to make aquatic nuisance species control a priority
issue.
Zebra mussels introduced from Europe have invaded the waters
of 20 states in the U.S. since 1988. They have overwhelmed
pipes used for municipal and industrial water supply, and
studies suggest that their invasion may severely impact native
mussel populations.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
on the clothes of tourists, or they are intentionally import-
ed and exported for landscaping, aesthetics, animal con-
trol, and recreation. Not all non-native species become
pests in new locations, but the gypsy moth, nutria, zebra
mussel, hydrilla, sea lamprey, and kudzu are examples of
non-native invasive species that have caused massive eco-
nomic and ecological losses. When their new ecosystem
lacked the natural controls of their native ecosystems,
these invasive species overran millions of acres of range-
lands, forestlands, riparian areas, and waterbodies.
Thermal Modification
Many activities can cause thermal modification, or tem-
perature change. Industrial sites or power generation
plants often discharge warm water. The removal of
streambank or aquatic vegetative cover reduces shade
and increases stream temperatures. Dams may increase
or decrease water temperatures depending on their
design and operation. For example, a large dam with a
deep storage reservoir and deep release point may dis-
charge cool waters, while a dam with multiple release
points may discharge mixed warm and cool waters.
Stormwater management programs can also cause tem-
perature changes by altering the volume and timing of
Stormwater delivery to waterbodies.
Increased or fluctuating temperatures can harm fish and
other aquatic organisms whose life cycles and breeding suc-
cess are inextricably linked to water temperature. Thermal
modification has eliminated many fish species and other
aquatic organisms from streams across the nation.
What Can Be Done to
Address These Problems?
The threats discussed in this section impair a significant
percentage of the nation's watersheds. What can be done
to address these problems?
Water resource management has traditionally focused on
specific sources of pollution such as sewage discharges,
certain chemical pollutants such as dioxins or heavy met-
als, or narrowly defined water resources such as a river
segment or wetland. While these approaches have suc-
cessfully addressed many specific problems and should
receive continued support, they often fail to address wide-
spread problems that degrade watersheds.
In the past decade, many water resource practitioners
have increased emphasis on watershed approaches to
address land and water resource problems. They have
considered the human activities that generate threats to
watershed health. These practitioners have tried to inte-
grate appropriate scientific, programmatic, and political
perspectives to remedy these problems. The next section
of this report describes progress of these watershed
approaches.
How are Watersheds Impaired?
-------
How is the Watershed
Approach Working?
Waterfall
Jennie Fong
Grade 11
Archbishop Mitty High School
San Jose, California
This section examines local, state, tribal, and feder-
al use of the watershed approach to address the
threats presented in the previous section. How
well is the watershed approach working? This section
reports the successes and shortcomings of selected local
watershed efforts and governmental programs to date.
Many perspectives inform this report. The information
and opinions in this chapter and the next reflect com-
ments from local watershed stakeholders and studies
from university scholars and state, tribal, and federal gov-
ernments. Two groups deserve special recognition for
contributing ideas to this report. A series of Regional
Watershed Roundtable discussions has provided invalu-
able insights from diverse groups of watershed stakehold-
ers. These roundtable discussions, building blocks to a
National Watershed Forum in the summer of 2001, pro-
vide opportunities for dialogue about issues, an exchange
of information, and collaboration on watershed protection
and restoration projects. As of December 31, 2000, more
than 1,000 people had participated in Regional Watershed
Roundtable discussions at more than 20 locations.
The second group, a Watershed Reinvention workgroup,
identified opportunities to orient federal programs and
processes on a watershed basis and make these programs
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
more flexible, collaborative, and innovative. Federal
watershed practitioners from all agencies and depart-
ments that impact water quality participated in the work-
group. The workgroup's recommendations highlight
opportunities for flexibility, collaboration, and innovation
in watershed management efforts. The federal watershed
practitioners developed their recommendations after con-
sidering the experiences of the workgroup participants,
analyzing agency programs, and evaluating recent studies
from private organizations and academic institutions.
Although local watershed stakeholders, government
agencies, and academia consider the watershed approach
from different perspectives, they make similar recommen-
dations for national watershed protection and restoration
efforts.
Seven Themes of
Watershed Management
Seven themes of watershed management are commonly
found in local watershed efforts and can frame a discus-
sion of watershed approaches (see Figure 6). The seven
themes are the following:
Increasing public education and awareness
Developing new partnerships and coordinating efforts
Collecting necessary information through monitoring
and research
Establishing appropriate plans and priorities
Obtaining funding and technical assistance
Implementing solutions
Evaluating the results
Assessing the results of watershed management efforts in
the United States remains more subjective than quantita-
tive. Therefore, this report highlights examples of success-
es and shortcomings for each of the seven themes of water-
shed management using input from multiple sources.
FIGURE 6. Seven Themes of Watershed Management
Education and Awareness
Education and awareness efforts inform citizens, corpora-
tions, and governments about watershed health and also
about management activities that address watershed
threats. Education programs inform the public about the
impacts of individual, daily decisions on watershed
health. They help citizens understand connections
between watershed health and their quality of life.
Many watershed education programs have been very suc-
cessful. For example, the Blackfoot Challenge education
program and Project NEMO (Nonpoint Education for
Municipal Officials), highlighted in this section, are excel-
lent examples of watershed education efforts that influ-
ence behavior.
Watershed practitioners believe that peer education pro-
grams are the most effective way to change local land
management practices. Many programs, including the
Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource
Conservation Service extension program (the nation's
largest conservation technical assistance program), rely on
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
-------
The way we perceive the nation as
individual resource users, researchers and decision-makers
has a direct and major impact on how we
perceive problems and solutions."
DESIGNING EDUCATION EFFORTS WITH
MULTIPLE COMPONENTS
THREATS: SEDIMENTS, NUTRIENTS,THERMAL
MODIFICATION
Private land use practices in the Blackfoot River water-
shed (Montana) have increased sedimentation, nutrient
loads, and temperatures in the river. In response, stake-
holders in the Blackfoot watershed designed a compre-
hensive collection of education and awareness programs.
The Blackfoot Challenge, a grassroots organization, spon-
sors teacher education programs that demonstrate how
teachers can blend watershed resource education activi-
ties into their existing curricula. The organization also
hosts workshops on weed management and alternative
ranch income (e.g., ecotourism and guest ranching) for
private landowners in the watershed. Wildlife manage-
ment experts hold meetings about threatened and
endangered species in the watershed such as grizzly
bears, wolves, bull trout, and west slope cutthroat trout.
These education programs have helped to change land
use habits in the watershed, improving watershed health.
person-to-person interaction to educate landowners and
implement projects that improve watershed health.
The federal government increasingly uses advanced tech-
nologies to distribute information and services for water-
shed management. For example, the Watershed
Information Network (www.epa.gov/win) organizes infor-
Education programs inform landowners about the impacts of
individual, daily decisions on watershed health.
mation and services for watershed practitioners. The net-
work provides information about major laws governing
water resources and links to watershed partners, including
federal and state agencies and local watershed groups. It
provides descriptions, application procedures, and dead-
lines for funding and technical assistance programs. In
addition, the network provides information about on-line
and in-person training. For example, the network contains
links to the Environmental Protection Agency's Watershed
Academy (www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/wacademy),
an educational resource that offers many on-line training
modules. Individuals can use the modules at their own
pace to learn about topics including ecology, watershed
planning, and best management practices.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
These efforts notwithstanding, watershed roundtable dis-
cussions consistently note that watershed education pro-
grams are still needed for citizens, watershed groups, cor-
porations, local governments, and government officials. In
a 1998 poll sponsored by the Roper Center for Public
Opinion Research, nearly half of the people surveyed
thought that factories were still the leading cause of water
pollution and did not know how to do more to protect the
environment. Only 22 percent of Americans knew that
nonpoint source pollution is now the nation's leading
water quality challenge and that changes in their everyday
actions could have a positive effect. While watershed edu-
cation programs have had many successes in recent years,
this poll suggests that Americans still do not know the
causes of watershed health impairments and therefore
watershed education programs need still greater emphasis.
Partnerships and Coordination
Watershed practitioners consistently say that effective
partnerships provide the foundation for watershed pro-
tection or restoration activities. Local partnerships drive
most watershed activities. In addition, since governments
own land, regulate activity, and provide assistance, coor-
dination within and among government agencies also
benefits watershed health. Coordinating the actions of
local watershed groups with government agencies
increases efficiency.
Local Watershed Partnerships
Watershed partnerships can include any person or group
interested in watershed health. Typical partnerships
include many watershed stakeholders:
Landowners
Elected officials
Representatives of federal, tribal, state, and local
government agencies
Agricultural organizations
Business organizations
EDUCATING MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS ABOUT NONPOINT
SOURCE POLLUTION
THREATS: NUTRIENTS, SEDIMENTS, CHEMICAL POLLUTANTS
Project NEMO (Nonpoint Education for Municipal
Officials) educates local government decision-makers in
Connecticut about land uses that cause nonpoint source
pollution. The program makes technical presentations to
town engineers, planners, and commissioners and recom-
mends a three-tiered planning strategy based on natural
resources, site design, and stormwater best management
practices. The University of Connecticut Cooperative
Extension System developed the NEMO project in part-
nership with two other units of the university: the
Department of Natural Resources Management and
Engineering and the Connecticut Sea Grant Program.
The University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension
System manages the NEMO program with the assistance
of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Connecticut
Department of Environmental Protection, the
Connecticut chapter of the Nature Conservancy, and
EnviroGraphics, Inc.
BANKING GRASSLANDS TO ENHANCE RANCHING IN
NEW MEXICO
THREAT: HABITAT MODIFICATION
The Valle Grande Grass Bank is a partnership of ranch-
ers, environmentalists, and Forest Service personnel
that rehabilitates hard-used rangelands in northern
New Mexico. Ranchers that overuse rangelands can
increase erosion and displace native species. The grass
bank provides alternative grazing lands so that ranch-
ers can rest and restore their home pastures. The
Conservation Fund, a nonprofit organization, manages
the grass bank. Ranchers deliver their cows to the
grass bank and plant their overused lands with desired
vegetation. Ranchers usually participate in the grass
bank for several growing seasons to allow the new veg-
etation to become established and resilient.
Environmental organizations
Student groups and senior citizen organizations
By including many interest groups, local watershed part-
nerships tap the varied skills of different partners,
increase credibility, reduce duplication of effort, and maxi-
mize results from limited funds.
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
-------
PROTECTING LAKE KEOWEE IN SOUTH CAROLINA
THREATS: NUTRIENTS, CHEMICAL POLLUTION,
SEDIMENTS, PATHOGENS
The Friends of Lake Keowee Society (FOLKS) is a 3,000-
member organization dedicated to protecting regional
lakes in South Carolina. The all-volunteer group has a
diverse membership that includes retirees, scientists,
farmers, realtors, and boat dealers. Every realtor and
boat dealer in the region provides new homeowners and
boat owners with free memberships to FOLKS. The
organization believes that homeowners and boat owners
that use the lake have a vested interest in a healthy lake.
Since the early 1970'$, population growth rates in this
region of South Carolina have increased four-fold.
Increased urban runoff and septic system failure have
accompanied this rapid growth. These changes threaten
the lake's ability to provide drinking water for local
municipalities and attract tourism and recreation.
FOLKS volunteers have worked with state agencies,
Clemson University, and the Appalachian Council of
Governments to secure aerial surveys and maps of lakes,
coordinate sediment and siltation monitoring, and assist
with volunteer water monitoring. This broad coalition is
working vigorously to maintain watershed health in the
Lake Keowee region.
In recent years, local watershed partnerships have grown
in number. The Environmental Protection Agency's
Adopt Your Watershed program (www.epa.gov/adopt)
and River Network (www.rivernetwork.org), a national
nonprofit organization, both recognize over 3,000 local
watershed groups. Citizens increasingly participate in
these efforts because they are increasingly aware of water-
shed health, and state and federal governments increas-
ingly support watershed groups. States such as
Washington, Oregon, and New Jersey encourage water-
shed planning by supporting the establishment of local
watershed councils. All states provide varied funding
and technical assistance for watershed planning efforts.
Various federal agencies also encourage local watershed
efforts with financial and technical support. Local water-
shed efforts often receive federal funding indirectly from
state and tribal grant programs, but they also receive
direct support from federal grant programs. For example,
the Environmental Protection Agency supports local part-
nerships with Watershed Assistance Grants. These small
grants provide seed money for fledgling watershed groups.
The city of Alpine, TX received $25,000 from the Watershed
Assistance Grant program to form a community partner-
ship for the restoration of Alpine Creek. The restored
creek will serve as an urban wildlife refuge and an impor-
tant flood control channel. Other federal agencies support
similar programs, such as the Clean Streams Initiative
sponsored by the Office of Surface Mining. Without such
support, local watershed residents may not have enough
capacity to sustain long-term restoration efforts.
Partnerships in Government
State and federal governments own land, regulate activi-
ties, and provide assistance, and therefore governmental
coordination on these issues benefits watershed health.
Historically, responsibilities for watershed management
have been very fragmented. In recent years, state and
federal programs have reorganized governmental water
programs to adopt a more unified approach. The follow-
ing paragraphs identify many recent improvements to
partnerships in government. However, multiple forums
have observed that governmental coordination needs fur-
ther improvement.
The federal government issued the Unified Federal Policy
for Ensuring a Watershed Approach to Federal Land and
Resource Management in October 2000. The policy guides
management across federal lands and water resources. It
calls for federal agencies to use a watershed approach; to
assess watersheds on federal lands with a common, sci-
ence-based method; to focus federal funding and resources
in jointly selected watersheds; and to enhance collabora-
tion with tribes, states, and interested stakeholders.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
To further coordinate federal resources, regional offices of
federal government agencies established Federal
Coordination Teams, also known as Regional Watershed
Coordination Teams, in twelve large river basins. On
these teams, regional directors of federal agencies work
with federal staff, state and tribal representatives, as well
as nonprofit organizations to improve interagency coordi-
nation and leverage resources. For example, the Mid-
Atlantic Federal Coordination Team signed an agreement
to coordinate government programs to address sprawl
(highlighted in this section).
The Five Star Restoration Grant Program is another exam-
ple of federal coordination. The Environmental Protection
Agency and National Marine Fisheries Service, along with
the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, National
Association of Counties, National Association of Service
and Conservation Corps, and the Wildlife Habitat Council
have jointly developed this program that supports stream-
bank and wetland restoration. The program provides
challenge grants and technical support to community-
based restoration projects. Each project involves five or
more partners- "five stars"-in the restoration effort.
Project partners include local government agencies, elected
officials, community groups, businesses, schools, and envi-
ronmental organizations. Each partner contributes fund-
ing, land, technical assistance, workforce support or other
services to match the federal assistance.
Coordinating Government Assistance
with Local Watershed Actions
State and federal governments coordinate with local
watershed efforts in many ways. The following para-
graphs highlight a few examples.
The Tennessee Valley Authority's Watershed Teams are an
excellent example of federal government coordination
with local watershed efforts. The twelve teams help local
watershed coalitions build capacity, identify priorities,
and implement restoration and protection activities. Each
team serves a specific watershed, learning about local
MID-ATLANTIC FEDERAL COORDINATION TEAM SIGNS
MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT TO ADDRESS SPRAWL
Seven federal agencies committed to protect vital
resources by coordinating federal programs and help-
ing state and local governments implement 25 pilot
projects in the mid-Atlantic region to manage growth.
The pilot projects will use innovative approaches to
achieve the following objectives:
Provide positive incentives for environmentally sen-
sitive development and the conservation and man-
agement of natural lands.
Furnish technical assistance to state and local gov-
ernments in understanding and addressing the
impacts of development practices on the environ-
ment, natural resources, and working resource lands.
Encourage appropriate revitalization of urban resi-
dential communities and redevelopment of aban-
doned commercial, industrial, and brownfields sites.
Eliminate programmatic incentives to harmful
sprawl development.
Reinforce state and local leadership and objectives in
managing growth, creating livable communities, and
protecting natural resources.
The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of
Agriculture, Department of Transportation,
Department of the Army, Department of Commerce,
Department of the Interior, and Department of
Housing and Urban Development signed this agreement.
The mid-Atlantic
region has lost
significant forested
and wetland areas
to environmentally
insensitive subur-
ban development.
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
-------
RESTORING ESTUARINE WETLANDS WITH A
FIVE-STAR PARTNERSHIP
THREAT: HABITAT Loss
People for Puget Sound, a nonprofit organization in
Seattle, Washington, organized a diverse partnership to
restore estuarine habitat for wild Chinook salmon. This
partnership includes volunteer organizations, businesses,
urban youth corps, the Student Conservation
Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Army Corps of Engineers, and the International Marine
Association for Protection of Aquatic Life. The Five Star
Restoration Grant Program awarded a grant to the part-
nership to restore previously altered parkland to tidal
influence. The restored wetlands will provide mudflat
and salt marsh habitat for wild Chinook salmon and
other estuary-dependent species.
resource issues and building community trust. The
Watershed Teams facilitate coalitions among government
agencies, businesses, and community organizations, and
they supply environmental assessments and monitoring
data that help local coalitions establish priorities for
watershed restoration and protection actions. The twelve
teams have helped more than 100 stakeholder groups in
the Tennessee Valley, including many groups founded
with Watershed Team assistance. The Watershed Teams
measure their performance by considering improvements
to watershed health and local success in obtaining public
and private contributions.
In addition to coordinating federal government activities
(discussed under the heading "Partnerships in
Government"), Federal Coordination Teams have also
helped local watershed efforts. For example, the Southeast
Federal Coordination Team provided technical expertise in
environmental assessment, monitoring, and restoration to
the Fliawassee River Watershed Coalition for a project in
Brasstown Creek in western North Carolina. As a result of
the Federal Coordination Team support, the Hiawassee
River Watershed Coalition successfully applied for nearly
two million dollars in funding for this project from the
North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund. The
Federal Coordination Teams have also convened the previ-
ously mentioned regional roundtables to facilitate coordi-
nation among watershed stakeholders from public, pri-
vate, and nonprofit sectors. Roundtable participants have
shared information about successful projects and explored
new ideas. More than twenty regional roundtables have
been conducted, and the National Watershed Forum in
June 2001 will bring together regional participants and
perspectives.
Local watershed groups recognize the efforts of govern-
ments to assist them, but many practitioners suggest that
governments can still better organize their support for
local actions. For example, watershed data, technical
assistance, and financial assistance remain disorganized
within state and federal departments, and organization
across departments is rare. In addition, many govern-
ment programs lack an effective point of contact for
watershed groups.
Assessing Partnership Success
While watershed practitioners suggest that partnerships are
the most important element of any watershed effort, their
progress in forming and successfully utilizing partnerships
may be gradual. Stakeholders often hold different views,
interests, and responsibilities, so trust and mutual under-
standing may be slow to develop. Even after watershed
stakeholders form functioning, sustainable partnerships,
the partnerships may not produce immediate, tangible
environmental results. Because the process of improving
watershed health is usually a gradual one, it is difficult to
assess the success of watershed partnerships. Nonetheless,
most evaluations of watershed partnerships suggest that
their efforts can improve coordination, use resources more
efficiently, and make decisions more effectively.
Monitoring and Research
Watershed monitoring and research provide information
about watershed health, watershed function, and the
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
impacts of human actions. Watershed monitoring evalu-
ates the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics
of watersheds. Water chemistry monitoring is the most
traditional and common monitoring program.
Monitoring of physical watershed characteristics such as
sediment loading or channel stability is more rare.
Biological monitoring is most rare. Biological monitoring
evaluates the diversity of living organisms and is consid-
ered by many experts to be the most complete measure of
watershed health. All three methods of monitoring help
to identify specific impairments and threats to watershed
health. Watershed groups use this information to under-
stand threats to watersheds and prioritize their efforts.
Watershed research explains how watershed ecosystems
work and how they can vary. Research also assesses the
results of watershed protection and restoration activities.
Ideally, this research informs future watershed actions.
Monitoring programs organized by local watershed
groups, states, tribes, and federal agencies contribute
valuable information to watershed management efforts.
For example, the Environmental Protection Agency col-
lects water quality data from states and synthesizes the
data for the biannual National Water Quality Inventory
and the List of Impaired Waters. The U.S. Geological
Volunteer monitoring programs contribute valuable
information to watershed management efforts.
Survey's National Water
Quality Assessment pro-
gram makes selected
measurements of water
quality in sixty river
basins and aquifer sys-
tems. The breadth and
consistency of this moni-
toring program allow for
nationally consistent
assessments. The
National Water Quality
Assessment program
recently released a
report assessing pesti-
cide and nutrient levels
in these sixty watersheds
and will soon release
further assessments.
The Fish and Wildlife
Service has developed
National Wetland
Inventory maps for more
than 90 percent of the contiguous United States. The maps
are available for wetland trend analysis and watershed
planning. The Natural Resources Conservation Service
inventories resources on private lands. The Forest Service
monitors the size, health, and location of the nation's
forests and woodlands.
The U.S. Geological Survey also works with states, local
governments, and tribes to collect watershed data and
develop research projects. Projects have delineated drink-
ing water source areas; assessed water quality in lakes,
rivers, and estuaries; monitored best-management prac-
tices; and identified sources of microbial contamination.
In a separate program, the U.S. Geological Survey has
established research partnerships with 51 universities.
Improved water quality models provide an interesting
intersection of watershed monitoring and research. The
U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Quality
Water chemistry monitoring is
the most traditional and common
type of monitoring performed.
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
-------
MONITORING SOURCE WATER FOR HERBICIDE
CONTAMINATION IN PENNSYLVANIA
THREAT: HERBICIDES
The Philadelphia Suburban Water Company intakes
water in the lower Neshaminy Creek watershed in east-
ern Pennsylvania. The watershed is largely suburban,
but approximately 15 percent of the watershed remains
agricultural. The water company works with the Bucks
County Conservation District and the Penn State
Cooperative Extension Service to reduce levels of herbi-
cides occurring in peak spring runoff.
This partnership is trying to quantify the problem with a
concentrated monitoring program. Philadelphia
Suburban tests samples hourly at the treatment plant
after significant rainfall events between May 15 and June
30. The water company also collects grab samples from
key sites in the watershed. The Bucks County
Conservation District and the Penn State Cooperative
Extension Service organize forums at which the water
company shares this information with local farmers.
The information encourages farmers to follow herbicide
application instructions and adopt relevant best manage-
ment practices.
Assessment program is developing promising models of
nationwide surface water quality. The Environmental
Protection Agency is testing models that predict pesticide
occurrence in streams and reservoirs.
Despite the many national monitoring programs, more
and better data are needed. Watershed practitioners find
that data are often incomplete because of limitations and
differences in various local, state, tribal, and federal moni-
toring programs. For example, the Environmental
Protection Agency's 2998 National Water Quality Inventory
reflected state, tribal, and territory monitoring of only 23
percent of the nation's rivers and streams, 42 percent of
the nation's lakes, ponds, and reservoirs, and five percent
of the nation's ocean shoreline miles. The new "Coastal
Research and Monitoring Strategy" a cooperative product
of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
the U.S. Geological Survey, the Department of
Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency,
notes that coastal waters lack consistent, comprehensive
monitoring data. Many watersheds lack data about habi-
tat quality. Few monitoring programs consider biological
indicators of watershed health.
Also, many national and state monitoring programs pro-
vide data for watersheds that encompass hundreds of
square miles, whereas local actions require data related to
an individual town or a specific stream reach. The exist-
ing watershed data are often uncoordinated and inconsis-
tent. Local monitoring data, state monitoring data, and
federal monitoring data may be incompatible. As a result,
watershed groups may be unable to analyze trends in
watershed health.
Watershed research, too, has significant gaps. For exam-
ple, research is just beginning to explore linkages among
watershed components-rivers, wetlands, floodplains,
upland areas, groundwater, and the atmosphere. Because
watershed management requires an interdisciplinary
approach, more research is needed to explore integrating
biology, chemistry, and physics with the social sciences.
Also needed is greater understanding of the public health
and environmental impacts of chemical mixtures, chemi-
cal degradation products, and emerging contaminants
such as endocrine disrupters and pharmaceuticals.
Watershed models with greater accuracy and reliability
would be very useful for this purpose and many others.
Models can serve to reduce the overall costs of perform-
ing monitoring.
Practitioners ultimately need research that assesses indi-
vidual projects. Such research could help practitioners
understand the long-term effects of restoration and pro-
tection projects and the factors that most influence project
success or failure.
Planning and Prioritization
Watershed planning and prioritization activities guide
public and private actions in a watershed. They ensure
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
that restoration actions are focused, coordinated, and effi-
cient. State, federal, and tribal governments often estab-
lish broad plans and priorities. Local land use and water-
shed planning efforts address smaller-scale issues.
In 1998 and 1999, states, tribes, and territories developed
Unified Watershed Assessments that identified water-
sheds most in need of restoration. The Unified Watershed
Assessments were developed quickly with available infor-
mation. Since these state, tribal, and territorial assess-
ments required collaboration and agreement across gov-
ernment programs, their compilation is the nation's most
comprehensive statement of watershed priorities. In
developing Unified Watershed Assessments, participants
used resources such as state lists of impaired and threat-
ened waters, federal and state lists of endangered species,
and data from nonprofit organizations. States, territories,
and tribes determined that 60 percent of the nation's
watersheds do not meet clean water and other natural
resource goals requiring restoration action. They also
determined that 15 percent of the watersheds need pre-
ventive action to sustain water quality and aquatic
resources. Participants are developing watershed restora-
tion action strategies for many of their highest priority
watersheds. These comprehensive watershed plans allow
governments to target funding and technical assistance to
watersheds with the greatest needs.
The National Estuary Program's Comprehensive
Conservation and Management Plan process provides a
model of regional watershed planning and priority set-
ting. Representatives of government, industry, and public
interest groups work together to develop comprehensive
plans for estuary activities. These plans reflect the priori-
ties of estuary stakeholders. They strive to conserve and
enhance the natural, cultural, recreational, social, and eco-
nomic resources of each watershed.
Local planning increasingly considers an array of envi-
ronmental issues. Local ordinances have always
addressed traditional issues such as building density and
land use, but in the past they have not reflected environ-
mental concerns. Zoning decisions impact watersheds by
RESEARCHING THE MANAGEMENT OF FRESHWATER
INPUTS TO ROOKERY BAY
THREAT: PHYSICAL BARRIERS
The 25 reserves in the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's National Estuarine
Research Reserve System monitor estuarine trends in
21 states and territories. The Rookery Bay Reserve
(Florida) is studying how freshwater inflows affect fish
species and how these inflows can be mitigated.
Research by the Florida Department of Environmental
Protection indicates that Hurricane Andrew and other
major storm events altered the estuary's freshwater
inflows, damaging habitats within the reserve. These
alterations had immediate and long-term impacts on
the food chain by harming species eaten by commer-
cially and recreationally important fish.
Human impacts, such as dam or weir construction,
alter the flow of freshwater and nutrients into estuar-
ies. When storms threaten upstream flooding, fresh-
water is released downstream. The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine
Fisheries Service awarded funding to the Rookery Bay
Reserve to restore natural freshwater inflow patterns
during storm events. The reserve proposes to comput-
erize a weir on Henderson Creek to allow for more nat-
ural flow of freshwater into the estuary. The reserve
hopes that this project will enable other water man-
agement districts to manage water flow similarly.
FOUR ADVANTAGES OF THE UNIFIED WATERSHED
ASSESSMENT APPROACH
PROVIDED BY THE MARYLAND DEPARTMENT
OF THE ENVIRONMENT
1. Allowed the state to build on an existing analytical
framework that it had been developing.
2. Gave the state an opportunity to go beyond tradi-
tional water quality issues and perform a truly inte-
grated assessment of its watersheds, including habi-
tat, landscape, and human-related factors.
3. Encouraged the state to bring together a truly
diverse group of agencies and individuals that histor-
ically had not collaborated on management efforts.
4. Focused restoration in an integrated, watershed-
based manner.
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
-------
influencing the location of commercial, residential, and
industrial buildings in communities. For example, con-
struction in a floodplain often reduces wetland acreage,
and environmentally oriented zoning plans attempt to
prevent or mitigate these impacts. Local land trusts and
national land conservation organizations preserve open
space in watersheds benefiting species, water quality, and
the community. In these examples and many more, local
planning has important consequences for the health of
local watersheds and economies. The Environmental
Protection Agency has posted model ordinances on the
webpage "Model Ordinances to Protect Local Resources"
(www.epa.gov/owow/nps/ordinance).
MANAGING THE SAN MIGUEL WATERSHED THROUGH
COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT
THREATS: FLOW MODIFICATION, SPECIES Loss,
NUTRIENTS, SEDIMENTS
Stakeholders in the San Miguel Watershed in southwest
Colorado began a comprehensive watershed manage-
ment approach in 1990. Numerous studies, including
rare plant and animal surveys, instream flow studies, a
fish survey, a land health assessment, a hazardous waste
inventory, water quality studies, and river restoration
studies assessed the condition of the watershed. A broad
coalition of partners used information from the studies
and public meetings to draft a watershed management
plan. This plan will conserve and enhance the natural,
cultural, recreational, social, and economic resources of
the watershed.
The management plan strives to reduce impacts to the
watershed from large-scale development. Large-scale
development can cause excessive nutrient inputs, heavy
sedimentation, and erosion. As a result of accompanying
population increases, communities often over-appropriate
water and reduce instream flows. To address this problem,
the San Miguel Board of County Commissioners has placed
new stipulations on construction, sewage disposal, fertiliz-
er use, blasting, and new roads in the watershed. These
stipulations helped San Miguel County earn an
Environmental Protection Agency Outstanding
Achievement Award and a National Association of Counties
Award for community-based ecosystem protection.
Despite many successful planning and prioritization
efforts nationwide, watershed activities remain difficult to
organize and integrate. Various government agencies and
stakeholder groups address different issues at different
scales.
For example, it is not clear that the Unified Watershed
Assessment process has improved coordination within
state and federal governments. Although these assess-
ments are state-wide, multi-program statements of water-
shed priorities, many government funding and technical
assistance programs have not used them to target their
resources. Federal agencies do not consistently integrate
voluntary programs (e.g., the Environmental Protection
Agency's nonpoint source management program, the
Department of Agriculture's Environmental Quality
Incentives Program) or regulations (e.g., regulations for
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) in the identi-
fied priority watersheds. In addition, stakeholders in
high priority watersheds have not consistently imple-
mented restoration action strategies. These priority
watersheds need greater attention from watershed practi-
tioners and these practitioners may require more financial
and technical assistance to successfully implement the
restoration action strategies. The process of developing
statewide water quality and habitat assessments has,
however, fostered greater collaboration between state
agencies and amongst all decision-makers. The process
may therefore serve as the starting point for the develop-
ment of comprehensive natural resource assessments in
the future.
Many local planning efforts and land use ordinances still
need revision. For example, at a roundtable meeting for
southeastern states, seven of nine state delegations identi-
fied land use planning and zoning as their highest priori-
ties. They found that existing planning efforts and zoning
ordinances often fail to protect watersheds and sometimes
encourage watershed degradation. Many zoning laws
unintentionally encourage urban sprawl and discourage
investment in inner cities. For watershed management to
be effective, these local issues must be addressed.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
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Funding and Technical Assistance
Funding and technical assistance provide local watershed
groups with the means to protect and restore watersheds.
Watershed management requires that work be done and
materials and services be purchased. Watershed actions
require both human and financial resources. Governmental,
nonprofit, or private sources provide this support.
The federal government has many funding programs that
support watershed actions. The Environmental Protection
Agency's recent revision of the Catalog of Federal Funding
Sources for Watershed Protection (www.epa.gov/win/
resources/html) identifies 69 federal grant or loan pro-
grams from twelve federal departments and agencies. The
catalog indexes the programs by name, agency, and key-
word. These funding opportunities are critical, but many
are limited to specific purposes, recipients, or geographic
areas, and some offer minimal funding.
The array of funding resources for watershed manage-
ment can overwhelm watershed groups. However, envi-
ronmental finance centers at nine universities provide
publications, analyses of financing alternatives, training,
and technical assistance. The environmental finance cen-
ters at the University of Maryland and Boise State
The Natural Resources Conservation Service provides direct
technical assistance to farmers across the nation.
PLANNING FOR IMPROVED WATER QUALITY WITH
NEW GRADING ORDINANCES IN MAUI, HAWAII
THREATS: SEDIMENTS, NUTRIENTS
Maui County includes the islands of Maui, Molokai, and
Lanai. Hawaii's Department of Health considers the
waters of West Maui, Kahului Harbor, and the South
Molokai Shoreline to be impaired because they often
exceed nutrient and turbidity standards. The county
has identified construction and grading projects as a
primary source of water quality problems.
In August 1998, the Maui County Council revised its
grading ordinances. The county now requires that all
grading work use erosion control and sediment best
management practices. The county informed the pub-
lic, the construction industry, general contractors, gov-
ernment officials and inspectors, and Soil and Water
Conservation District officials about the new ordinance,
effective erosion control plans, and new technologies.
This program has inspired other counties in the state to
consider similar ordinances.
University develop workshops for local governments that
discuss watershed financing alternatives. The
Environmental Protection Agency's National Estuary
Program is also conducting workshops that discuss
financing alternatives for estuary plan implementation
activities. These programs help watershed practitioners
identify and exploit creative financing opportunities.
The federal government recently enhanced some financial
assistance programs for watershed protection and restora-
tion activities. The Department of Agriculture's
Conservation Reserve Program now provides greater
financial incentives to farmers that retire environmentally
sensitive cropland. These incentives include rental pay-
ments, cost-share payments for best management prac-
tices, and technical assistance. The recent Transportation
Equity Act for the 21st Century provides billions of dol-
lars for transportation improvements, including environ-
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
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RESTORING WETLANDS WITH TRANSPORTATION
FUNDS IN MISSISSIPPI
THREAT: WETLAND Loss
In 1990, the Mississippi Department of Transportation
purchased State Line Bog and Dead Dog Bog, two wet-
lands on 360 acres in southeast Mississippi. The
Department of Transportation used Transportation
Equity Act grant funds to work with the Mississippi
Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and the Mississippi
Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks to restore
the bogs. The restoration project is designed to offset
unavoidable wetland impacts that will occur during the
construction of Mississippi highways. Paper companies
had owned these properties and degraded the habitat by
draining the bogs and harvesting their trees.
Project partners backfilled drainage ditches to restore
wetland hydrology and used periodic prescribed burns to
gradually remove logging debris and create an appropri-
ate vegetative structure. These changes are restoring
the insectivorous pitch-
er plant communities
that once dominated
the bogs.
The Mississippi
Department of
Transportation used
Transportation Equity
Act grant funds to restore
wetlands with rare insec-
tivorous pitcher plant
communities.
mental protection and restoration projects. This act and
an earlier act, the Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency Act, have created and protected many acres of
wetlands with mitigation projects. In the last four years,
states have restored or created 2.4 acres of wetlands for
each acre that has been unavoidably impacted by trans-
portation projects.
In the same period, the Department of the Interior's Office
of Surface Mining has more than doubled its funding for
the Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative. This program
addresses acid mine drainage, nonpoint source pollution
from abandoned coal mines. The program has provided
$20 million as seed money for 99 projects in 11 states. In
the last few years, the Environmental Protection Agency's
nonpoint source grants program has doubled its assis-
tance to states and tribes to nearly $240 million. The
Agency's Clean Water State Revolving Fund provides
loans for many types of watershed protection and restora-
tion projects, including wastewater, stormwater, nonpoint
source, and estuary protection projects. The program
manages more than $34 billion in assets.
While the federal government has enhanced and expanded
existing funding programs, it has also developed entirely
new programs. For example, the federal government
developed both the Five-Star Restoration Grant program
and the Watershed Assistance Grants program in 1998.
The Environmental Protection Agency's Watershed
Assistance Grants program supports local watershed part-
nerships during their development and contributes to
watershed protection and restoration actions. In 1999 and
2000, the program awarded more than one million dollars
to 60 projects. The demand for these grants far exceeds
available resources: in 2000 alone, 400 proposals from local
groups in 46 states requested nearly nine million dollars.
One source of technical information for watershed efforts
is the Stream Corridor Restoration Handbook
(www.usda.gov/stream_restoration). The document pres-
ents current knowledge of stream corridors and stream
corridor restoration. Fifteen federal agencies and other
watershed groups developed this document to address
many stream corridor restoration scenarios.
Other technical assistance programs support private
landowners. The Natural Resources Conservation Service
provides direct technical assistance programs to farmers
across the nation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program works with
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
landowners to restore watersheds by planting native
species, removing invasive species, improving wetland
hydrology, and reconstructing in-stream aquatic habitat.
Landowner interest in the Partners for Fish and Wildlife
program exceeds the program's resources.
The financial assistance programs highlighted in these
paragraphs will help to protect and restore watershed
health, but further assistance is still needed. Recent stud-
ies by the Environmental Protection Agency suggest that
communities will need billions of dollars over the next
twenty years to upgrade and maintain their wastewater
treatment infrastructure.
Watershed practitioners at the Regional Watershed
Roundtables suggest that, compared to watershed needs,
watershed assistance programs are modest. Many of
these practitioners suggest that substantial increases in
funding and technical assistance are necessary, including
additional grant and loan programs. The watershed prac-
titioners noted that technical assistance programs cannot
meet the demand for on-the-ground implementation of
protection and restoration measures. Most federal agen-
cies lack field-level, watershed-based personnel. Private
practitioners increasingly provide technical assistance,
but local stakeholders cannot always secure assistance
when they need it most. Practitioners at the roundtables
asked for expanded federal and state programs that are
less restrictive and provide more financial and technical
support for local watershed efforts.
In addition, watershed practitioners note that specific ele-
ments of watershed management are typically overlooked
in assistance programs. Watershed groups struggle to
secure funding for staff salaries, monitoring and research,
and project evaluation and maintenance because many
assistance programs are restricted from supporting these
activities. While federal laws place restrictions on some
programs, many agencies develop other restrictions them-
selves. Federal, tribal, and state assistance programs do
not effectively coordinate their efforts to target priority
watershed problems. Multiple mandates and conflicting
RESTORING BOTTOMLAND HARDWOOD WETLANDS IN
ARKANSAS WITH THE WETLANDS RESERVE PROGRAM
THREAT: WETLAND Loss
The Raft Creek Bottoms in northeast Arkansas was
once an extensive tract of bottomland hardwood for-
est. Bottomland hardwood forests are especially valu-
able for wildlife breeding, nesting, and habitat. In the
19605 and 19705, landowners converted most of the
Raft Creek Bottoms to cropland. In recent years,
landowners have worked to reverse these actions.
With the help of the Department of Agriculture's
Wetlands Reserve Program, landowners have restored
the 3,000 acres in the Raft Creek Bottoms.
Landowners planted bottomland hardwoods in approx-
imately 70 percent of the area while creating the
largest manmade herbaceous wetland in Arkansas on
the remaining 30 percent of the tract. Waterfowl by
the thousands now visit the bottomlands in the winter.
Shorebirds and water birds that recently were rarely
seen are now common sights on these tracts.
The Department of Agriculture's Wetland Reserve
Program is a voluntary program that offers landowners
financial incentives to protect, restore, and enhance
wetlands on their property. Landowners that partici-
pate in the program may sell a conservation easement
to the Department of Agriculture-the landowner limits
future use of the land, yet retains private ownership.
Landowners may also receive cost-share funding from
the Department for wetlands restoration activities. In
this case, landowners and the Natural Resources
Conservation Service developed plans for wetland
restoration and protection. Landowners continue to
control access to the land and may lease the land for
hunting, fishing, and other undeveloped recreational
activities. The program has enrolled 915,000 acres
nationally since 1996.
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
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^^^^.^
scientific evidence stymie attempts to focus limited fund-
ing and technical outreach. Further coordination of gov-
ernmental assistance opportunities will help local water-
shed groups navigate their way through the many pro-
grams in many offices of many departments that have dif-
ferent eligibilities, requirements, and application schedules.
Implementation
In this report, implementation describes actions that bene-
ficially impact watershed health. Citizen stakeholders, the
private sector, and government agencies implement these
actions. Implementation includes pollution prevention,
wastewater treatment, wetland restoration, enforcement,
invasive species control, and critical habitat protection.
STOPPING THE SPREAD OF THE TAMARISK ON THE
MOJAVE RIVER, CALIFORNIA
THREAT: INVASIVE SPECIES
The Mojave River flows above ground year-round in the
Afton Canyon of the southern California Desert. The
above ground flow provides riparian wildlife habitat
amid the desert. However, the salt cedar, or tamarisk,
has invaded this habitat, drastically reducing wildlife
populations near the river. A native of the
Mediterranean region, the salt cedar creates an environ-
ment that is too salty for California's native plants. It
has replaced much of the native vegetation and offers lit-
tle food or shelter to wildlife. The salt cedar also con-
sumes large volumes of water, reducing the amount
available to other plants, fish, and wildlife.
Working with local conservation districts, the Natural
Resources Conservation Service, the Army Corps of
Engineers, and other partners, the Bureau of Land
Management is removing salt cedar and replacing it with
native vegetation. To date, the Bureau of Land
Management has treated more than 300 acres of
tamarisk and planted over 7,000 native willows and cot-
tonwoods along the Mojave River. Native wildlife is
returning to the banks of the Mojave River after a
decade's absence.
This report frequently mentions "watershed protection
and restoration." National watershed health depends on
both watershed protection and watershed restoration.
However, watershed practitioners note that watershed
protection (the prevention of degradation) is more cost-
effective and more likely to succeed than watershed
restoration. Practitioners also note that "restored" water-
sheds are rarely as ecologically valuable as protected
watersheds. Nonetheless, watershed restoration is neces-
sary because many of the nation's watersheds are already
degraded.
Federal agencies account for watershed protection and
restoration actions in many ways. For example, the Fish
and Wildlife Service estimates that it has protected or
restored more than 325 million acres of wetlands as part
of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. The
Service estimates that in the last five years it has also
helped to protect more than 160,000 acres of coastal habi-
tat and reopen more than 2,200 miles of streams to
anadromous fish. The Department of Agriculture reports
that in the last four years it has created nearly one million
miles of conservation buffers and restored nearly one mil-
lion acres of wetlands. Working with state agencies and
other partners, the Bureau of Land Management, the
Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and
the U.S. Geological Survey are restoring 120 abandoned
mine sites in 12 states as part of the Interdepartmental
Abandoned Mine Land Watershed Cleanup Initiative.
While new programs often command attention, long-
standing programs are more important than ever for
watershed health. For example, the National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System requires that states and
regional offices of the Environmental Protection Agency
issue permits to effluent dischargers, providing a baseline
of protection for waterbodies everywhere. Even as water-
shed efforts do more to alleviate nonpoint source pollu-
tion, watershed health depends on permits that manage
point sources. However, some Watershed Roundtable
stakeholders suggest that governments do not sufficiently
enforce regulatory programs. The Green Gauge 2000, an
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
annual survey tracking the American public's attitudes on
environmental issues, confirmed stakeholder concerns by
noting that public support for strengthening environmen-
tal regulations has been increasing over the past decade.
In 2000, nearly half of the surveyed population agreed
with the statement, "environmental regulations do not go
far enough." Compliance and enforcement activities are
necessary to prevent watershed degradation and to iden-
tify violations of environmental laws.
Three exemplary projects are highlighted among these
paragraphs about implementation. Many other water-
shed projects deserve similar recognition. Other docu-
ments, such as Watershed Success Stories (www.cleanwa-
ter.gov/success) offer more examples of successful imple-
mentation projects.
Not all watershed protection and restoration efforts are
successful. Watershed stakeholders often do not fully
implement solutions to watershed problems for many
years, if at all. Partnerships can break down, priorities can
change, and funding can cease, causing implementation to
be stymied. Sometimes watershed efforts are adversely
affected by droughts or storms. Even when successfully
completed, many restoration projects are poorly main-
tained, negating their previously positive impact.
CONTROLLING SALINITY IN THE COLORADO
RIVER BASIN
THREAT: SALINITY
The Colorado River and its tributaries provide munici-
pal and industrial water for more than 23 million peo-
ple in seven states and irrigation water for nearly 4
million acres of land. The threat of salinity is a major
concern to agricultural, municipal, and industrial users
in both the United States and the Republic of Mexico.
Damages in Mexico are not quantified, but damages in
the United States typically range between $500 million
and $750 million per year. In the Colorado River Basin
Salinity Control Program, the Bureau of Reclamation,
the Bureau of Land Management, the Natural
Resources Conservation Service, and seven states are
implementing salinity control projects that cost-effec-
tively remove salt from river water. The program con-
structs desalination plants, intercepts groundwater
before it flows through saline formations, implements
water conservation measures, establishes more strin-
gent control measures at oil and gas development
sites, seals flowing saline wells, and provides technical
and financial assistance to land users for salinity reduc-
tion practices. Control measures are preventing
approximately 500,000 tons of salt from entering the
river system.
RESTORING DEGRADED STREAMBANKS ON CHEROKEE LANDS IN NORTH CAROLINA
THREATS: HABITAT Loss, EROSION
Increased erosion, sedimentation, and habitat degradation caused by development, recreation, and urbanization have
impaired the Oconaluftee and Ravens Fork Rivers in western North Carolina. The watershed is a popular area for tourists
and is also an important source of revenue for local communities, especially the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.
The Cherokee Tribe has worked with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture's
Natural Resources Conservation Service to plan, design, and implement best management practices for stream
restoration, and to educate area landowners about watershed protection techniques. The Tennessee Valley
Authority and Western Carolina University have collected and analyzed sedimentation data to identify restoration
sites. Work has begun on restoration projects and on implementing a new Erosion Control Ordinance and an
Integrated Resource Management Plan.
Restoration activities on the Oconaluftee and Ravens Fork Rivers have already yielded results. For example, at one
site restoration actions have slowed stream flow near the riverbanks, and they are rebuilding naturally. The river
has deposited six inches of new sediment along the banks and riparian vegetation is thriving.
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
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EVALUATING DRINKING WATER PROTECTION
MEASURES IN IOWA
THREATS: PATHOGENS, SEDIMENTS, NUTRIENTS
Lake Fisher is the primary source of drinking water for
Bloomfield, Iowa. Excessive inputs of sediments and
nutrients are reducing lake capacity and increasing
drinking water treatment costs. To address this situa-
tion, landowners have treated 900 acres of land in the
watershed with a combination of terraces, water and
sediment control basins, ponds, and constructed wet-
lands. Septic system improvements have also reduced
bacterial inputs to the lake. Preliminary results for this
project have been striking. Agricultural best manage-
ment practices have reduced the sediment load reach-
ing Lake Fisher by 60 percent. Nutrients, pesticides,
and organic materials flowing into the lake have been
reduced by 50 percent. Septic system improvements
have reduced bacteria flowing to the lake by 50 percent.
EVALUATING RIPARIAN RESTORATION IN COYOTE
CREEK, CALIFORNIA
THREAT: HABITAT Loss
The San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory at the south end
of San Francisco Bay uses mist-netting, point counts,
area searches, and nest-finding to evaluate riparian corri-
dor restoration projects. The program monitors bird use
of these managed riparian corridors by comparing data
from their long-term reference site (Coyote Creek Field
Station) to other restoration sites. The Observatory uses
these bird data in conjunction with vegetation data to
assess the success of the restoration sites, to make man-
agement recommendations, and to study the use of
urban riparian sites. The program plans to monitor the
reference site for at least the
next 40 years. It will document
changes in the avian populations
over time as the site matures.
The San Francisco Bay Bird
Observatory is studying bird popula-
tions (e.g. Rufous Hummingbird) as
an indicator of the success of riparian
corridor restoration projects.
Evaluation
Watershed practitioners evaluate implementation actions
to assess their effectiveness. Evaluations can consider the
environmental impact of individual projects, watershed-
wide efforts, state initiatives, or national programs.
Proper evaluation ensures that watershed efforts duplicate
effective projects and programs and eliminate or modify
less effective projects and programs. Watershed efforts
that continually evaluate their work tend to achieve more
positive results and can objectively demonstrate those
results. Unfortunately, project-level and watershed-level
evaluations of the environmental impacts of restoration
efforts are not common. Some projects, however, includ-
ing the two highlighted in this section, provide excellent
exceptions.
At larger scales, some states and regional organizations
produce useful and innovative environmental perform-
ance scorecards. For example, Florida recently developed
a water quality and natural resource performance report
(www.dep.state.fl.us/ospp/report) that the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection issues on a quar-
terly basis. The report tracks environmental trends that
are directly impacted by Florida's environmental pro-
grams. Florida's Department of Environmental Protection
expects that the report will help it enhance and replicate
successful efforts and change those that are not working
as intended.
Federal agencies and departments are also increasingly
evaluating their efforts with objective, environmentally
focused measures. For example, the Tennessee Valley
Authority's Watershed Teams monitor water quality rat-
ings in the 603 watersheds managed by the Tennessee
Valley Authority. In recent years, water quality ratings
have improved in 210 of the 603 watersheds.
Despite this progress, many existing measurement tools
and environmental indicators are complex and have only
indirect linkages to on-the-ground changes. Efforts to
improve these tools often have to overcome organization-
al inertia to replace traditional measurement approaches.
Improved evaluation techniques are needed to objectively
demonstrate the success or failure of watershed protection
and restoration efforts.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
INTEGRATING THE THEMES OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT: THE AMD&ART PROJECT
THREATS: CHEMICAL POLLUTANTS/ HABITAT Loss
Acid mine drainage (AMD) is the most widespread and damaging environmental problem for Appalachia, as well as
one of the region's worst economic and social problems. AMD&ART, a small non-profit organization, develops water-
shed treatment systems that are also recreational sites, art parks, educational centers, and historical exhibits. Their
projects reach people, restore nature, and clean water. The "ART" in AMD&ART is not an acronym. It represents the
art of blending disciplines in the design process and orchestrating citizens, contributors, and governmental agencies.
This example highlights all seven
components of the watershed
approach discussed in this report.
A pilot project in Vintondale,
Pennsylvania is designing a com-
munity park to fulfill environmen-
tal, recreational, and educational
needs. This project is developing
new partnerships and increasing
coordination. More than 10 per-
cent of the Vintondale population
has gathered for regular meetings
with AMD&ART artists, historians,
and scientists to discuss project
planning and prioritization. The
resulting design proposal incorpo-
rates ideas from everyone that
contributed to the process.
Participation in the process is
increasing public awareness of
economic and environmental
issues. The project has initiated
school education programs and
service projects for students of all ages in surrounding communities. Diverse partners such as the Environmental
Protection Agency, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, AmeriCorps, and private foundations have
contributed technical support and more than $400,000 in funding to the project. Monitoring and research efforts
include volunteer water quality monitoring, AMD&ART staff-conducted biological surveys, and university-conduct-
ed surveys of community attitudes, knowledge, and behavior. Twenty-five percent of the town's population gath-
ered for the project's groundbreaking-the symbolic beginning of implementation efforts. Many aspects of project
implementation have already begun, including the development of a 35-acre site that includes a wetlands treat-
ment system for acid mine drainage. Evaluation efforts are measuring environmental change and social and eco-
nomic benefits. These results will allow other communities with similar discharges and environmental conditions
to build upon Vintondale's successes. The AMD&ART project is a model for a new partnership between the
Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining and the National Endowment for the Arts. This partnership will
remediate acid mine drainage with similar artful, community-driven approaches throughout eastern coal country.
VJNTON JA]
The Vittondale Site Plan: (1) History Wetlands; (2) Community Recreation;
3) AMD Treatment System and Litmus Garden
How is the Watershed Approach Working?
-------
What Can be
Done to Improve
Progress?
Quick as my Thought
Rachel Rees
Age 8
Submitted Independently
Susanville, California
This last section summarizes ideas and actions to
improve watershed management from roundtable
participants, reinvention team members, academic
evaluators, and government-sponsored studies and
reports. The section organizes these recommendations
with the same seven themes used by the previous section.
Implementation of these recommendations will require
the collaboration of diverse stakeholders in the public and
private sectors. A more detailed discussion of potential
actions follows each set of recommendations.
Education and Awareness
Recommendations
Ensure that key groups receive environmental education:
Local decision-makers, such as municipal officials,
mayors, and county councilpersons
Students
Real estate, agricultural, and industrial organizations
Use modern technology and multi-media campaigns to
enhance education and awareness programs
Discussion
As noted in the fourth section of this report, most
Americans do not understand how watershed health is
threatened and degraded. Many others do not under-
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
stand how they can improve watershed health. As a
result, the collective actions of individuals significantly
impair our nation's water resources.
Education and awareness efforts should build on previous
successes. Many programs attempt to reach a broad audi-
ence, but education and awareness programs should give
special attention to a few key groups. Education and
awareness programs should target local decision-makers
because they can change local land use policies.
Watershed groups should develop peer education pro-
grams for agricultural stakeholders, real estate developers,
and industrial organizations because these programs have
proven to be effective.
Student education programs are a long-term investment in
an environmentally aware citizenry. State and federal
agencies should expand efforts to encourage use of envi-
ronmental curricula; many excellent and proven curricula
are rarely used. Teachers need training, and schools should
consider flexible, interdisciplinary learning approaches.
Studies suggest that thematic, action-oriented environmen-
tal education can improve academic achievement in many
subjects, reduce discipline problems, and motivate students.
Education programs should continue to use modern tech-
nology. The Watershed Information Network organizes
information about watershed resources in one location on
the internet. Its sponsors are expanding the network and
improving the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the
information presented. Watershed education campaigns
should increase their use of computer imaging technolo-
gy. For example, television weather reports can use
watershed maps to depict floods and droughts, and relat-
ed features can demonstrate how common activities such
as fertilizing a lawn impact watershed health (highlighted
in this section). These types of projects can expand public
awareness of how watersheds function.
USING MODERN TECHNOLOGY DURING
WEATHER REPORTS
The National Environmental Education and Training
Foundation hopes to advance public awareness of
watershed issues through television weather reports.
It is anticipated that in 2001 the weather report on
WRC-TV NBC4 in Washington, DC will depict events
such as oil spills, plumes of polluted runoff, floods, and
droughts with three-dimensional maps of the
Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River watersheds. An
accompanying website will link viewers to real-time
water quality monitoring data, volunteer monitoring
data, and tips on reducing water pollution. If the pro-
gram is successful, the National Environmental
Education and Training Foundation will reproduce it in
major cities around the country.
Partnerships and Coordination
Recommendations
Continue to develop broad partnerships for watershed
protection and restoration:
Enhance university-based service-learning networks to
connect students and educators with local watershed
groups
Foster greater coordination of government agencies for
watershed protection and restoration:
Implement the Unified Federal Policy
Continue to facilitate government assistance to state,
tribal, and local watershed practitioners with Federal
Coordination Teams
Improve the delivery of information and support to local
watershed efforts:
Establish points of contact for federal, tribal, and
state agencies
Expand and enhance the Watershed Information Network
Convene a federal-level workgroup to discuss further
opportunities for improvement
What Can be Done to Improve Progress?
-------
Discussion
The nation has supported many watershed partnerships
in recent years. And yet, because governments have tra-
ditionally divided watershed management responsibili-
ties, partnership and coordination efforts may still pro-
vide the greatest opportunities for improvements to
watershed management.
Many stakeholders participate in local watershed efforts,
and state and federal governments should continue to
encourage and support these partnerships. Universities
can play a larger role in watershed management efforts.
Academic institutions should assist watershed efforts with
relevant research, monitoring, assessment, planning, pri-
ority-setting, implementation, and education programs.
Federal agencies should support service-learning net-
works that link skilled students and faculty with water-
shed groups.
Government coordination efforts should build on recent
successes. Federal Coordination Teams should continue
to integrate government funding and technical assistance
programs and to support the implementation of these pro-
grams by local watershed practitioners. The Unified
Federal Policy on Watershed Management should pro-
mote a consistent, cost-effective watershed approach for
federal land and resource management. Agencies should
continue model programs such as the Five-Star
Restoration Program.
Many watershed practitioners note that government agen-
cies can improve the delivery of informational, technical,
and financial support to watershed efforts. Individual
government agencies should designate reliable, respon-
sive, and knowledgeable points of contact to answer ques-
tions and support watershed management. Government
agencies should coordinate information about water qual-
ity data, technical assistance, and financial assistance in
one location. The Watershed Information Network sup-
ports this goal; its sponsors are updating this network to
address all of these issues. Federal agency representatives
suggest that a federal-level workgroup could consider fur-
ther coordinating federal support for watershed efforts.
Senior career personnel that manage watershed issues
would participate in the workgroup. The workgroup
would develop strategies to promote mutual understand-
ing of programs and policies, to identify and resolve inter-
agency inconsistencies or misunderstandings, and to
implement actions (such as memoranda of understanding)
that foster and support coordination at regional, state,
tribal, and local levels.
Monitoring and Research
Recommendations
Increase coordination of watershed monitoring programs:
Develop a national watershed monitoring network to
consider trends in watershed health
Increase coordination among federal, tribal, state, and
local governments and volunteer monitoring groups to
ensure that volunteer data are accurate, complete, and
compatible with government monitoring efforts
Implement the Coastal Research and Monitoring
Strategy recommendations
Incorporate new indicators into watershed monitoring
programs:
Monitor physical and biological characteristics
Monitor emerging chemical contaminants such as phar-
maceuticals and endocrine disrupters
Provide meaningful and timely watershed information to
decision-makers and the public:
Provide data at scales useful for decision-making
Use the internet to display and distribute visual, under-
standable data
Expand research in watershed management:
Explore linkages among watershed components-rivers,
wetlands, floodplains, upland areas, groundwater, and
the atmosphere
Explore the integration of the natural and social sciences
Improve and verify models that can predict watershed
properties
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
Increase research efforts that evaluate environmental out-
comes, such as research that evaluates best management
practices
Discussion
Monitoring and research direct watershed protection and
restoration activities. Many watershed monitoring and
research programs operate at local, state, tribal, and federal
levels. Increasingly, volunteers and nonprofit organizations
are also collecting and analyzing watershed indicators.
Watershed monitoring programs lack consistency and
comprehensiveness. The federal government should
develop a national watershed monitoring program with
standard protocols. This program should be coordinated
with monitoring programs run by tribal, state, and local
governments, as well as with volunteer groups. A consis-
tent national program would reveal trends in watershed
health. These coordinated sources of watershed monitor-
ing data should provide information that the federal gov-
ernment can use at larger scales to make national policy
decisions, and local watershed decision-makers can use
for smaller-scale assessments.
Watershed monitoring programs should incorporate
resource indicators that have not been traditionally meas-
ured. Monitoring programs should consider physical
characteristics, such as wetland structure and streambank
stability, and emerging chemical contaminants, such as
Pharmaceuticals. The federal government should contin-
ue to develop and disseminate wetlands tracking and
assessment tools. Monitoring programs should incorpo-
rate biological indicators of watershed health, such as
species diversity and population levels. These programs
should also monitor previously neglected areas. For
example, federal agencies with coastal responsibilities
should lead the implementation of the "Coastal Research
and Monitoring Strategy" to address deficiencies in
coastal zone monitoring. Watershed management efforts
need nationally consistent monitoring programs that
cover a variety of watershed resources.
Watershed monitoring programs should provide timely
data to the public. The data should be easily accessible
and understandable. Monitoring programs should use
the internet to display and transfer large volumes of data.
Research programs should study linkages in watershed
function. Researchers should investigate the linkages
between watershed components-rivers, wetlands, flood-
plains, upland areas, groundwater, and the atmosphere.
Researchers should also investigate linkages of natural
sciences, such as biology, chemistry, and physics, with
social sciences, such as economics, sociology, and psychol-
ogy. For example, watershed actions that protect lands,
reduce pollution, or manage species can profoundly affect
individual and community attitudes and economics.
Researchers should also develop models that are more
accurate and more reliable. For example, watershed mod-
els are needed to predict pollutant inputs or pollutant
movement in watersheds. These models would reduce
monitoring costs and suggest watershed protection and
restoration actions.
Perhaps most importantly, research efforts should investi-
gate the long-term successes and failures of protection
and restoration activities. Researchers should investigate
why similar actions cause different results in different
watershed situations. This research would be invaluable
in guiding future watershed projects.
Planning and Prioritization
Recommendations
Encourage consideration of watershed health in local
planning:
Provide incentives for ecologically sensitive planning
activities
Refine and coordinate national watershed assessments:
Provide incentives to prioritize actions within water-
sheds at a smaller scale
Coordinate federal assistance (financial and technical)
across programs to maximize improvement opportunities
Integrate new and enhanced monitoring and assessment
data into planning and prioritization activities
What Can be Done to Improve Progress?
-------
Discussion
Watershed stakeholders should organize and integrate
watershed activities to ensure that they use resources effi-
ciently. For example, local planning and zoning require-
ments for residential, commercial, and industrial develop-
ment should reflect broader regional watershed condi-
tions and management priorities. Many local govern-
ments already consider water quality issues in planning,
but they should increase and broaden these efforts. State
and federal governments should encourage local efforts
with education campaigns and financial incentives.
States and tribes should continue to update and refine
their comprehensive watershed assessments. Revised
assessments could consider watersheds at smaller scales
that would be more useful for local watershed efforts.
State and federal governments should use these improved
assessments to coordinate funding and technical assis-
tance. Coordination of protection and restoration activi-
ties will maximize their efficiency.
Funding and Technical Assistance
Recommendations
Increase financial and technical assistance from all sources
to watershed protection and restoration efforts
Increase program flexibility to address high priority
needs:
Re-evaluate funding needs and funding programs to
ensure that programs sustainably support areas of
greatest need
Expand funding eligibilities
Relax grant-matching requirements for selected assis-
tance recipients
Expand citizen knowledge and understanding of water-
shed funding and technical assistance tools:
Develop an internet-based clearinghouse of watershed
assistance tools
Develop education campaigns that inform watershed
groups about financial and technical assistance tools
Discussion
Participants at the Regional Watershed Roundtables sug-
gested that existing watershed management assistance
programs are insufficient. In particular, participants sug-
gested that federal and state governments should increase
their financial and technical assistance to watershed man-
agement efforts. Assistance programs should also add
field staff to work with private landowners and managers
to make on-the-ground improvements.
Watershed practitioners suggest that government funding
and technical assistance programs should support high
priority activities. Governments should expand program
eligibilities or develop new programs to support chroni-
cally under-funded needs such as watershed monitoring
and research, staffing, and project evaluation and mainte-
nance. Since watershed implementation projects often
require long-term efforts, they require sustainable sources
of funding. Grant programs should ease match require-
ments for smaller projects or for nonprofit organizations
with limited capital.
Watershed practitioners recommend that technical assis-
tance programs expand their use of on-the-ground part-
nerships that teach landowners about best management
practices and water efficiency techniques and assist
landowners with their implementation. Because water-
sheds cannot be restored without the participation of pri-
vate landowners, technical assistance programs will criti-
cally impact the success of governmental watershed efforts.
The federal government should furnish an internet-based
clearinghouse to help watershed groups navigate an over-
whelming number of public and private services and fund-
ing sources. A clearinghouse of this sort would also aid
inter-agency coordination. Finally, the federal government
should inform citizens and organizations about available
watershed resources through educational campaigns.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
Implementation
Recommendations
Pursue both watershed protection and restoration activities
Display patience and perseverance with implementation
efforts:
Recognize that successful implementation of watershed
protection and restoration actions takes place over
decades
Ensure that watershed plans lead to action
Follow up projects with appropriate monitoring, main-
tenance, and evaluation activities
Provide adequate enforcement of watershed laws
and regulations
Incorporate the latest technologies to restore, protect, and
monitor watershed health
Discussion
Watershed practitioners should implement actions that
both protect and restore watersheds. Many local stake-
holders recognize that protecting remaining undeveloped
watershed areas is preferable to restoring degraded areas.
Federal agencies with competing authorities and legisla-
tive mandates will need to cooperate with each other to
balance protection and restoration efforts.
Project implementers should exercise both patience and
perseverance. Watershed protection and restoration pro-
grams often gain momentum slowly. However, water-
shed plans must eventually lead to action. Watershed
practitioners should also maintain restoration projects
appropriately to retain environmental gains.
Governments should provide adequate resources to their
programs for effective implementation. Watershed man-
agement programs should be able to provide reasonable
deterrents against activities that adversely impact water-
shed health, decisive actions against violators, and effi-
cient on-the-ground actions.
Evaluation
Recommendations
Establish science-based indicators for watershed pro-
grams and projects:
Improve indicators for chemical, physical, and biologi-
cal properties of watersheds
Incorporate outcome-oriented measures into assistance
programs-and provide funds for evaluating these
measures
Fund research to evaluate varying treatment and
restoration techniques
Develop common federal indicators for assessing water-
shed health and common measures for tracking and
reporting performance
Measure results against established goals
Make results widely available to watershed practitioners:
Track results at local, regional, and national watershed
scales
Post results on the internet
Discussion
The complexity of watershed approaches has limited
objective and empirical evaluations of success or failure.
Watershed protection and restoration efforts often involve
many scientific and social issues that practitioners can
only assess in a subjective and piecemeal fashion. At the
same time, many functional watersheds need immediate
protection and many degraded watersheds need immedi-
ate restoration. Therefore, watershed practitioners should
learn as much they can from their actions, and these les-
sons should inform future actions.
Watershed projects and programs should develop and use
indicators that reflect resource-level changes-quantifiable
chemical, physical, or biological results. Federal agencies
should establish common watershed health indicators and
track and report performance of both projects and pro-
grams. For an effort like this to be successful, individual
projects must track results against established goals and
What Can be Done to Improve Progress?
-------
government programs must keep better inventories of
these watershed restoration projects. Federal agencies
should require that applicants for federal assistance estab-
lish quantifiable resource-level goals. Governments
should also provide financial support for the monitoring
and measurement of project results.
Governments should track results with databases that
cross agency and political borders. These databases
should consider watershed progress at many scales and
should be accessible via the internet.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
Conclusion
All Paths Lead to Light
Natalie Hamill
Age 17
Stuart Country Day School
Princeton, New Jersey
,i \ I v
This report provides information about local,
regional, and national efforts to protect and
restore the health of the nation's water resources.
It reflects three major concepts used in managing the
nation's watersheds:
The watershed approach offers the best hope for pro-
tecting and restoring the nation's watersheds.
Local citizens should provide both leadership and
active support for watershed management efforts.
State and federal governments provide significant sup-
port to local watershed efforts, but they should coordi-
nate and enhance this support to make it more effective.
The Watershed Approach
Healthy watersheds are some of the nation's most pre-
cious resources, but Americans contribute to water quality
and habitat degradation with their actions in small ways
every day. Our industries, our farms, our neighborhoods,
Conclusion
-------
and our cars-many elements intrinsic to our lives-affect
our water resources. Because the sources of impairment
are so diffuse, a watershed approach to water resource
protection and restoration is most appropriate.
Local Leadership and Engagement
Citizens are leading the drive to reverse impacts to water-
shed health. Community groups are recognizing watershed
problems and taking the responsibility to address them.
These local efforts are educating the greater public, building
new and unique partnerships, and improving knowledge of
how watersheds are threatened and impaired. They are
establishing plans and priorities, securing financial and
human resources, taking action to restore and protect water-
shed health, and evaluating their successes.
Governmental Collaboration and Support
Local watershed groups are not facing this challenge
alone. State and federal agencies significantly support
watershed efforts. These government agencies are coordi-
nating their activities and improving their support so that
it is more accessible, valuable, and conducive to on-the-
ground and in-the-water results.
These three concepts offer a blueprint for success. Building
on these broad concepts and the specific recommenda-
tions for action in the last chapter, the nation's watershed
protection and restoration efforts can gain momentum
and make significant progress. The United States estab-
lished a goal in 1972 to restore and maintain the chemical,
physical, and biological integrity of all its waters. We
have yet to meet that goal. Through the efforts of water-
shed groups nationwide, that day will yet come.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
Websites and Resources
Links to watershed-related websites of federal agencies
and other organizations.
Interagency Watershed Information
Watershed Information Network
www.cleanwater.gov/win
Federal Government Watershed Websites
U.S. Department of Agriculture
www.usda.gov
Natural Resources Conservation Service
www.nrcs.usda.gov
Forest Service
www.fs.fed.us
Forest Lands Inventory
fia.fs.fed.us
Army Corps of Engineers
www.usace.army.mil
Research and Development
www.erdc.usace.army.mil
Institute for Water Resources
www.wrsc.usace.army.mil
Bonneville Power Administration, Fish and Wildlife
www.efw.bpa.gov
United States Department of Commerce
www.doc.gov
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
www.noaa.gov
National Ocean Service
www.nos.noaa.gov
Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management
www.ocrm.nos.noaa.gov
National Marine Fisheries Service
www.nmfs .noaa. go v
United States Environmental Protection Agency
www.epa.gov
Office of Water
www.epa.gov/ow
Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds
www.epa.gov/owow
Watershed Restoration
www.epa.gov/owow/restore
Watershed Academy
www.epa.gov/watershed/wacademy
Funding Sources
www.epa.gov/watershed/wacademy/fund.html
Model Ordinances
www.epa.gov/ owow/nps/ ordinance
Surf Your Watershed
www.epa.gov/ surf
U.S. Department of Interior
www.doi.gov
Bureau of Land Management
www.blm.gov
Websites and Resources
-------
Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement
www. osmre. go v
Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative
www. osmre. go v/ acsihome .htm
Bureau of Reclamation
www.usbr.gov
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
www.fws.gov
Ecosystems
ecosystems .fws. go v
Wetlands
wetlands.fws.gov
U.S. Geological Survey
www.usgs.gov
National Water Quality Assessment Program
water.usgs.gov/nawqa
Tennessee Valley Authority
www.tva.gov
Water Information
www.tva.gov/environment/water/index.htm
Department of Transportation
www.dot.gov
Federal Highway Administration
www.fhwa.dot.gov
Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century
www.fhwa.dot.gov/tea21/index.htm
Environmental Issues
www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/genrlenv.htm
Wildlife Crossings
www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/wildlifecrossings/
main.htm
Non-Government Watershed Websites
Adopt-A-Watershed
www.adopt-a-watershed.org
AMD&ART
www.amdandart.org
American Rivers
www. americanriver s. or g
Center for Watershed Protection
www.cwp.org
Clean Water Network
www.cwn.org
Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC)
www.ctic.purdue.edu/CTIC/CTIC.html
National Institute for Water Resources
wrri.nmsu.edu/niwr
Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO)
nemo.uconn.edu
River Network
www.rivernetwork. org
River of Words
www.riverofwords. org
Save Our Streams (Izaak Walton League)
www.iwla.org/SOS/index.html
Terrene Institute
www.terrene.org
Water Environment Federation
www. wef. org
Watershed Education for Teachers
www.projectwet.org
Watershed Management Council
watershed.org
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
Glossary
Acid Mine Drainage
Acidic water that flows from areas that have been mined
for coal or mineral ores. The acidity is caused by the
exposure of sulfur-bearing minerals to oxidizing condi-
tions. Acid mine drainage is toxic to aquatic organisms.
Air (or Atmospheric) Deposition
Process by which pollutants are released into the air, car-
ried by wind patterns away from their place of origin,
and deposited on the land or in waterbodies. These pol-
lutants come from man-made and natural sources. Any
chemical that is emitted into the air can become an air
deposition problem.
Algae
Simple rootless plants that grow in sunlit waters in pro-
portion to the amount of available nutrients. They are
food for fish and small aquatic animals. Excessive
amounts of algae can adversely affect water quality by
lowering the dissolved oxygen in the water.
Algal Blooms
Sudden spurts of algae growth, which can adversely
affect water quality and indicate potentially hazardous
changes in local water chemistry.
Anadromous
Ascending rivers from the sea, at certain seasons, for
breeding. For example, salmon and shad are anadromous
fish.
Aquifer
An underground geological formation or group of forma-
tions containing water. Aquifers are sources of ground-
water for wells and springs.
Bacteria
Microscopic living organisms that can aid in pollution
control by metabolizing organic matter in sewage, oil
spills, or other pollutants. However, certain bacteria in
soil, water, or air can also cause human, animal, and plant
health problems.
Basin
The area of land that drains water, sediment, and dis-
solved materials to a common outlet such as a stream,
lake, or estuary. Often used as a synonym for watershed
or catchment.
Best Management Practice
Methods, measures, or practices that prevent or reduce
water pollution. Best management practices may include
treatment requirements, operating procedures, schedules
of activities, prohibition of practices, maintenance proce-
dures, or other management practices which control
runoff, spillage, leaks, sludge or waste disposal, or
drainage from various sites and operations.
Biodiversity
The variety of organisms found within a specified geo-
graphic region.
Catchment
A structure, such as a basin or reservoir, that collects or
drains water. Often used as a synonym for watershed or
basin.
Channelization
Human engineering of river channels to enlarge, straight-
en, embank, or protect existing channels, create new chan-
nels, or protect adjacent structures.
Glossary
-------
Clean Water Act
National environmental legislation designed to protect
and restore the nation's water resources passed by
Congress in 1972 in response to growing public concern
for serious and widespread water pollution. The Clean
Water Act is the primary federal law that protects our
nation's waters, including lakes, rivers, aquifers, and
coastal areas.
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation
Agricultural enterprise that keeps and raises animals in
confined situations. Concentrated animal feeding opera-
tions congregate animals, feed, manure and urine, dead
animals, and production operations on a small land area.
These operations bring food to the animals rather than
allowing the animals to graze or otherwise seek food in
pastures, fields, or on rangeland. There are approximate-
ly 361,000 animal feeding operations in the United States,
of which 5-10 percent are considered concentrated animal
feeding operations.
Conservation Easement
Legal agreement that restricts landowners to uses that are
compatible with conservation and environmental values.
Easements are generally governed by state laws; thus
states administer easements in various ways.
Ecosystem
A system defined by the interaction of a community of
organisms with their physical environment. Ecosystems
can be considered at many different scales.
Erosion
The wearing away of land surface by wind or water,
intensified by land-clearing practices related to farming,
residential or industrial development, road building, or
Estuary
A wide lower course of a river near the sea where fresh
and salt water mix.
Eutrophic
Having waters rich in mineral and organic nutrients that
promote a proliferation of plant life, especially algae, that
reduces the dissolved oxygen content and often causes the
death of other organisms.
E vap otransp iration
The combined processes of evaporation and transpiration.
It is the sum of water used by vegetation and water lost
by evaporation.
Groundwater
Water beneath the earth's surface that supplies wells and
springs.
Habitat
The living and non-living environment where a popula-
tion (e.g., human, animal, plant, microorganism) lives.
Habitat includes all things an organism needs to survive-
food, water, space, and protection from predators.
Hydrology
The study of the occurrence, distribution, and circulation
of the natural waters of the earth.
Impervious Surfaces or Impervious Cover
Hard surfaces within a watershed including rooftops,
parking lots, streets, sidewalks, and driveways that do not
allow rainfall to infiltrate underlying soils.
Infiltration
The flow of a fluid into a substance through pores or
small openings.
Insecticide
A chemical compound specifically used to kill or prevent
the growth of insects.
Invasive Species
With respect to a particular ecosystem, any animal or
plant that is not native to that ecosystem whose introduc-
tion does or is likely to cause economic or environmental
harm, or harm to human health.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
-------
Irrigation
The controlled application of water to arable lands to sup-
ply water requirements not satisfied by rainfall.
Mitigation (of wetlands)
Restoration, creation, enhancement, or preservation of
wetlands that expressly compensates for unavoidable
wetland losses due to development actions.
Native Species
An animal or plant that originated in a particular place or
region.
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
The Environmental Protection Agency's permitting sys-
tem to control and monitor all point sources of pollution.
Primary regulated entities are industrial facilities and
publicly owned water treatment facilities.
Nonpoint Source Pollution
Pollution, unlike pollution from industrial and sewage
treatment plants, that comes from many diffuse sources.
Nonpoint source pollution is usually caused by rainfall or
snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the
runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and
human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into
lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and even our
underground sources of drinking water. Atmospheric
deposition, hydromodification, and failing septic systems
are other sources of nonpoint source pollution.
Nutrient
A substance necessary for the growth of living organisms.
Nitrogen and phosphorous, for example, are required
nutrients for algae growth.
Overland Flow
The flow of rainwater or snowmelt over the land surface
toward a waterbody. After an overland flow enters a
stream, it is called runoff.
Precipitation
The discharge of water, in liquid or solid state, out of the
atmosphere, generally upon a land or water surface.
Precipitation includes rainfall, snow, hail, and sleet.
Pathogens
Microorganisms that can cause disease in humans, ani-
mals, plants, or other organisms. Pathogens include bac-
teria, viruses, and parasites and can be found in sewage,
runoff from animal farms, and wild animals. Fish and
shellfish contaminated by pathogens, or the pathogens
themselves, can cause serious illnesses.
Point Source Pollution
Pollution discharged by any discernible, confined, and
discrete conveyance, including any pipe, ditch, channel,
tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fixture, container, rolling
stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, landfill
leachate collection system, vessel, or other floating craft.
Reservoir
A pond, lake, or basin, either natural or artificial, for the
storage, regulation, and control of water.
Riparian Zone / Riparian Buffer
The land adjacent to streams, rivers, and lakes that active-
ly interfaces with the waterbody through physical and
chemical processes. Healthy riparian zones filter nutri-
ents and sediments, increase streambank stability, and
provide shade that reduces stream temperatures.
Runoff
Precipitation, snow melt, or irrigation water that runs off
the land into surface water. Runoff can carry pollutants
from the air and land into the receiving waters.
Sediment
Fragmental material that originates from weathering of
rocks and is transported by, suspended in, or deposited
by water or air.
Glossary
-------
Stakeholder
One who has a share or an interest in an issue.
Virus
The smallest form of microorganisms capable of causing
disease. Viruses of fecal origin are infectious to humans
by waterborne transmission.
Water Quality Standard
A law or regulation that consists of the beneficial use or
uses of a waterbody, the numeric and narrative water
quality criteria that are necessary to protect the use or
uses of that particular waterbody, and an anti-degradation
statement.
Watershed
The land area that drains into a single body of water such
as a stream, river, lake, or wetland. Large watersheds
may be composed of several smaller nested watersheds.
Also known as a catchment or basin.
Watershed Practitioner
One who practices an occupation or technique related to the
management of watersheds. Practitioners can include local
citizens, government employees, landowners, business lead-
ers, and representatives of non-profit organizations.
Watershed Restoration
The manipulation of physical, chemical, or biological
characteristics of watersheds with the goal of returning
natural or historic functions. Also, the return of a water-
shed to a close approximation of its condition prior to dis-
turbance.
Wetlands
An area that is inundated or saturated by surface water or
groundwater with a frequency and duration sufficient to
support, and under normal circumstances supporting,
vegetation adapted for life under those soil conditions.
Swamps, bogs, fens, and marshes are examples of wetlands.
Watershed Approach
A coordinating framework for environmental manage-
ment involving diverse stakeholders and utilizing sound
science to focus resources on high priority issues within
hydrologically defined areas.
Watershed Management
The process of using and supporting the watershed
approach to manage land and water resources. The term
often describes the implementation of watershed
approaches by governmental agencies.
Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
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References
AMD&ART. Transforming Environmental Liabilities into
Community Assets: An Interdisciplinary Initiative Re-creating
Place. Johnstown, Pennsylvania. November 1999.
Bricker, S.B., C.G. Clement, D.E. Pirhalla, S.P. Orlando,
and D.R.G. Farrow. National Estuarine Eutrophication
Assessment: Effects of Nutrient Enrichment in the Nation's
Estuaries. National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and
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Center for Watershed Protection. Rapid Watershed Planning
Handbook A Comprehensive Guide for Managing Urbanizing
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Clinton, W. Executive Order 13112 on Invasive Species. 64
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1999.
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Performance Schools and Students. The National
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September 1999.
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Against Western Watershed Initiatives and Other Collaborative
Groups Active in Natural Resources Management. Natural
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Current State of Knowledge. Natural Resources Law Center,
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Lewicki, C., and T. Younos, eds. "Integrating Universities'
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1999.
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Protecting and Restoring America's Watersheds
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Credits
Photographs
Page 6, field irrigation, Tim McCabe, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Page 7 (top), nuclear power plant near waterway, Photostogo
Page 7 (bottom), children fishing, Eyewire
Page 11, streambank stabilization, Gary Wilson, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Page 15, Cutthroat Trout, Yellowstone River, John H. McShane, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Page 16, Hughes Bore Hole, John Turner, AMD&ART, Inc.
Page 18 (top), animal feeding operation, Bob Nichols, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Page 18 (bottom), zebra mussels on native clam, U.S. Geological Survey
Page 22, outreach, Bob Nichols, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Page 25, urban sprawl, Photostogo
Page 27 (top), water in beaker, PictureQuest
Page 27 (bottom), children studying stream, Tim McCabe, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Page 31, technical assistance, Bob Nichols, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Page 32, pitcher plant, John Lindquist, University of Wisconsin
Page 36, Rufous Hummingbird, San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
Figures/Diagrams
Page 10, hydrologic cycle in a watershed, U.S. Forest Service
Page 13,1998 impaired waters-national summary, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Page 16, impervious cover and surface runoff, Federal Interagency Stream Restoration Working Group
Page 37, Vintondale site plan, AMD&ART, Inc.
Illustrations-the River of Words Project
Each section of this report presents artwork from the River of Words Project. River of Words is an international poetry
and art program created to promote literacy and environmental stewardship by helping children to develop respect for
and understanding of the natural world. River of Words helps children explore and interpret their watersheds through
a multidisciplinary curriculum that combines science, history, geography, math, language, and the arts. Affiliated with
the Library of Congress Center for the Book and co-founded in 1995 by United States Poet Laureate (1995-1997) Robert
Hass and writer Pamela Michael, River of Words conducts an annual poetry and art contest on the theme of "water-
sheds" designed to help children fall in love with language, the arts, and the earth. Thousands of American and inter-
national schoolchildren in kindergarten through 12th grade have participated in River of Words.
Further information about the project can be found at www.riverofwords.org or by calling 510-548-POEM (7636).
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"We need to bring alive the necessity for
clean water so all Americans act as stewards of their water resources....
For safe, clean, abundant water-in our homes,
rivers, lakes, and streams-is one of our
planet's greatest treasures."
Senator John H. Chafee
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