A watershed is like our bodies. The blood (which is is 83% water) in our circulatory system travels throughout our bodies, bringing air and nourishment to our organs and transporting waste materials.

Rivers and streams are the circulatory system in a watershed. You can see in WRIA 27 that streams reach all parts of the watershed. Any rain or snow that falls within this basin ends up at the bottom. If the bottom of the watershed is a lake, the lake receives all the inlet streams and the runoff from the

• ground
• roofs
• streets
• parking lots
• farms
• lawns and gardens
• construction sites
• industrial facilities.

It will also receive treated discharges from sewage treatment plants and factories.

When we are healthy, we all function normally. But each of us does not have the exact same blood pressure or cholesterol level, although we may be normal. Doctors have created charts to show the range of blood pressure or cholesterol levels they consider to be normal.

Watersheds function differently, too. But, we have not monitored watersheds to know when a watershed is becoming unhealthy or what is normal. Once a watershed becomes "sick" or unhealthy, scientists need data to know where the problems are coming from and if our cleanup efforts are working. It would really help if we had "baseline" data to know exactly how good the water is before a problem begins.

You Can Help

The best people to measure and monitor a watershed are the people who live in it. We need to collect data consistently so we can identify excellent, good, threatened, and "in really bad shape" watersheds.

At the same time, we need to become proactive and begin monitoring watersheds so we can identify a problem before we have to spend lots of money fixing it.